Question for Altoholics

[Naxos.2503]

One for each class, and an asura (because I dont like Asuras, but wanted to see the story). I have a char of each race, and the rest are charrs.

[Skotlex.7580]

Nine characters, one for each profession. I use a script that tells me which is the "next in turn" character, and only advances on the list if I've played at least 40 minutes on the previous one. Just how I play. ^_^

Ever since build templates, I've had each character have two builds for different context: most of them are split between hybrid damage/support (for group events) and full power (for when alone), and some others are split between short range / long range (for those specific encounters where it isn't advisable to go melee). I must say it was a lot of fun outfitting and planning the second template set, so I can see the appeal on constantly creating new characters.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

33 here. I can't play all characters all the time of course. Here's the deal:

• 5 are equiped with 150 Agony resistance, so I'm running my T4 Fractals and choosing which character fits best for the party.
• I'm doing map completion with all, so when there is a new Living Story map, I do have lots of work to do.
• I parked a lot of my characters on specific spots like Rhendak or Ogre Wars to farm the Collection items.
• When running Dungeons or other activitys with my friends, I ask them to say any number between 1 and 33. The number they choose is my character for the event.

[Wolfb.7025]

I'm a charr exclusive player, I basically can play /focus on WvW, sPvP, Fractals, Raids.

I love to create new charr and dress them properly because I like to prove fashion wars on charr is totally possible. I love every charr I create, but once they're fashioned and properly geared up I tend to neglect them because 99% of the time I play as my Holosmith.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/478440471480369152/661767033062555667/unknown.png

I plan on making charr for each one of the elite specs/roles. And right now I have a total of 12 alts (some completely equipped and ready to go, and a few without even a proper fashion)

[Trise.2865]

19, currently; probably more if slots go on large sale or are given away. I like to have a good balance of races, genders, professions, and armor types. All but four are level 80 (i'm saving those for various playthroughs with specific friends who are currently unable to play). Who and how often I play depends on when and where. I tend to focus primarily on one "main" character to experience content blind or first, then filter through the others as I see fit. More if there is a particularly interesting interaction, or achievement that character triggers. My characters are out having their own adventures, not merely their stories as Commander, and I play the ones whose story needs to continue forward. I also have several "dedicated festival goers", characters who I've decided are big fans of a particular festival or holiday, and will play them almost exclusively during the event. For example: my Norn Elementalist absolutely loves Wintersday, and dresses like Santa Claus for the event; while my Human Engineer is "addicted" to Super Adventure Box and its paraphernalia.

Sylvari Revenant: "Would you like to take a moment to talk about Ventari? Have you read his tablet? Have you accepted Ventari into your life as your personal Horse and Teacher? Please, take some of these pamphlets and learn more about them!"

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I felt like build templates made my alts more useful because I didn't just have full supports that couldn't do any solo content, etc.

[Friday.7864]

I'm just aiming for 9 characters due to build templates so I can get my paws on all of the classes.Would love learning how to properly play all of them...I'm always impressed with people who know what they're doing, especially on a class like Mirage or Holo for example.

A few things hinder my motivation to play alts though:

• balance changes: by the time I learn a class its rotation and play style can change completely
• some classes require a ton of effort to learn
• not all classes are equally "valuable"

So yeah, my alts are underplayed due to that combo. I'm working on it tho - at a snail's pace.

[Rasimir.6239]

33 characters across two accounts. I just play whatever character I feel like playing that moment.

[Cyninja.2954]

31 characters:3 Elementalists, 2 Egnineers, 5 Guardians, 2 Mesmer, 3 Necromancers, 4 Rangers, 4 Renegades, 3 Thiefs and 4 Warriors with the final slot being a key farmer.

All of them have full access to both of their elite specializations. All are geared in exotic but mostly ascended gear. All of them unique race/class combinations (which is one of the reasons the number hasn't grown since I have just about all race/class combinations I like).

For most classes I have:

• 1-2 dedicated for PvE
• 1 dedicated for spvp
• 1 dedicated for WvW

I'd say around 1/2 of the characters see regular play, mostly depending on which game modes I play. PvE raids and fractal as well as WvW see the most play with spvp currently far behind. The remaining characters take on duties of getting logged out at goal specific locations (say when trading for provisioner tokens, daily heart quest farms for new maps, etc.) where it comes handy having spare characters, or as bank characters.

My approach and how I divided up my characters roles (and obviously their quantity and gear) is probably also one of the reasons I have nearly no issues with the build and equipment template system. Though that is obviously subjective and does not distract from the fact that some issues remain which could be optimized.

[Udolpho.1209]

@Maria Murtor.7253 said:33 here.

• I'm doing map completion with all

I almost fainted when I read that...

[Ultramex.1506]

27! Used to be each race each gender for story but I've realized what a waste of time that was so now?

• 3 of my favorite races for each professions (Asura/Charr/Sylvari)
• One race for one elite spec of that profession (I have 9 new characters for the third elite spec) However, since Druid is mainly a support Elite, 1 character can be both a Soulbeast and a Druid (Was going to do the same to Herald but because it's a offensive support)
• Thinking of deleting 2 of my Norns but because of the Ice Brood Saga, they'll stay........for now.

Even though Asura Engineer is my main (2k hours) i mostly play Boon Firebrand now for WvW and switch to Healing Scourge if i'm bored.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

@Udolpho.1209 said:

@Maria Murtor.7253 said:33 here.

• I'm doing map completion with all

I almost fainted when I read that...

It makes a ton of money and it's a fine feeling to know, that every character can go to every place in just a few seconds.

[kratan.4619]

I have 44 characters of varying races and classes. All of them have world completion, it normally ends up that I do not feel like working on achievements for a bit so I make a new character to just do another world complete. I park most of them either at the end of a jumping puzzle or near a particular harvest node. When the last living world zone came out I logged them on and did a map complete of the new zone over and over for the currency. Other than that, I normally only play my main character.

[SoulGuardian.6203]

23 characters.Initially I wanted to have 3 of each class, 1 core, 2 alt with different genders, (at least 1 male and 1 female), and elite specs; but ended up not liking some ES, such as Mirage, Holosmith, Scrapper, and so now I have a few repeated classes and ES but with different weapons and play style.

In some cases, because I create RP characters, they have to be a specific class.For instance, you would have to do a solid snake or a Leon Kennedy from a thief or a core engineer. Right?You can't really do a zombie apocalypse survivor a revenant, due to many important factors, such as armour style and weapons.

My cast are All human, as they all have a purpose and reason for existing ingame.I don't have a main per say.I've done HoT with male ranger.PoF with female elementalist.Now Icebrood Saga with female Necro.100 % map completion with male Guardian.So on so forth...

I have to have 1 of each elementalist, each one attuned with Specs, gear, and weapons to different elements. All 4.Actually 2 fire, so 5 Eles total.You just have to. You cannot have just 1 or 2 elementalists.

Don't have charr for one simple reason that bugs the hell out of me.They look stupid on top of mounts.I don't like norn in the least. Too arrogant.Although I do have plans for one... and the other two, Asura and Sylvari... don't have any because just doesn't feel right having a whole human cast/crew and having only 1 of the others in the midst.

Yeah silly, I know.I'd like to have at least 1 of the other races, but would have to be all 4 created in the same day.Don't ask why. I don't even know myself.

[Kanok.3027]

I have 21 toons, half of which are storage toons and the other half are either active or inactive, to a degree. For (in)active ones, I have one of each class in case I need it for a certain situation, like Mirage for portals, Thief/Engi for extended stealth, etc. My storage toons are retired toons that were once my mains and are now stale and I have changed to storage. They were good until I changed my tastes or went back to my older toons, as was the case with my Revenants and going back to my original.

I love alts and doing fashion wars with them all, despite my now lack of transmutation charges, but it's still worth it. I wish the character creator was much the same as it was in Aion or Sims 4 (mostly Aion) since you could HIGHLY customize toons so much and I loved it. You were able to create some very impressive characters in Aion with its character creator. I know why they don't do that here since armor would look very...odd and ugly with different body shapes, but I thought it was cool in Aion regardless.

My favorite races to make are Humans, Asura and to some extent, Sylvari. Norn and Charr are not my cup of tea, but I love them as playable races regardless.

All in all, always been an altoholic since my first MMO and probably always will be. A certified proud altoholic!

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

I have 12 alts, all at 80 and all but 2 with map completion -- working on it. And by that I mean through all the new maps as well as wvw. Currently trying to get each class their 200 pvp wins. I have been known to cycle through three or four on any given night in wvw, depending what is going on. Some are better at defending, some for zerging, and some for roaming. But each month they all get a workout. The dups in each class are considered experimental, meaning I can try wild builds. I can't have a key runner, because I find myself unable to delete a character. To me they are all part of a family, and each playthrough is events from their perspective. All of them see themselves as the hero

[Ayrilana.1396]

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:How many toons do you have?

19 plus an empty slot

Do you play a minimum number of hours on each toon?Or do you create and forget about the toon?

Neither. I use them to get around character bound restrictions and for builds without having to rely on build templates.

A more recent example is using each character to mine the nodes at the top of the new map, which are not subject to the account daily cap, as well as having them open the daily chest at the end of Raven Sanctum.

In previous episodes, I would use them to farm hearts to quickly gather living world map currencies.

[Anemone.5320]

Damn all those billion alts, I just have 5 chars xDThey each have their own story/personality/etc in my mind though. When I get bored or when their "story" ends I replace them with a new one.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

I have 9 chars total and mostly play my main.

I use the alts for crafting and storage and to get wardrobe pieces. I just made a light armor class to start getting more of those pieces unlocked.

I used my keyfarmer slot for him so I sold some stuff to get gems for another character slot, will wait to see if a sale comes up before my next key run.

I don't play the alts as much as I did when I first started the game, but I don't really feel like I've forgotten them either. I'm always logging on to them to move stuff from shared storage into their bags.

[Tzarakiel.7490]

I have 37. Four of every class and a joke character with a weird name I use exclusively for replying to people saying hello all in the guild chat.I also have most characters in full ascended and 10 of them are equipped with infusions for t4.

[Wisty.4135]

About... 38 toons across 2 accounts. All geared adequately. About equal amount of time on each character per game mode - one set for WVW, one set for PVP, one set for PVE, and one set on EU + a key farmer on each account.

[Weindrasi.3805]

I have 18 characters. Each character gets an extensive backstory; and a carefully thought-out name and appearance. However, all said and done, I definitely have my favorites. There are 4 characters who get most of my playtime, 5-6 who get a moderate amount of playtime, and 8 who don't get much at all.

[aspirine.6852]

I think around 16 or 17, across 2 accounts. Which one I will play depends on many things. Right now I am doing map completion on my main account to get the award to make some leggies. And since WvW is boring as shit these zerg days with the insane stupid damage I do not take that into account anymore.

[Eulefant.9624]

I run 2 accounts

Eulefant70 characters (all are 80, 45 have world complete),

I had to buy a second account about 18 months ago (discount) to carry on as anet removed my gemstore buy option ( got 1 extra due to having max at PoF pre )The second one, Atlos is:

23 characters (all are 80, 4 have world complete) now.

So 93 in total. Majority asura, as i like those, and many reapers, mesmers and rangers

I have a lot of reapers I use as workhorses.

The least played ones are warriors, I never could find fun in playing those.Some are at under 60 hours ( that's what I need to get to 80 I think )

I do daylies on a handful of characters, mostly reapers. Currently Wit Konijntje is my prime mover.I sometimes farm rich nodes, but mostly I level and map characters on the alt account nowadays.

I do miss the enormous amount of goodies the main account has at times, but I got all mounts and gliding, so the alt account plays well too.

naming and creating them I spend much time on,

on the main account I have some name series, like the emperor series: Charpoleon, Rat safari, Chinchilla the Hun, Cleopratta, etc

on the second account I picked all duck related names so if you see a [duck] running around, it might be me :-)

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

@Chichimec.9364 said:20 active alts and one open character slot. Most of my time is spent on my main though I change my main when I want to play a different profession for a while. Some alts are camped at various farming spots, some are my designated crafters. I do have a dedicated WvW alt and another one I use for loot farming in the Silverwastes, Istan, and Joko invasions. Others I use for farming mats across general maps. Used to have a slot set aside for a key farmer but got bored with that and don't bother with it anymore. As long as I've enjoyed playing them I don't consider any of my time spent on alts to be wasted.

This is me almost to a T. I have a couple fractal chars, 3 set up for raiding, 2 for WvW, 1 for harvesting, 1 bank-overflow mule that is 500 crafting in 2 professions so I will never delete it. You get the idea. But I also was shooting for, prior to build templates, 1 of each class with a power build and 1 of each class condition build, with a couple that did double duty as also healing &/or support. That has of course become easier now with templates. I definitely use some more than others but I play all of them and have them all geared with full ascended on at least 1 build, with the exception of the odd weapon here or there. Each has at least 1 or more reasonably viable builds and I use playing new content as it is released to maintain at least basic proficiency on those builds.

I will say that having this many alts does make balance updates a pain and relatively expensive at times though. . . . That said, having a bunch of chars also keeps up a steady flow of birthday gifts which has some nice perks.