Gameplay styles/player classes you avoid/gravitate towards

Found myself firing up System Shock 2 again for whatever time it was last night and as you might know after you get through the tutorial area, you're given a choice of player class: Marine, Navy, or Psi Ops. I ended up following my natural tendency to select Navy, since it allowed for a balance between combat and hacking but I realized in the decade and a half or so I've been playing SS2, I never picked Psi Ops. There never seems to be any real benefit, to me, in picking that; it doesn't make combat easier and there aren't any puzzles or locked doors that could easily be overcome by using psionic abilities so I always gave that option a pass.

This got me thinking about other games where there's a style of play or type of character I never utilize. Most of the ones I can recall off the type of my head involve magic, psionics, biotics, or any other type of spell-like abilities. If I play a game where there's a whole slew of various unlocks in the tech tree, I tend to focus on passive upgrades to existing abilities before completely new ones. So what's the the style you find yourself consciously or unconsciously sticking with across various games? What type of class or selection of abilities you bypass in favor of others?

I often much prefer straight up skills/abilities/bonuses to situational ones. For example, if I could pick a "skill" that passively adds 10% to my damage, vs skill that adds 50% to my damage when my hp is under 100%, I'd prefer to pick that 10% skill. Simply because it's less complicated.

I realized a while ago that I did tend to pick pretty generic classes or weapons when given a choice. So I started making a conscious decision to try and choose play styles that are different and require a bit more thought, for the most part it makes the games I play stand out a bit more from each other and forces me to think about different strategies and tactics.

Things like changing to a shotgun/close range build in Helldivers or playing The Witcher 3 focusing on sign and potion based combat made me think about the fights from a different point of view.

Rouges: Do it from behind. Plus I like stealing everything that isn't nailed down.

Two-handed weapon warrior, barbarian if it is in the game. No sneaking, no stupid magic: just me, a huge sword, and cleaving all the things.

In sci-fi games, I play soldier types. In SS2, I always choose Marine background, for instance. In Mass Effect I always pick Soldier when I play those games.

And, passive abilities over actives - I ain't got time to remember to turn something on, I;m too busy hacking/shooting stuff.

tboon wrote:

Two-handed weapon warrior, barbarian if it is in the game. No sneaking, no stupid magic: just me, a huge sword, and cleaving all the things.

I gravitated towards that with Dragon Age: Inquisition...until I realized using the swirling ability made my character look like the Tasmanian Devil. Fortunately, respeccing to sword and shield was cheap.

Rat Boy wrote:
tboon wrote:

Two-handed weapon warrior, barbarian if it is in the game. No sneaking, no stupid magic: just me, a huge sword, and cleaving all the things.

I gravitated towards that with Dragon Age: Inquisition...until I realized using the swirling ability made my character look like the Tasmanian Devil. Fortunately, respeccing to sword and shield was cheap.

Why you dissin' on Taz, man?

IMAGE(http://bestanimations.com/Cartoons/WarnerBros/Taz/TAZ-02-june.gif)

In RPGs, I always play a vanilla fighter. Typically longsword with a shield. I hate the term sword and board, but there you go. It's been the same class I've played going back to D&D 2nd Ed rules. If not that, then I'll go towards Thief who's good with a blade.

Wizards are like aliens to me.

Stealthy ranged characters; I have finished various Elder Scrolls games multiple times, always as a Wood Elf archer who backstabs a lot. Never enjoyed the other options at all. Given a choice between sneaky murder and in-your-face murder, I'll stab you in the back every time.

I prefer characters who do less damage but move quickly to characters who hit hard but are slower.

I prefer avoiding damage to blocking it or tanking it.

I like close range weapons like spears and shotguns that aren't quite fisticuffs but also aren't long range.

I almost always play mages and wizards first.

I used to love mages but for the last couple years I've been gravitating towards in-your-face assault characters. Examples include vanguard in Mass Effect, heavy in TF 2, templar in Dragon Age, and paladin in WOW. I am also partial to classes with pet or turret mechanics, including the demon hunter and witch doctor in Diablo and engineer in Guild Wars 2.

I'll play rogues in single player but they don't click with me in multiplayer. I think part of the problem is a lot of rogue classes are too twitch based, but there seems to be an inordinate number of douchey dude bros who like to play them.

PS - I will also play any class that is unique to a given game. Cipher in Pillars of Eternity for example.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Stealthy ranged characters; I have finished various Elder Scrolls games multiple times, always as a Wood Elf archer who backstabs a lot. Never enjoyed the other options at all. Given a choice between sneaky murder and in-your-face murder, I'll stab you in the back every time.

I ran a character like that back in NWN and had a blast. Half ranger, half rogue, with one level of shadowdancer. I could ranged backstab from stealth and crit... then disappear. Or send my companion in to distract and just rip people to shreds from behind.

Overall I tend to gravitate towards ranged damage or ranged support characters. In WoW I played a mage, and ran it more as a CC build than damage. In Mass Effect I first ran an Engineer build, then switched to Adept in later playthroughs. Looking through the games I have installed... In Dragon Age, Kingdoms of Amalur, Dark Messiah of Might and Mastery, Pillars of Eternity, NWN2, and Skyrim... all archers. Heh, even in Asheron's Call I ran an archer build even during all the years that it sucked. I made myself into XCOM 2 as a sniper, and in KotOR 1 & 2 I play consular/Jedi Master (force mages, essentially).

Generally I avoid paladin type characters. I don't know why, they just don't appeal to me. I played a shaman and death knight in WoW for some melee action, but I would respec my shaman to healing quite a bit (dual-spec'd later on). I also prefer sword fighting in Shadows of Mordor to the archery, but I think it has more to do with the fact that you can't really just go full archer in that game... using the bow has a really gimicky feel to it.

tboon wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:
tboon wrote:

Two-handed weapon warrior, barbarian if it is in the game. No sneaking, no stupid magic: just me, a huge sword, and cleaving all the things.

I gravitated towards that with Dragon Age: Inquisition...until I realized using the swirling ability made my character look like the Tasmanian Devil. Fortunately, respeccing to sword and shield was cheap.

Why you dissin' on Taz, man?

IMAGE(http://bestanimations.com/Cartoons/WarnerBros/Taz/TAZ-02-june.gif)

Mainly because The Iron Bull looked better at it than my scrawny human did.

Pet classes for sure are my bread and butter.
Oddly, I gravitate towards mages. I always envision myself as a dual wielding shredder or a bow/crossbow user but they end up disappointing me every time.
I think it really comes down to skills more than classes. I like dots, life taps and channeled skills. It is probably why I could not tell you what my favorite D3 class is. All the classes do all of that in spades. It makes me not want to play any future game that doesn't give me that freedom!

I usually prefer to be the tank, or the class with the highest movement speed.

I avoid tanks like the plague. I'm usually long distance with either a magic user or ranger of some sort. When I do go melee it's high damage, low defense.

I love playing characters with a mix of magic and combat skills. Soften the enemy up with fireballs, then close in and whack them with a sword!

My very first D&D character was a Red Box elf, and one of the reasons I love the Elder Scrolls games so much is Destruction/Conjuration/whichever skill covers swords in the particular game/Heavy Armor builds.

JeremyK wrote:

I avoid tanks like the plague. I'm usually long distance with either a magic user or ranger of some sort. When I do go melee it's high damage, low defense.

Weird aside: usually I'm a sniper or assault rifle type in shooters, but in DOOM it was pretty much all shotgun of both types.

Dual wielding, doesn't matter the class. Bonus if the weapons are mismatched (e.g. sword/axe).

Rat Boy wrote:
JeremyK wrote:

I avoid tanks like the plague. I'm usually long distance with either a magic user or ranger of some sort. When I do go melee it's high damage, low defense.

Weird aside: usually I'm a sniper or assault rifle type in shooters, but in DOOM it was pretty much all shotgun of both types.

Same here. I don't like being in situations where a shotgun is preferred or rocket launchers, but in DOOM I found both incredibly useful. However, that's also because DOOM has different priorities. You need to be up close and personal a lot, and aiming with the rocket launcher isn't as big of a pain as enemies tend to beeline towards you anyway. So the very nature of DOOM makes two weapons I tend to avoid in most shooters incredibly useful.

In shooters I choose classes that specialize in medium-to-long-range, but never exclusively long-range (so in MP modes, medium-range combat since I suck at sniping other humans).

In action games or action RPGs, anything that's decently quick and delivers strikes very quickly, allowing you to more easily sneak an attack in when the foe is open or cancel out into a dodge. Dual-wielding combat rogues are my bread and butter in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon's Dogma.

In fighting games, definitely leaning towards quick characters again as I cannot grasp proper timing on slower, stronger characters. The exception here seems to be Smash Bros. WiiU/3DS (where I like Charizard and Bowser but do not specialize) and Pokken Tournament (where Garchomp is my jam and Gengar is fascinating, too).

I don't really do spellcasters as my head doesn't really wrap around that type of combat. I like spells being available, but they're basically grenades to me as opposed to a primary weapon of combat. I'm probably just very straight-forward in my approach to action-based games, which is one of the reasons my approach to jobs and classes in FFV, FFTactics, and Bravely games is straight-forward as well rather than drinking the water of life and seeing all the possibility spaces to build the ultimate class combinations.

In stealth games, I tend to be a murder machine that likes to clear levels out unless there's some moral system tied to it. Even then, if I can knock people out, I'll probably due that. There are only a couple of exceptions to this, with the upcoming Sneaky Ninja being one of them. Perhaps the cuteness of the enemies are why?

Speaking of morality systems, I think the first Dishonored and the first Fable are the only games I did evil routes through. Most games with the "good/bad" paradigm make me feel like a real asshole playing a "bad" or "rogue" or "evil" character, but not like Tom Hiddleston as Loki evil or Moriarty evil. More like "I'm playing Trump but as a tactically capable character" evil. I like Dishonored's good/evil paradigm better, though it could still use some work, and Fable's was so ridiculous a paradigm that it worked as abstract fairy tale silliness. I mean, you're so good you shine with a holy light and a halo hangs above your head, or you're so evil you grow horns and your skin smolders.

Depends a lot on how well a given game supports it, but generally:

Unique classes first --> then 'magic' fighters --> archers|ranged rogues --> 'magic' types --> big two-handed weapon wielders (slight bonus if it's a giant maul or hammer type weapon) --> everything else after these.

Situational skills way before passives or percentage buffs. As long as I get a skill for every situation, I don't mind juggling. Heck, I'll even take the 'juggling' skill if it's useful or amusing.

Shotguns before most other weapon types. Notable exception being games where a pistol isn't optimal, but can be made optimal through commitment, upgrade, specific or niche skill builds, etc.

Companion|NPC mixes where they bicker, are snarky to each other, or even don't agree with me. When everyone is a mindless robot without their own agenda things get lame.

In the back before in the front, unless that precludes tasty dialogue. Satisfying, long con or long game betrayal when possible. Option to devour the souls of my boon companions near the end generally appreciated. [edit add] Suitable alternatives include leaving them behind when I run off with the loot/power/whatevs (high and dry +1) (somewhere that goes BOOM +5). I will generally leave someone alive though, companion or otherwise, if I believe that individual or group will show up later in a substantial way. A game that has the flexibility to adapt a character, or group, as either ally or enemy (especially allies later turned enemies) gets me every time.

[edit add - tentatively related, but pref wise..]
Fashion before practicality. Stylish capes a plus. If it's pseudo-medieval fantasy then one person better get a wizard or witch hat. Tasteful curves or a little muscle is ok, but bikini or speedo 'armor' is complete eye roll territory. Most of the armor design|detail in the Witcher, especially 2 and 3, is the bees knees (the free DLC stuff was silly though and got turned off immediately).

For Mass Effect, FemShep is TheShep -- due in large part to heart eyes (heart ears?) for Hale's VO work. Gender-wise, the better VO option is almost always what I will play as the protagonist. Somewhat related, I hate lego hair; this can sometimes bump VO choice if there are no suitable options for one gender/race/etc .

I'm almost always a glass cannon when it's available, especially with a focus on speed and stealth, I like to hit hard and fast, and if I'm not seen either approaching or leaving, even better.

At least in my first playthrough of a game, in subsequent playthroughs I'll almost always try out other styles, and the more customisable the better. I love working a character concept around a gimmick. So in a secondary way I'm attracted to anything that's unique. I always gravitated towards to the underdog talent trees in World of Warcraft for instances, and tried to make them work. Final Fantasy X and later and more significantly Path of Exile let me customise my class or characters to an almost ridiculously granular degree, and that made me very happy indeed.

The one thing I tend to shy away from is summoner/minion based classes, but I think mostly because I've hated the implementation of them that seems to always be used, which is very hands off. The Diablo II Necromancer is the embodiment of this, I never understood the appeal. I think I could like the right sort of summoner, I really like Dungeon Keeper for instance, or games like Majesty, which are basically just the summoner concept blown up to the geographical scale. Having some degree of control, even if it's imperfect, makes all the difference, it seems!

Recreational Villain wrote:

Fashion before practicality. Stylish capes a plus. If it's pseudo-medieval fantasy then one person better get a wizard or witch hat. Tasteful curves or a little muscle is ok, but bikini or speedo 'armor' is complete eye roll territory.

Also this, heck yeah.

Good topic, Rat Boy. I've been thinking back to my history with games that provided options for how to play, and to those I enjoyed which did not. I have a varied approach. I can go from one flavour to the next depending on the moment and my mood.

In Metal Gear Solid I opt for complete stealth (dialing it back can work very well) with phasers set to stun. In Deus Ex I tend to begin stealthily, with a desire to avoid fatalities, which can hold true or evolve to eliminating all immediate threats who use extreme force against me. Reap what you sow and all that. I prefer hand to hand combat where possible in both games.

In Diablo and its clones I prefer melee combatants to spell casters, ranged artillery, or summoners. Special shout out to the Necromancer tooled towards Bone Spirits, Corpse Explosion, and Poison Cloud. I had to get in amongst the mix to be most effective. Other than that I like to be centered in the chaos with a trusty sword, or a mace, or an axe, or a hammer. Good times. I like a degree of crowd control as granted by the Paladin and the Assassin. The Barbarian was just a wrecking ball, and it was awesome.

In Baldur's Gate I micromanaged a party of six, every time, so I got to experience many different approaches. I enjoyed spellcasters with a focus on crowd control, buffs, and debuffs, much more than hurling fireballs. I enjoyed utilising stealth to scope out what was ahead, like a Ranger, and less the backstabbing of a Thief. I enjoyed starting a battle with ranged attacks, when necessary, but preferred to throw down the gauntlet and have a Warrior stride forth, especially if rocking a two handed sword. Not that I don't appreciate a sword and shield. Occasionally that becomes my bread and butter instead.

In Mass Effect I thoroughly enjoyed the Engineer. Although, I found myself gravitating towards the Vanguard more and more. Got to admit I took glee in making enemies levitate with a Biotic. All of the classes were good!

Games like Doom and Serious Sam only really offer one form of approach, and it's full speed ahead amongst a backdrop of anarchy. Up close and personal. High risk, high reward. I love both, but don't go to them as often.

I have little fuss for aesthetics. It's neat to look cool, but if there's something more functional I am going to choose that, unless the difference is negligible and it looks utterly ridiculous. I remember rolling with a horrendous fashion crime parading as a Warlock trenchcoat, perhaps borrowed from Liberache, in Destiny, because the numbers were good.

I always wind up playing a goody two shoes. I think how cool it would be to choose a more renegade approach, not evil, just less white knight so eager to please, but fear the morality system and reward system will be geared to punish this in a superfluous way, and that the execution won't be nuanced enough. It's either Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler.

So, I guess I'm more warrior than wizard. I prefer having a sense of control rather than increased destructive force. Stealth is cool for non-lethal and reconnaissance, less for sneak attacks. All I know is now I really want to play some video games after that trip down memory lane.

I definitely always prefer something with heavy armor and a sword. I start off with sword and shield, usually roll into greatswords next. And it's always swords, hammers and axes are for untrained peasants. I do like to splash a little healing it buffing magic in if possible.

The next choice is usually some kind of Archer. Death from long range and quick. No need for armor add you're never in danger. And it had to be bows, preferably a longbow (bigger than the character) and crossbows are again for the untrained masses.

As for magic it has to be lots of damage and crowd control, preferably ice or lightning. Fire is so overused that fireballs don't do a whole lot for me.

Like numerous people here, I typically go for low damage/high speed/ranged attacks.

However, I usually avoid magic. I made my experience with Asheron's Call super difficult in that regard, since magic buffs helped out so tremendously (especially since I almost always solo'd).

Action- and Western RPGs: I almost always go for the ranger. Major in bow, minor in swords.

Fighting games: Chun-Li over Zangief, Taki over Astaroth, Cinder over Killgore, Mai Shiranui over ...well...whatever the other characters are named. Give me speed!

I love the sniper class, even if I'm not that great at it, and in Vampire: Bloodlines, the Nosferatu was my race. In team-based fps (capture the flag or similar) games, I'm perfectly happy playing defense or holding the middle. Offense isn't quite my thing.

My first pen & paper RPG character was a Ranger, I always have a soft spot for that class and for Archers. (My avatar is the attack button from Might & Magic III, but only because it was funnier than the shoot button.)

That said, my general trend is for glass canon DPS characters. With some exceptions...

If something offers Fighter / Mage / Rogue and almost nothing else, I'll probably go Mage and I might go Rogue.
If something offers a unique class or character type, I'll take that. The Cipher from PoE, for example.
In action RPGs I'll choose lighter / faster over slower / stronger.
In open ended skill systems (such as Elder Scrolls, Fallout) I'll go for a stealth / combat blend (IE, a DPS Rogue or sniper.) In the Witcher, I put Geralt in light armor and most of his points went into the combat tree.

But my truly favorite thing to do is party based RPGs where you have total control over all of your characters and lots of options. In those instances I will start over multiple times to toy with everything.

Oh! In Splatoon I favoured the N-Zap '85 and Custom Splattershot Jr. I also got a lot of use from the Splattershot. I think I opted for clothing with stealth swimming and undetectable jumps. I must check!

Wizards. I play a lot of wizards and gageteers...Stuff that maximizes my options even if it isn't the optimal build.

In shooters I favor classes where I don't have to aim. Hence the Pyro in TF2.

Borderlands has several options, though I've usually gone with the turret.

If Borderlands had a flamethrower, I'd use that.

Gremlin wrote:

In shooters I favor classes where I don't have to aim. Hence the Pyro in TF2.

Borderlands has several options, though I've usually gone with the turret.

If Borderlands had a flamethrower, I'd use that.

Preach it! If every shooter had a flamethrower I'd use it in all of them.

If its a fantasy or sci-fi game where you can pick your species or race, I will usually pick the one that's least like a human. In Final Fantasy XI (online MMO), the Galka were easily the least human-like option. I was weary about choosing Galka, because I assumed it would be the most popular choice among players, and I wanted to be as unique as possible. Boy was I wrong! Hardly anybody chose Galka. As it turned out, Galka stats were tuned for tanking, which I learned rather quickly to enjoy. This turned out to be very convenient for me. Groups always needed a good tank, and I was the best.

Of course, in Skyrim, I deviated from this practice and chose Nord. I mean, come on. It just made perfect sense.

If I have to choose between to skill upgrades or whatnot, I always choose the one that gives me new abilities rather than better numbers.

Unless I'm trying to maximize a specific ability to make it have new effects: regeneration is usually the exception, because if you push hitpoint regeneration high enough in some games it can switch from being a nice bonus into making you into Wolverine.

For melee characters, I prefer choices that let me recover from mistakes while still having maneuverability. So I try and avoid glass cannons, but also tanks: Ideally, I'd pick something agile enough that my reflexes matter less, but that can still survive a couple of hits.

For damage output, I prefer something that, again, makes aiming matter less. So in Elite Dangerous, for example, I stick with the lasers and machine cannons, since things like the railgun mean that everything is riding on one high-damage shot rather than a lot of little shots.

Snipers are the exception, sort of, because good sniping is about lining up your shots and taking time to aim. But I still prefer flamethrowers over machine guns and machine guns over snipers. Pyro > Engineer > Doctor > Heavy > Spy > Demo > Sniper > Scout > Soldier.