How do/did you vape? (2018/2019)

[dripster]

For the record here, a Wotofo 25mm Troll rda 2 with handmade dual coil Nichrome 80 fused claptons at 80 watts is what I used to make my instantaneous switch. My urge to smoke another cigarette simply just vanished, like throwing a light switch, and, I didn't even make the commitment to stop smoking, as I jumped into vaping out of pure curiousness alone so the immediate end result of that was I liked vaping so much better than I liked smoking, albeit it wasn't completely hassle-free, like, for example,

• learning how to keep my strength of my draw in perfect balance with the speed of vapor production I was getting,
• how to properly dry-burn and rewick my RDA,
• how to avoid getting a dry hit (by remembering to drip on time),
• how to not overdrip (by first taking a deep breath and relax...),
• how to tame the harshness of 6mg juice (by counting drops and dripping drops of 0mg juice straight on top of my coils each time AFTER dripping the 6mg juice),
• how to tame the extra-harshness of my first few hits right after I woke up in the morning (by only dripping a few 0mg drops straight on top of my coils, for those first few hits before resuming my aforementioned method of combining 6mg with 0mg),
• how to avoid getting sudden heavy craving attacks (by vaping more frequently and by vaping more than a few minutes beforehand),
• how to avoid getting nic sick whilst chain vaping to cope with stress symptoms (by lowering the nic strength conveniently beforehand, again taking the extra effort it takes to control the number of 6mg drops and the numer of 0mg drops separately),
• and how to keep the top part of my noob-style wicks saturated (by pulling the drip tip out of my Troll RDA 2 from time to time, as doing that gave me convenient access to be able to drip straight on top of my wicks, something that still isn't possible with most other atomizers, but that I found to be important at the time when I hadn't learned how to properly rewick yet).

 

[United States]

I started out with an e-cig when that was all there were. Each drag was a new adventure in pain, because they were awful. But the major nic buzz seemed worth it. Man, they were tough. But I hardly smoked at all. Then the cartridges kept popping, spilling juice onto my face.

My wife used them as well and the leaky cartridges caused her to develop painful blisters on her lip. (VG skin allergy.) We both agreed "these things probably won't kill you but they sure can be less than enjoyable". We both used them like a cigarette. MTL.

Some ten years later we tried the more modern pod setup. Joyetech Penguins. For me, I stayed with the mtl, but she quickly found that the free flow allowed her to get more satisfaction from direct lung style. From there as our device styles evolves our method of production remained the same. Eventually I plugged half of the Penguin intake then tried a more closed up Dolphin. She liked the free flowing Penguin setup.

We both began to be plagued by dry hits during chain vape and moved to setups able to provide better production without dry hits. I still use the Penguin for tobacco tastes. Hers is long since been given away.

I found a mtl setup I like with plus ohm juice zap-age. She likes sub-ohm using fairly low watts at about a half an ohm. (+/- a tenth or two).

I tried DTL twice. Not for me. I see the virtues for getting more nic faster. I got a nice nic buzz both times.
But it just aint for me.

There is no right or wrong way. It's like sneakers, a personal preference. It's not a thing about who gets to dictate what to whom. I see a lot of reccomendations to start out MTL and some saying sub-ohm or bust. It's more about the new user and what they prefer. And with all of the options available it can be overwhelming to the new user.
To me, I figure try a cig-a-like for a few days. If you don't dig on inhaling steam you won't dig on either drag style. Shops tend to push what sells. Some sell Jull's by the dozen. Others sell cloud machines and haaaaaate cig-a-likes.

I frequent a shop that pushes cloud machines but offer some mtl devices. No cig-a-likes in their store at all. But they do understand that the patron wants to quit smoking. I saw one lady with her son who was buying juice refill swear she'd never buy those cotton candy machines that explode. She left with a tear shaped mtl device and some nic salt. Later she was a sub-ohm'r. But she had learned that a vaping tool had potential to steer her away from cigarettes and that shop helped her do it.

One thing I do believe from experience is that acquiring your first device from a tobacco store is often times going to end up with the purchaser giving up on vaping very quickly. The junk they sell can be the beginning of a smoking cessation. But my first experience with cig-a-likes from tobacco stores caused me to say "vaping aint all that". But when I went to a vape shop they ensured I was able to leave with a viable alternative to smoking.

 

[PatVapes]

I started doing MTL because on my pen style vape it was way more enjoyable that way.

I stopped enjoying it because 1) I couldn’t adjust the wattage so I kept burning my tongue 2) because my tongue felt burnt I couldn’t taste my e-juice so it got boring.

Then I switched to Reuleaux Gen3 Dual and the tank/drip tip that came with it were much larger, thus encouraging DL. I enjoyed it a lot! It’s a lot easier on my mouth and I can often feel flavors better. However, I do enjoy adjusting airflow sometimes to get a more MTL experience.