Have you deleted an old character to recreate it on another one?

[Nor.2057]

So far im going for one race for each archetype of armor weight ( so 3 or 4 characters per race...still hoping for 1 more tengu) while at the same time trying to have one toon per specialization so far i have 13 toons atm (missing herald- firebrand - scourge - Holosmith - Weaver) ANYWAY my second oldest character Charr Ranger - now Druid (Leatherworker: 500 - Huntsman: 432 - 6 years and 7 months old - 146 inventory slots) enjoyed it very much as core doing whole story but more and more disliked the ranger concept on him specially druid (got a norn SoulBeast which is epic) and also already covered charr on medium armor (scrapper which is also epic) and it has been growing on me the concept of making this Charr toon an elementalist weaver (kinda like an unhero former fire legionnaire) sadly its hard for me to just delete this toon and create it again with same name and looks for all that progress it had...but also i dislike seeing my roster of characters so epic and desirable to play except him...wish you could change class profession at least once per character or a way to reset the character without losing all its progress...have you done something similar to this?

TL;DR: wish you could change class profession or reset character without just simply delete and re-create and losing all of its age - bag slots - craftings skills etc...

[Cyninja.2954]

• Buy an additional slot
• create the character desired on that slot (name change if need be)
• use the old character as item storage, roleplay him as retired old hermit if need be-...
• profit

As to answer the question: I haven't deleted characters (except for Key farmers) and have stuck to the approach mentioned above explicitly due to birthday gifts and progress. I am up to 31 characters atm and make use of benefits of having multiple character specific dailies when so desired.

[Khisanth.2948]

Did that once in GW1. I have gotten much better about deciding what characters to make ever since. I only create characters I know I will keep.

Classes will change with balance patches so basing your decision on the current state is a poor choice.

[PhantomGoddess.5174]

I have deleted very progressed characters before and thought nothing of it just to change servers. I've actually done it twice, not having any troubles with it. I would do it again too...if there were a very good reason for me to do so. Then again, as I have the ability to spend multiple hours to level a new character, I don't have such great attachments to them. That being said, if this were one of the other games I were playing, then yeah, I'd see where you have the issue. Because sometimes you just love your character so much and put a ton of hours and blood, sweat and tears into it that now....you have to think it over not just a few times, but dozens of times. Now, I don''t raid here, I have very few Ascended's so, it's easier for me to start over here on gw2 than it would be for me to do the same on say like....WoW.

What you have to ask yourself is this, why are you considering reworking this particular character? Is it a cosmetic reason? if it is, can that be fixed with the Hair or Make-over kits? Is it the build? Can you just switch the build? Can you just do as the fellow above suggested and buy a new character slot and then make your character a twin brother/sister with another build?

These are just some of the questions I do ask myself before I start on my delete and remodel tasks within the game. The answers for me are usually motivated by how much I can actually spend to keep the character though.

[Etria.3642]

Someone analyzed it somewhere in another thread but it's almost always better to just get another character slot. Keyfarm character excepted. When I got to 7 I was like, that's it, I don't need any more...aaaaand I'm at 12 now and want a couple more. It's just so much easier to swap to an entire character as opposed to adjusting each piece of legendary, inserting new runs, changing(AND REMEMBERING) all the skills and other options...with separate characters they each have their own armor, their own food, their own boosts, AND without carrying other sets of stuff, more inventory space. I don't even worry about getting more bags now.

[Nor.2057]

Pretty interesting ideas everyone mentioning but still kinda hard to do...i wonder if deleted and recreated again can support recover some progress of past character?

[Danikat.8537]

I think the oldest character I've deleted was about 2 years old. That was part of a reshuffle when I decided I wanted to go from 'just' one of each profession to at least one of each race/gender combination and at least 1 of each profession. There were also secondary issues, like being unhappy that my norn revenant wouldn't be able to use the racial elite skills and realising I didn't like using a staff on a revenant but really wanted him to have Nevermore because of the raven theme I had for him.

I spent literally weeks debating what to do, drawing up lists of characters etc. before I made my mind up, but having done it I've never regretted it. The end result was much better and keeping those old versions of the characters as mules would have bothered me more than deleting them. I have to say though it was relatively easy for me because it was only 2 of my newest characters who were deleted and re-made and I had 7 others so birthday presents (one of the main reasons people give to keep useless characters) were a non-issue for me.

I don't think there's any right or wrong answer to this, it's your account and your characters. As long as you're aware of the pros and cons of each option it's just a matter of what's best for you.

(And yes I would very much like the option to change a characters profession instead of deleting them, but it seems highly unlikely to happen at this point.)

[Tommo Chocolate.5870]

I once did pretty much the same thing - deleted an old norn guardian and remade them as a thief with the same name and appearance. My reason was that it turned out I don't really like the heavy armour options for norn, but I do like the medium ones.

I think the character in question was more than one year old but less than two, so it didn't seem a great loss to me (of course, other people will differ on that point - for birthday presents I only really care about the account bound ones, but I know some people really value the others especially the dyes).

The alternative would have been to buy a name change and new character slot, and probably a total makeover kit as well so that I didn't have two identical-looking characters.

I agree with Danikat that it's a matter of what works for you. If you think you'll regret deleting the character, I think it's best not to do it.

[Jarl Petter Hinrik.1409]

I deleted one character in gw1. Tried to recreate it ever since... Never been the same...

[PlagueParade.7942]

You won't get back any of the progress you lost as it'll be a new toon. After that long it is definitely not worth it to delete and recreate. Just buy a character slot and a name change contract or identity repair pack (name change and total makeover for 150 gems less) if you're looking to make the toon look the same on a new character.

TL:DR - Don't do it man that's major regrets.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

I did. I had a Charr Engineer and remade it exactly the same in terms of looks, but I changed its profession to Revenant.

It was about lvl 50 so I had nothing of value lost before I deleted it. And I say its old since I made it, just never played it

I would advise making a solid decision before getting a character to 80.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I've deleted and rerolled almost every one of my characters. I do this because I like to have the character, and not just the class.

My first engineer became my thief, then became my engineer again.My first thief became my mesmer.My first mesmer became my elementalist.My first elementalist became my necromancer.My first ranger became my engineer, then my thief, then ranger again, then deleted wholly. I go back and forth on whether or not I want to make a warrior with him.My first guardian stayed.My first revenant stayed.I recently created a brand new thief.

[Cerioth.7062]

I've never deleted any characters in gw2, except demo ones.

[Linken.6345]

@Nor.2057 said:Pretty interesting ideas everyone mentioning but still kinda hard to do...i wonder if deleted and recreated again can support recover some progress of past character?

No since its a new character it dont have any past progress.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

I have a base 19 "fixed" toons + 4 "flexible" ones (that I delete and recreate regularly). Each of the 19 fixed ones has a role (wvw, raid, fractals....). The flexible ones are toons that I create for temporary objectives and delete once done. For example, I always keep a toon around level 30 for farming of a certain level of mats. When her level reaches the limit at which gathering starts bringing the next tier of leather/cloth, I delete and recreate another one. On a side note: I use those temporary toons to have fun with all type of appearances (funny haircut, crazy look and such...). Since I know I will delete them, that's no worries. :)

However, before I reached this stable configuration (I play since beta) that works well for me, I have deleted a lot of toons. Otherwise, I'm not sure how many toons I would have! Now fact is that I don't keep toons I don't like. In that case, I delete. No matter the level/age (side note: I have all dyes and no real need for the scrolls to level up. The booster is the only loss). Long ago, only once, I did delete a grandmaster crafter and re-built it up on another toon. That was not nice. I hope I will never have to repeat that but I can simply not keep a toon I do not like/use. I do not feel good at that.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@Nor.2057 said:Pretty interesting ideas everyone mentioning but still kinda hard to do...i wonder if deleted and recreated again can support recover some progress of past character?

No, the CS Team can not recreate/recover any character-bound progress. If you delete the character, all soul-bound items, recipes, crafting progression, age, etc. will be lost.

[Sylvari.2953]

Have you deleted an old character to recreate it on another one?Yeah, before we got megaservers I deleted all of my characters for a free server change, haha. Years ago I rerolled my Asura and Norn chars as Sylvari (I only play Sylvari now). I still delete old mains and random alts I don't use anymore. Birthday gifts are overrated, I honestly don't care much about them but this is an unpopular opinion. They shouldn't be tied to characters, that's just weird. Other MMOs do anniversary events anyone can participate and earn items, even brand new players. That's what I prefer. Anyway, I extremely rarely craft, I already have all my Ascended sets so I don't worry about losing maxed crafting. Everything I truly care about is account bound so I'm happy to delete my unused characters. :)

[Gop.8713]

Keep in mind also that upcoming build templates may allow you to have one template per specialization without actually adding those extra toon slots . . .

[Nor.2057]

@"Gop.8713" said:Keep in mind also that upcoming build templates may allow you to have one template per specialization without actually adding those extra toon slots . . .

true but the biggest reason to have "1 per specialization" is more of a variety thing to cover all races of each armor archetype

[Gop.8713]

@Nor.2057 said:

@"Gop.8713" said:Keep in mind also that upcoming build templates may allow you to have one template per specialization without actually adding those extra toon slots . . .

true but the biggest reason to have "1 per specialization" is more of a variety thing to cover all races of each armor archetype

yeah but you only need fifteen for that, so it saves you three or twelve slots, depending on whether you're counting base classes . . .

[PaxTheGreatOne.9472]

OP's Q: Have you deleted an old character to recreate it on another one?

Notable facts:

• I have 14000 hours played.
• I have 27 lvl 80's... , making my average time played/char a bit over 500 hours / character.
• 7 are 6+ years old, you can consider those my mains.
• These 7 are Necro, Ranger, Ele, Warrior, Thief, Guardian, Mesmer.... At headstart we had 8 classes.
• Roughly 6400 hours played on the oldest 7 characters,
• Nearly 2000 hours played on my main warrior,
• On my engineer, a mesmer and renegade combined: 130 hours hours played,
• I have 2 characters using exotic armor... these are 2 of the 3 fr0m the 130 hour played group.

In the first year I made an Engineer as well. An Asura, my only Asura at the time. It was remade several times in 1 year, and eventually replaced by a 2nd Warrior, and another class, the another class was replaced by a third warrior, now being my main. The 3rd warrior replaced the weapons of my 1st warrior and became a bleeding (S+S & LB) warrior, and my 1st warrior went power from bleeds , the second warrior was a hammer build which was mainly active in WvW, it doubled as a power build.

I made another engineer to see if it fit my playstyle then, only to be replaced by necro's, a ranger, another guardian, support ele's. In the end it took me 3 years to make an engineer which survived to receive it's 1st Birthday.

Some builds I repeatably made and some characters were remade, I deleted all my Asura(, 'well both of them',) at a given point in time as I was fed up with the Asura culture and diminutive attitude they projected upon other races, something I found unfitting and unbecoming. The builds I had on Asura were also ported. Names were not often copied tbh. I prefer to get new slots and make another one. I deleted a mesmer and an engineer when I removed my Asura.

I have many classes now but engineer never gained a decent foothold and it's often parked at the end of Jumping puzzles or other easy lootable worthwhile points, a thing the engineer shares with my sole renegade. Nor did Renegade for that matter.

I do however get 7 gifts in the 1st 5 and a half months of each new gameyear., this could have been 8 or even 9 if I had chosen to keep the AsuraAs you can read below my post I have 27 lvl 80's now... these 27 characters share 34 ascneded armors and a legendary armor, and still 2 have exotic armor. I have 165+ Ascended weapons. on accountIn total I made 32 characters, 5 were removed after several months of playing (or more)....I will not count the failed creations and characters who solely farmed for BL chest keys.....

[Riah.4816]

Yes. I deleted my main character of 5 years that was soon going onto 6. She was a warrior and I wanted her name for another character because eventually I had way more characters and stopped playing my warrior. I basically didn’t need her anymore. So I deleted her not even thinking about how she was coming onto 6 years and now I can’t get the devoted title or luminous armor. All my other characters still got a few years till their 6th birthday too. I wish birthdays were based on the account and not characters...

[Ashantara.8731]

I have deleted characters to recreate them on a different race.

There is no way to keep a character and their progress, yet start all over with them. It would be pretty cool, though, if you could reset your character for a price to start all over (i.e. have their whole history reset) and be given the opportunity to change race, profession and everything else you desire.

[Opal.9324]

I do this sometimes if I decide that a different class would fit one of my characters' looks or personalities better. There have also been a few times when I switched the names and appearances of my characters around because I thought they'd fit each others' classes better.

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

No, because of 100% map completion, bag slots and birthday presents.