For me it has become healer mostly. I like being the slightly detached role of monitoring the whole group and anticipating their health needs as well as knowing when I can stop healing for a bit and contribute buffs and damage.
I prefer MMOs when the healers can do more than just heal 100% of the time and I love classes where a lot of the healing happens as procs from the damage I do (Chloromancer in Rift, Warrior Priest in Warhammer Online, etc.)
My least favorite is tanking. I have done it and still do it but these days I just find it too passive and always have this feeling that after I gather things and hold their attention, I just stand there surviving while everyone else has all the fun
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Maybe @MikeB can fix it?
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I tend to be pretty stoned when I'm playing so Ranged DPS is most comfortable for me as I don't have to be relied on as heavily as a Healer or Tank. Nothing worse than zoning out as a Tank and wiping the group and the only excuse i have is...sorry, i was hitting the bong.
Anyway, I prefer to solo, but I'll do anything except healing. Healing is too stressful. Usually once I choose a class that's good for soloing I find it's not able to do anything besides dps in a dungeon
My choice usually comes down to both aesthetics and depth of gameplay. On the aesthetics front, I've always loved big weapons and heavy armour so I'm usually guided towards a melee character, but have been tempted by other aesthetics.
But, depth of gameplay is king for me. I've never mained a healer, but I've played tank, melee dps and support as mains in MMOs and support has been the most rewarding by far.
What I've generally found is that "pure" classes are too easy to play. When I mained a tank, all I had to focus on was keeping aggro and mitigating damage. In boss fights, this generally just meant executing a threat-heavy rotation and popping the right cooldowns when things got tough. It was sooooo god-damn easy! Having watched other people struggle, I was shocked the first time I played a tank and saw just how easy it is! The only difficult thing was having good raid awareness so that you can spot adds and pick them up, but that is only difficult because your screen is generally full of some bosses legs.
With a DPS character, it was marginally harder. You've still only got one job - execute a rotation for maximum DPS - just with the downside of not having a dedicated healer so you have to be more careful about your health.
With every "pure" class that I've played, I've felt out of control. They've all been so easy to play that I don't feel I can actually influence the outcome of the fight. For example, when playing a tank I can do nothing about damage my team is doing. I can't stun an add or off-heal someone who is struggling. I just have to stand there, do my job and hope for the best.
With a support class, the power is mine! I finally have the power to directly influence the outcome of the fight! If the healers are struggling, there are tools in my belt to help them overcome the problem (CC an add, buff the tank, off-heal etc). DPS being idiots? I can debuff the enemies so they drop quicker, or hit less hard.
I also hate the holy trinity and find it far too limiting in terms of content design, so if a game has dedicated support classes I'm also more likely to pick one in an effort to support the devs decision. I'm also aware that support classes are usually under-played, so it's an additional bonus to be able to find more groups at endgame.
Obviously implementation is the key - some games have god-awful support classes that are so one-dimensional that they're pretty much pointless. But a well implemented support class is king for me!
Have tried tanking, just not my cup of tea, never really enjoyed it.
Going for a pure DPS class, I prefer melee to ranged, but it always ends up boring me, once you have the fight mechanics down, and the rotation sorted, you could almost do it blindfolded.
Healing on the other hand, you always have something to do, no matter what, regardless of how well you know the fight mechanics, other players always make it so each fight is different for you, and to me, it makes it more engaging, more immersive.
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tank
Its more challenging than dpsing. I find dpsing boring.
I kind of miss the days when classes like Rogue (Thief) were more about adventuring and stealing than DPS. If I had to choose a specialized class it would probably be a Thief or some type of caster that had a lot of utility spells similar to the Druid/Necromancer in EQ or the Druid/Paladin/Shaman in WoW. Those classes are all like Hybrids as well. They have a lot of utility spells.
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Well, that and I fall asleep a lot which has resulted in hilarity as I dead sticked into Onyxia wiping the raid (Leroy has nothing on me) or dropped off during yet another assault on the final boss in BWL despite the raid leader warning us all the next person's to delay the raid would be punished.
Set a new guild record of -1000 DKP with that one.
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Some games I really like the healer, and I used to like to tank, but lately haven't been fond of them and it is too rough on my hands lol.
Last game I mained a healer was probably ffxiv with white mage. Tanks, have to go farther back, really liked Chosen from warhammer. The rest have been various dps, hybrids.
Just brings me back to my wooden sword/dragon fighting days
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Also, while playing the tank I like to challenge myself to not let the healer reach the dps charts...hehe.
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Like Debuffing which is what I focused on in Darkfall, why? because it was something different for a change
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