In our last house, Reversion and I had our computer rigs side-by-side. Our current setup is back-to-back. Either way, it’s really handy for us to be able to instantly communicate with each other. We’ve prevented a lot of wipes in 5 man instances by being able to say “I’m silenced” or “pulled the pat” without having to push a button to toggle Vent. It’s really handy to be able to jump up and grab water and know that the tank isn’t going to pull while you’re gone because he’s sitting right there.
Sometimes though when one of us gets frustrated – by the other players, the random number generator, or even an error that one of us just made – we have to be careful not to take it out on each other. Especially if our baby girl, The Nomster, is sitting in her playpen watching us…
There are a number of reasons why our druids – my tree, his bear – have become our mains. It’s been easier to get groups with a tank and healer than with two random dps. More than that, though, the synergy we have makes them a more fun combo than the mage and hunter most of the time. Rev can pull three groups and know that I’ll heal him – or we can laugh about it on the run back from the graveyard. I don’t have to wonder if the tank is undergeared. (It’s gotten harder for me to just sit back and DPS, too, but that’s another story).
If you have a WOW partner – spouse, SO, sibling, old friend – do your classes compliment each other? You can have a great time as a pair of rogues or dks, but it’s great to have a tank on tap, or a healer you can really trust. I know WOW is a massively multiplayer game, but sometimes it’s just as fun to feel like it’s a pair of you against the might of the Lich King.
My boyfriend and I both play druid mains, but he’s moonkin, and I’m resto. Not so complementary, but we have two WoW-friends who play a pally tank and a rogue, so more often than not we have almost a full group.
On our alts we fit together – mine’s a prot paladin, his is a resto shaman, we both need emblems… so, if I had the time, we’d run a lot of heroics. I hope work gets easier and we can actually do that :P
(Need to add that the mains weren’t played together – his boomkin is his first char, 2.5 years old, my druid only hit 80 a few months ago; the alts were planned as a pair, even though we didn’t level together so much.)
And YES! for being able to talk to each other. Not so helpful for him, but it saved my ass many times in TBC, when he was the RL and I was the slacker raider who didn’t read tactics. Shouted strategies worked wonders :P Right now we’re in different guilds, but I like being able to tell him ‘whisper so and so and tell them I’m disconnected’ instead of thinking how the raid will get frustrated not knowing where I am.
I’m glad we don’t raid side by side though – it’s either different rooms or different sides of the room, depending who’s place we are at. Too much proximity would probably mean trouble and we’d distract each other too much.
These days, the best strategy for gearing up a pair is to have one be a tank and one be anything else – you’ll get runs so fast your eyeballs spin. Gearing my prot pally, I’ve been dragging along Rev’s hunter who still needs Triumph badges (well, not so much any more!). Once his secondary druid dings 80 (I cheated and got my pally done last weekend) we can gear that druid up fast, too, with a set of dungeon runs.
Being in different guilds wouldn’t work for us. We really like doing things together and people know if they want one, they get us both. Last night our dps alts got a last minute Naxx run for the weekly (Noth); well, the hunter got in while my mage was still stuck on the loading screen and then the raid filled, but Reversion kept bugging the raid leader and when one dps managed to make a total idiot of himself (I think he was saved to Naxx already but it was never clear what was going on) he pointed out that nobody in the raid could decurse, that I was standing by and already at Naxx, and I got in just in time to help take down the boss.
Pairs my wife and I have levelled together.
Protection warrior (me) and beast mastery hunter with a bear pet (wife). We started 3-manning dungeons back in Spring 2005 and we found the bear to be a very useful off tank. This pair was very fast to level.
Protection paladin (me) and holy paladin (wife). Very good combination. A bit slow levelling out in the world until we discovered we can pull over 15 mobs our level at a time when we quest. The wife was a skinner and skinning sessions in Northrend were basically my piling up a ton of beasts while she heals a little, consecrate a little, and skin. The easiest combination to play in dungeons for us.
Beast Mastery hunter with tenacity pet (me) and mage (wife). My turtle usually tanked in 3- and 4-man groups. It was fun but we had to stop after 80 because no one wanted to give Donatelo a chance to tank heroics.
Restoration druid (me) and protection warrior (wife). My wife’s first tank and she quicly realized that although she had never tanked before, she knew how to tank and just had to learn her abilities. We primarily 3-man instances with a hunter or warlock. My favorite pair.
Our desks are maybe 8 feet apart. One of the issues we had to resolve is her wanting to mute me in Vent (she hates hearing me live then with a slight delay in Vent). The problem is the confusion it created for her when she was not sure if I was addressing the raid in Vent or her “live”. It worked out ok as I now say her name every time I give her instructions “live”. Forgetting this rule is not a pleasant option … lol
We have all our Vent sound coming from one computer and mute me, too. I can tell the difference because we have Vent on push-to-talk and if I don’t hear the “blarp” noise then I know Rev’s not on vent.
I’m hoping to write a post later in the week about tanking/healing and gender roles, hope you’ll post some there too since you and your wife both have experience in both roles.
The BM hunter/mage combo is fun, Rev is working on a “tank set” for his hunter and we’re hoping to try some heroic tanking one of these days. We were planning to use a gorilla though; I’m not sure whether a turtle would be better.
I’ve changed mains so many times with what the guild raid requirements were, but right now I’ve settled on my feral druid tank. My husband has only one 80, an DK – really not a complimentary group at all, but it’s nice being able to insta-queue for him, and at least I know I’ll have one solid DPS (he sits around 7k in heroics where stuff dies too fast to really get up a rotation, I have no idea how he does it) to keep the run going at a smooth pace.
Of course, that means every time I queue I know I’m going to have to hold threat against one of THOSE dps, the ones dripping in good gear that make me want to go and hide under the couch. Because he’s sitting right here. We both game on laptops in the living room. That does mean I can throw things at him though.
We also arena together on my disc priest and his DK, and being in the same room makes communication so much easier. We can also have trouble with taking things out on each other when it goes bad – he can react very fast to the accusation in my voice when I get focused down by a pair of melee AGAIN and the tension can rise pretty high. We both try very hard to be careful how we speak when we’re playing together.