How do you approach returning to World of Warcraft after a break?

I took a bit of a break from World of Warcraft when the Activision-Blizzard lawsuit from California’s DFEH happened — while I still believe in supporting the dev team and I still enjoy WoW as a game, I needed some time away from it and also there were other games I was playing anyway. Now things are starting to cool down — I’m almost done with Wrath of the Righteous and slowly easing back into Azeroth again.

One of the ways I’m doing that is to start playing some of my alts. I figure I’ll get my Orc and Tauren Warriors to 60 and start working on gearing them up so I can play with Horde friends, and let my Alliance characters have a bit of a nap for a while before going back and leveling them up. I was raiding pretty heavily this expansion but now I’m out of the loop on that anyway. I’d feel awkward showing up on raid nights after taking a couple of months off. So I’m going the alt route, and it feels like the best move for me, because I’m taking my Orc through Burning Crusade content and honestly enjoying it a lot.

But that does leave me wondering how other people approach this. When you take a break from the game, do you just pick up your main like nothing happened? Do you immediately start doing the catch up content? Maybe you start a new character entirely and work on getting that character to max, something I’ve done a few times in the past but am avoiding this time, or maybe you do something I haven’t even thought of. So if you do, please share it with us — I’m always interested in how other people play this game and the ways it differs from how I go about it. How do you play when you return from a break?