Roun Lyriel over at Guild Wars 2 Guru wrote a great simple discussion artilce about Picking Your Profession .
Please check it out and we would like to thank our friends over at guildwars2guru.com and Roun Lyriel for having this article up for discussion.
Our Guild Wars 2 stratics staff thank you both
Guild Wars 2 Guru » Blog Archive » Picking Your Profession
For the click link impaired:
Picking Your Profession
Please check it out and we would like to thank our friends over at guildwars2guru.com and Roun Lyriel for having this article up for discussion.
Our Guild Wars 2 stratics staff thank you both
Guild Wars 2 Guru » Blog Archive » Picking Your Profession
For the click link impaired:
Picking Your Profession
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As any MMORPG gamer knows, the single most important aspect of creating your character is signing off on a class choice. It’s what decides your role, your aesthetic appearance in terms of abilities, your range of equipment, and your playstyle. In a way, it’s your long term future. I doubt any other choice more single-handedly affects the way you look and play, so it’s probably safe to call it quite the significant choice. Well, probably less significant in Guild Wars 2 what with the range of roles every profession can fill, though I’d argue that there are definitely inclinations. For example, I’d doubt anyone would debate that guardian is support inclined. After all, its class mechanic is designed to aid others at all levels and every one of its weapon combinations, even offensive ones, come packed with some way to help others through healing, condition removal, or some form of protection. That’s in sharp contrast to, say, warrior which has more options centered around simply doing damage faster or harder. This means that while both classes can be either supportive or offensive each does seem to have a natural inclination, and that means that the significance of choosing a class isn’t quite as diluted as one might think.
That’s not to say that it’s a hard choice. I’m sure plenty of you, without even looking at the classes available, simply knew that you were going to play whatever the “warrior” or “ranger” profession was, which in this case is, well, warrior and ranger. In fact, most of us play very similar classes in every MMORPG we touch. There are always those who want to be armored bears that hit just as hard, those that want to be the scholarly sage that can level a city with but a chant. Others still who want to be the resplendent knight, protector of the weak. It’s interesting to me in a way, because an MMORPG is its players, all who contribute to the game’s climate by the way they play. There’s been many a time when I found myself in that odd idle moment wondering, in the same way I wonder why someone named themselves “Bruzzlelikesrocks,” why exactly people choose the classes that they do.
It’s always been a curiosity to me, for example, that the “warrior” is consistently the most popular archetype in nearly every game I play, with popularity increasing alongside the level of damage and the weight of armor, though I’ll admit that it does follow the typical pattern I most often see. That pattern being high damage classes, namely oversized weapon wielding warriors and glass cannon mages, on the top of the charts with healers being at the bottom except in cases where non-healer support classes exist, like the ever rare bard.
Despite the fact that small sample censuses have shown GW2 race/class totals to be pretty even, I’ve little doubt that the same will hold true for GW2 at release, with warrior and elementalist being the most popular professions by far. Probably not all that surprising, but I admit that it’s always been something I never quite understood. Why the heck do so many play the most destructive classes? Do gamers enjoy utterly obliterating things more than they enjoy saving them? Scary thought.
Personally, I’ve always preferred the melee mage or the pet focused class and I’ve long uncovered the reason why: I enjoy being active and making complex choices. Most melee, like nearly every “warrior” in existence, bore me to death. They’re the Unmovable Force; the class others kite, and the game becomes keeping the warrior away long enough to win. Most of their abilities involve dealing damage harder or faster, which I also find boring.
My largest degree of enjoyment usually comes from mages where magic offers many varied choices and playstyles and is often much more involved: Teleporting, setting others aflame, summoning mystic creatures, weakening through conditions, debuffs, and other effects. Entertaining and tactical more often than not, though sadly I admit that a good deal of the magely professions simply lob fireballs at their enemies while invoking more ridiculous spells of raw death and destruction.
Ugh. Melee mages (and to a lessor degree paladins/warrior priests) are where I have found the balance whenever available, creating the unique situation in which I have the versatility of magic but the challenge and thrill of close quarters combat. My magic is rarely offensive and is usually designed to make myself stronger or my enemy weaker, or to protect myself and others. That’s why I’m going to be playing guardian or a close/medium range necromancer when the long awaited time comes. Pet focused classes are usually an extension of this playstyle, with pets being the detached “magic” I have to carefully manipulate in order to succeed, though with the simplification of pet systems these days I don’t often find much love here.
As you can see, choosing a class is rarely a simple case for me. Actually, it’s often a nightmare made worse by the fact that I devote all my time to one character and rarely make legitimate alts. In the end I’m often forced to settle for only part of the total package I want, choosing either a type of tank or a supportive damage-over-time mage, both which GW2 thankfully offers.
I assume that there’s some kind of similar insight to most people and their choice of class, and that somehow they align often enough to create these consistent patterns. Of course, I could simply ask: Why do you all play the archetypes you do, especially those of you who fall into the category of choosing the ever popular two-hand warriors and glass cannon mages?