Somebody stop me!

I have not been doing a very good job of alting, which should come as no surprise. I've gained four levels, sure, but half of that was a night of dungeon runs, and lately all I have done with the druid was work on my herbalism skill, which is still a good clip from Outlands level.

I would classify my latest alt attempt as a qualified failure thus far.

Which makes the fact that I am actively working toward expensive and time-consuming upgrades for the character to have a healing spec and outfit as an alternative leveling strategy all the more foolish.

But that's what I am doing.

The thought process went something like this - I've run through all of these Outland quests several times before, dungeon leveling is more interesting, battleground leveling is a possibility, and it is always easier to find a group as a healer than as a dpser.

Plus, healing has novelty value, as does battleground leveling.

Both of these things being, of course, tasks that I have generally avoided.

I hate battlegrounds. I have always hated battlegrounds. Do I seriously expect that I will spend an appreciable number of hours or levels in them?

And I dropped the account that had my healadin on it ages ago precisely because healing was such an attention-demanding role that put demands on my time and attention that I considered excessive and unenjoyable.

Yet, here I am, not only working on an alt that exists precisely to give me tank and healing options, but also plotting the use of battlegrounds as a novelty approach to leveling.

Plotting is perhaps too weak of a term, given the fact that I not only ready and willing to part with the price of a dual-spec, which goes against my tightwad nature, but also redirecting Barley's activities exclusively toward farming the currency required to get the druid a second set of heirloom items - for a caster set - which is especially nutty given that I have emptied-out Barls' emblem and seal caches and am starting from nearly nothing.

And the truth is, I probably will have few, if any opportunities to heal dungeons at less than maximum level anyway. I am reluctant to pug, there are almost no guildies in this level range, and I still hate battlegrounds. All said, I will probably still wind up getting the vast majority of the experience on this character, assuming I manage to develop this character at all, questing as feral.

So here I am, still sucking at alts, aware that the non-dps roles are probably not right for me, and with a mountain to climb to get geared and a mountain of gold to drop to get there.

Not only do I suck at playing alts, I suck at managing them too.