Is there any correlation between the class you choose & your character?

Like...are people who mains warrior have a more direct and confrontational character?Or a guardian main is someone who is just and tends to stand up for the weak?Or an engineer main is someone who is more Creative and likes tinkering with machines?Or a mesmer main is someone who has many identities and likes to mislead people?Or a necro main is someone who is dark and brooding with a mean streak?Or a thief main is someone whose character is more secretive?Or a elementalist main is someone who likes nature?Or a ranger main is someone who likes the wild?Or a revenant main is someone who...hmm

I've had a theory about this for awhile. I use Bartle's Taxonomy of player types for mine though. It's the best solution I have to answer a few key questions: Why is the Engineer forum so chill? Why is the thief forum so hostile? Why are necromancers and rangers so n00bish?

Basically it works like this: the reason why the thief forum is so hostile comes from two sides. First, the kind of players who will play thieves are interested in acting and not interacting, and are interested on acting on players and not the world. The Thief profession is great for this, hiding away and then ambushing another person with no chance to counter-attack. A particular note of this playstyle is the absence of parity in play; a lack of desire in an engaging duel or a fair fight. The concern is over beating people, not fighting people. The second half of this is frustration: this kind of playstyle isn't fun for everyone, so Anet continually nerfs it over and over again. This means that all of the players who want to ambush others lack the tools to have any real impact, thus afflicting the sensation of helplessness upon them.

In contrast, the Engineer forum is so chill because of the opposite reasons. Engineers are given a wide toolbox, which gives them the ability to solve nearly every PVE problem they'll encounter. This also makes them tricky and strangely effective in PVP. The engineer almost never feels helpless. But, since the class requires players to understand all of these skills to make use of them, it attracts people who are interested in interacting with players and the world.

Psychology is a complicated soft-science, so a lot of this kind of stuff is just speculation. But, I have found it to be a useful explanation for certain things.

I main ranger. I love nature and i am very keen on learning how it functions. I also love animals. Have two dogs at home.So yeah it kinda represents me.

I main Necro and I have no dark side :)

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:I've had a theory about this for awhile. I use Bartle's Taxonomy of player types for mine though. It's the best solution I have to answer a few key questions: Why is the Engineer forum so chill? Why is the thief forum so hostile? Why are necromancers and rangers so n00bish?

Basically it works like this: the reason why the thief forum is so hostile comes from two sides. First, the kind of players who will play thieves are interested in acting and not interacting, and are interested on acting on players and not the world. The Thief profession is great for this, hiding away and then ambushing another person with no chance to counter-attack. A particular note of this playstyle is the absence of parity in play; a lack of desire in an engaging duel or a fair fight. The concern is over beating people, not fighting people. The second half of this is frustration: this kind of playstyle isn't fun for everyone, so Anet continually nerfs it over and over again. This means that all of the players who want to ambush others lack the tools to have any real impact, thus afflicting the sensation of helplessness upon them.

In contrast, the Engineer forum is so chill because of the opposite reasons. Engineers are given a wide toolbox, which gives them the ability to solve nearly every PVE problem they'll encounter. This also makes them tricky and strangely effective in PVP. The engineer almost never feels helpless. But, since the class requires players to understand all of these skills to make use of them, it attracts people who are interested in interacting with players and the world.

Psychology is a complicated soft-science, so a lot of this kind of stuff is just speculation. But, I have found it to be a useful explanation for certain things.

You can replace Thief and Engineer with any other profession in this game and you would still be fairly accurate in the most incredibly vague of ways. Your post is like reading a horoscope, and doesn't have anything to do with psychology, moreso a biased and speculative generalization most likely based on your personal interaction with individuals. No profession subforum is any more or less "hostile" or "chill" than any other profession subforum. There are plenty of helpful people and posts, and plenty of toxic arguments in all of the subforums.

I main necromancer and I do have a sense of morbidity. I was super sick as a kid so I had always thought I could die in my sleep which was a real possibility for me. And because of some other unfortunate events I ended up having a fascination with the supernatural. Ghosts and ghouls and faeries. So there is a correlation for me.

As for personality, I'm pretty mellow most the time. But I'm not one personality trait like some people might think. But rather a mix of goth, punk, prep, girly, tomboyish, nerd, political, analytical, emotional.. I'm a pretty well rounded human meat bag.

I main core engineer. Why core engineer specifically? Here's why: core engineer can be best described as the average Joe of the GW2 professions. Sure, some people main professions like thief and mesmer because of their mobility and teleports, some people main warrior because they love feeling like an awesome rampaging juggernaut, some people main necromancer because they can summon minions to do the dirty work for them.

Pretty much every profession has their own fancy apparel or gameplay mechanics that makes them unique to people, but core engineer isn't exactly what you would call fancy. He's the average Joe in the sense of not having teleports, tons of mobility or damage, magical weapons etc. He's just your every day man who works in his own firearms shop in Ebonhawke. A man who spends his days fixing firearms, selling firearms, crafting ammunition while also creating gadgets and kits. He's the type of person who's always curios, always wants to experiment and someone who doesn't fight with traditional weapons.

Then ArenaNet created Holosmith and ruined engineer's entire reputation.

Considering that professions have several vectors of appeal, no, you obviously cannot make such a comparison.

To explain:One person may like green spell effects.One person may like using staffs.One person may like summoning pets.One person may like damage over time rather than direct damage.One person may like a dark, brooding theme.One person may like classes that take on new "forms."One person may like tanky classes.One person may like ranged classes.

All those individuals would be attracted to Necro, but each for different reasons.

@"Turk.5460" said:

You can replace Thief and Engineer with any other profession in this game and you would still be fairly accurate in the most incredibly vague of ways. Your post is like reading a horoscope, and doesn't have anything to do with psychology, moreso a biased and speculative generalization most likely based on your personal interaction with individuals. No profession subforum is any more or less "hostile" or "chill" than any other profession subforum. There are plenty of helpful people and posts, and plenty of toxic arguments in all of the subforums.

Whenever somebody makes a post like this, I face a dilemma. I have to figure out if the person saying this either can't understand what I am saying, or won't understand it.

I think you're the former, for every detail that I gave has gone completely over your head. Your assertion that you can swap the classes around regardless of how I described them demonstrates that you have a poor understanding of what each class is capable of, the history of each class, as well as how they are played in each game mode. Seriously, do Warriors burst other players down from stealth? How about Elementalists? Or Necromancers? Revenants? Guardians? Hell, Engineers rarely do it and they have access to stealth. Your claim that the profession forums aren't any different from each other just means you lack the ability to see the differences. You clearly did not read the link, which gives plenty of information on the Bartle Taxonomy. You're demonizing speculation, wherein I admit that it is speculation and this thread exists to speculate.

The irony of all this is now the burden of proof is yours. See, you could've just said that you don't think there's any differences, but you didn't. You had to call me out. Well, stand and deliver. I demand proof of due diligence.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@"Turk.5460" said:

You can replace Thief and Engineer with any other profession in this game and you would still be fairly accurate in the most incredibly vague of ways. Your post is like reading a horoscope, and doesn't have anything to do with psychology, moreso a biased and speculative generalization most likely based on your personal interaction with individuals. No profession subforum is any more or less "hostile" or "chill" than any other profession subforum. There are plenty of helpful people and posts, and plenty of toxic arguments in all of the subforums.

Proof of what? That there are toxic posts and helpful people? The proof is already there, just click your mouse a few times and navigate over to each profession subforum. If you want to play the www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com game, then the burden of proof actually falls to you as you first made the claim. There is no need to be so defensive, are you a Thief main? Because you're being quite hostile, which in your eyes constitutes a Thief player, correct?

Seriously, do Warriors burst other players down from stealth? How about Elementalists? Or Necromancers? Revenants? Guardians? Hell, Engineers rarely do it and they have access to stealth.

You didn't even specifically mention stealth, so why are you using that as a focal point now? Many professions can (and do) hide, and catch their opponents off guard. Clearly you have not visited WvW if you think this is a Thief-specific tactic. This is even further seen how you pointed out Revenants, which also excel at surprise bursting and quite often PT to targets from beyond their LOS. What is your excuse for FA S/F Elementalists, or the recently deceased Valk Core Medi Guardians? Please.

Your post is riddled with hypocrisy and misinformation. Sit down.

I typed up a long post describing each of my characters to help make my point, but realized it wasn't really needed. Instead! I would say that the class I choose to play has nothing to do with my personal life or traits. However, almost none of my characters play to the usual trope of the class they are. Quick example is my Necromancer wears whites and pinks, can almost always be found smiling. Not a single thing about her that's edgy or dark. So the possible correlation falls on class stereotypes that aren't exactly determined by GW2.

What is more "me-like" via through the game is the constant need to create and play alts. I don't like being in the same spot doing the same thing for too long and often find ways to shake things up a bit (there are obvious exceptions). I find within the RP community, race has a bigger impact on the person playing the character than class does. Even then though it's a "little-to-none" outcome as most people tend to play several different characters of different races.

I think this is something that seems to be more prevalent in other games. I feel like a person playing a Tauren or Pandaren Shaman has the potential to say more about them as a person than someone playing a Charr Elementalist. The classes/professions in Guild Wars 2 tend to be a bit more open than in a game like World of Warcraft. You actually see it often on WoW forums/subreddits when someone posts an IRL guild photo. People are usually able to point at which person plays a certain class. Obviously not 100% accurate!

Interesting concept to explore though since everyone is so different that you're guaranteed to get some creative and varying answers!

In some esoteric way I guess.

Ive always been one that preferred getting by on my own skill and improving. Thief resonates with that at launch before anet began treating them like hiw our gov treats war vets. Hint, badly.

And the sad part is. Because thief scaled hard on your skill... It turns into a catch 22. Nerf hits that makes the class feel like ass... And your fiest instinct is to salvage what is left and try to power through because you don't need ANETs help.

You get berfed just as you get used to your weakened state, and it repeats.

it's more to do with your taste then your character

i play nec and i have no friends

Can't it is. I'm going to invoke Sargon's Law here. Anyway, to constructive discussion!

@"gateless gate.8406" said:Considering that professions have several vectors of appeal, no, you obviously cannot make such a comparison.

To explain:One person may like green spell effects.One person may like using staffs.One person may like summoning pets.One person may like damage over time rather than direct damage.One person may like a dark, brooding theme.One person may like classes that take on new "forms."One person may like tanky classes.One person may like ranged classes.

All those individuals would be attracted to Necro, but each for different reasons.

To expand on my theory above, I think the reason why Necromancers tend to be bad at the game is twofold. There are multiple appeals to a class, and I would put them into three broad categories: Performance, Feel, and Theme. Performance is how well the class does in all of the different facets of the game. A lot of alts are made based on performance. Feel is how the class plays out mechanically. Feel is less tangible than performance, but nonetheless is important to the appeal of the class. Theme is the aesthetics and lore of the class, both internal and external. Now, I pick these three categories for staying power. There's a lot of minor things that might make a class appealing superficially, but ultimately they fall by the wayside as time passes.

There are two things about the necromancer that is going to attract bad players. First, the theme of the class is edgelord. Necromancers are taboo, typically evil, rebellious, greatly feared in other games, and have a large presence in the fantasy world in general. I would argue that Necromancers have the strongest thematic appeal over any other class in the game due to this external infamy. Because of this, Necromancer is going to attract players who are more interested in roleplay and lore, and less interested in achievement and performance. This is different from other classes, which will be chosen for performance or mechanical feel.

The second reason is that the Necromancer is easy to be lazy with. It's got minions and a big health bar, making it the tankiest class for casual play. The barrier to entry for the Necro is really low because of this. Now, before you say "well no crap, of course bad players will go for the easy class to play," know that there's a second angle to this. Necro will attract players who can't be good, as well as players who don't want to be good. You hear it all the time on the forums, with players exclaiming how proud they are to shut their brain off while playing Necro.

Combine these two factors together, and then it makes sense why so many necromancers are terrible. I've been lightly lamenting necromancers for years now, but my animosity reached its peak when I was commanding daily serpent's ire. It was there that I began to actively despise necromancers, because 1/4th of my squad was always terribly built scourges who might as well have not existed.

Having multiple vectors doesn't make it impossible to generalize. Multiple vectors just adds multiple categories.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493Just watch out that you do not generalize to hard. Otherwise you would make a fallacy on your own.The easiest classes are most often the worst played, because you cant learn mechanics if you avoid them and ofc noobs start with easier to learn classes to get into the game.Thus i claim that there are more bad players in easier classes percentage wise but not more bad players due to theme and RP. So i only partially agree with you.I just say this because from your assertion i read out is that players who care for the lore and the world don't want to be good at the game. Which is a false cause. I may misunderstood you thus i would be glad if you could elaborate your post a bit more clearly.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:@Blood Red Arachnid.2493Just watch out that you do not generalize to hard. Otherwise you would make a fallacy on your own.The easiest classes are most often the worst played, because you cant learn mechanics if you avoid them and ofc noobs start with easier to learn classes to get into the game.Thus i claim that there are more bad players in easier classes percentage wise but not more bad players due to theme and RP. So i only partially agree with you.I just say this because from your assertion i read out is that players who care for the lore and the world don't want to be good at the game. Which is a false cause. I may misunderstood you thus i would be glad if you could elaborate your post a bit more clearly.

You would be amazed how many players are running around in the overworld with RNG builds, or just strange builds in general. I've hosted enough events through the years to know that the average player doesn't know how to CC. After 3 years... that demands some explaining. If you follow Bartle's Taxonomy, explorers and socializers don't prioritize achievement. It's not impossible for them to be good at the game, but without a motivating drive to improve they'll wander the overworld with an RP or snowflake build forever.

Anyway, none of this should be taken as an indictment or a majority claim. Trends can appear in the population without it being a majority. I.E. if 1/10 players do X, except for one profession where it is 1/3, that is still a significant difference.

Me WarriorMe Norn

I wouldn't say i'm a confrontational person, though I certainly like discussing things. It's funny, because I often argue from a lesser defended standpoint for that very reason. Can I somehow twist it around and come out on top? That kind of stuff is a challenge and is very appealing to me. Certainly this reflects in my character, who I stubbornly play and get killed by Mesmers and Rangers 24/7 with 0 interest of ever learning how to play against them and instead just stowing weapon because why bother

Wait..

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493"

I am not surprized by the number of bad players i have experienced it myself.Only thing i wanted to rectified is the "Ppl that care for lore, dont play for achievement". Keep in mind that bartles taxonomy is not a rigid construct but rather a spectrum of behaviour. And there are spots between each main behaviourial classifications.Also to take note here that explorers like to explore every tid bit of the game. This included raid stories, PvP gameplay and general game mechanics.Socializers are probably the biggest group that rely on socializing than rather being great at the game but also there are ppl that like playing hardcore BUT only with their guild, to experience the content within their social structure and to improve inside their social structure they tend to improve themselfs.More representative of the profile Would be the bartle quotient where you could compare certain values with class preferentiation.

As you said there may be trends which type may play what class in what content depending on their favorite play type.

Would actually be a rather interesting social study to conduct. Although behavioural studies have already concluded which type interacts whith which you even may translate it and study whitch class interacts with witch each other class to make a correlation for discussion.

I chose Warrior and I play it exclusively. I like that Warrior isn't special in any way. In stories and fiction I always love the underdog who rose to the top from their own natural talent and determination.

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:I've had a theory about this for awhile. I use Bartle's Taxonomy of player types for mine though. It's the best solution I have to answer a few key questions: Why is the Engineer forum so chill? Why is the thief forum so hostile? Why are necromancers and rangers so n00bish?

Basically it works like this: the reason why the thief forum is so hostile comes from two sides. First, the kind of players who will play thieves are interested in acting and not interacting, and are interested on acting on players and not the world. The Thief profession is great for this, hiding away and then ambushing another person with no chance to counter-attack. A particular note of this playstyle is the absence of parity in play; a lack of desire in an engaging duel or a fair fight. The concern is over beating people, not fighting people. The second half of this is frustration: this kind of playstyle isn't fun for everyone, so Anet continually nerfs it over and over again. This means that all of the players who want to ambush others lack the tools to have any real impact, thus afflicting the sensation of helplessness upon them.

In contrast, the Engineer forum is so chill because of the opposite reasons. Engineers are given a wide toolbox, which gives them the ability to solve nearly every PVE problem they'll encounter. This also makes them tricky and strangely effective in PVP. The engineer almost never feels helpless. But, since the class requires players to understand all of these skills to make use of them, it attracts people who are interested in interacting with players and the world.

Psychology is a complicated soft-science, so a lot of this kind of stuff is just speculation. But, I have found it to be a useful explanation for certain things.

lol what are u even saying this is the most vague thing ive ever read.

I like the archetype of theif the best but arenanet ruined the class thru the years so though the idea of its fun it’s boring as hell to play. Play mostly core engi and guard for the fun skills but ranger prob would suit me best lol

@hazethetiger.4806 said:

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:I've had a theory about this for awhile. I use

Bartle's Taxonomy of player types

for mine though. It's the best solution I have to answer a few key questions: Why is the Engineer forum so chill? Why is the thief forum so hostile? Why are necromancers and rangers so n00bish?

Basically it works like this: the reason why the thief forum is so hostile comes from two sides. First, the kind of players who will play thieves are interested in acting and not interacting, and are interested on acting on players and not the world. The Thief profession is great for this, hiding away and then ambushing another person with no chance to counter-attack. A particular note of this playstyle is the absence of parity in play; a lack of desire in an engaging duel or a fair fight. The concern is over beating people, not fighting people. The second half of this is frustration: this kind of playstyle isn't fun for everyone, so Anet continually nerfs it over and over again. This means that all of the players who want to ambush others lack the tools to have any real impact, thus afflicting the sensation of helplessness upon them.

In contrast, the Engineer forum is so chill because of the opposite reasons. Engineers are given a wide toolbox, which gives them the ability to solve nearly every PVE problem they'll encounter. This also makes them tricky and strangely effective in PVP. The engineer almost never feels helpless. But, since the class requires players to understand all of these skills to make use of them, it attracts people who are interested in interacting with players and the world.

Psychology is a complicated soft-science, so a lot of this kind of stuff is just speculation. But, I have found it to be a useful explanation for certain things.

It helps if you read up on Bartle's Taxonomy of players. I wrote the post using Bartle's terminology.

I main a thief. And...yeah, I guess that might describe me in real life (though not online): reserved, secretive, intensely quiet and shy...able to move silently, accidentally scaring the daylights out of people when I suddenly appear right next to them... It's now a running joke that my mom will start to call my name from the other end of the house - only for me to reveal myself to have been standing behind her, or simply in the next room over, the entire time. :tongue:

Though when I say I "main" a thief, I mean that my thief happens to be the character I use the most for story and open-world stuff. My ranger is my PVP main. I haven't ventured into WvW or raids yet. I do regularly enjoy playing my other characters, though, and I hope to eventually have one of each class (missing mesmer, revenant, and warrior; mesmer's next on my list to create as soon as I have some extra gems...).