Warrior, Rogue or Mage?

Potential-Monke

So i'm nearing the end of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and it got me thinking. I always, without fail, play the Warrior type. I love getting up close and personal. The thought of mostly ranged or magic attacks just don't sit well with me. Yes, maxed out Mages can look awesome, and have some devastating attacks, and the speed of Rogues can be a huge asset, but there's just something about rushing in a cleaving your way through loads of enemies that gets my blood going.

So, which is normally your first choice?

Generic Dreadhead

If this is relevant to all RPG type games you need more options, not maybe, just 1 or 2
I'm assuming you consider Mage to be covering Wizard/Spellcaster and Rogue to be covering Archer and Warrior to be the Tank.
I often find magic users to be offered in 2 forms Weak Physical Strength Wizards and Medium Physical Strength Mage/Alchemist

johnny_ultimate

I tend to prefer magic casters.

That said, I think every game should let you play before allowing you to make a decision. It's unfair forcing a player to pick a class when they haven't had the opportunity to see how the game works. To me, it's relatively poor game design to make a player assign stats and powers etc... right after the title screen. A more sensible approach would be to either offer a 'prologue' introducing better styles before forcing any choices, or better yet start as a blank slate and allow an individual style to emerge naturally and dynamically through play.

Mickeroo

Playing KoA:R myself at the moment.

I tend to go for rogues as I like stealth and speed but in this I'm doing a rogue/mage hybrid build since you can choose the different fates, so it's best of both worlds.

In Dark Souls I always go for DEX builds too which is much the same thing.

Washington Irving

Depends on the game, but I tend to favour Rogue/archer/stealth type characters. But like the OP said, nothing beats just hacking through a bunch of enemies with a warrior type.

Skerries

I normally go for the Warrior but I was playing Bound by Flame and ended up mostly switching to the Rogue stance as it felt more natural for that game
I think I played Dragon Age 1 mostly as a Rogue as well
I just feel like I am too weak as a Mage until later in games and don't want to be cowering away but getting stuck in with my Axe or Bastard Sword

dreamers75

Skyrim Archery and one handed so basically a stealthy warrior.

Sand

If its all CRPGs, then yeah I would gravitate towards the mage archetypes. Sometimes rogues, last of all warriors. Mages tend to be more interesting for me. I have played some warrior archetypes in games like Skyrim because its fun, but even there, Mages are more fun and have more options to mess around with the AI.

Under most designs, Warriors tend to be pretty powerful in the early game, max out around mid game and then plateau. They can do a consistent amount of damage, all day long whereas Mages need to rest after almost every encounter. As the mid game and late game opens up you tend to run into less and less melee mobs. It tends to be either huge boss monsters (Skyrim dragons), magic users or ranged enemies that move around, have immunities, are invisible or are otherwise difficult for a melee fighter to close with and actually injure.

I just re-completed Baldurs Gate there (using BGT mod) and and the opening play of one of the enemy wizards is to instantly cast a "Save or Die" spell, and a "Weaken your Save" spell with it. If it lands, your Fighter is dead. End of. And if your fighter survives...no matter how strong or tough he is, he cant go toe to toe with Sarevok. You've got to spam him Summonings to keep him busy because otherwise he will kill your tank very quickly.

Meanwhile the Mage power is going through the roof, and usually he doesn't even need the Warrior anymore to tank - he just summons something that is either more numerous, has more immunities, and/or is just more expendable than a character. I find myself ending up spending a lot of time getting equipment and casting spells to try and protect the Warrior so he can do average damage, when if that Warrior was a Mage we could just be breaking out all sorts of crazy damage, crowd control, and plain out "Save or die" effects on the enemy.

Kiith

I always used to pick Paladin when playing rpg's. From Warcraft to Baldurs Gate, i was a pally without fail. Guess it was part to do with the fact that i was always a bit of a goody two shoes in most games i played.

Then i realised they are kind of boring for the most part, and tend to stick with a Mage (Necromancer if i can) nowadays. Warlock in Warcraft, Sorceror in Baldurs Gate etc...

Shiminay

I'm a "give me a battle axe and let me decapitate things" sort of person, so Warrior type for me. It's something I think Kingdoms of Amalur did quite well in it's opening is giving you a flavour of all three archetypes to let you choose what to go for.

ShadowHearth

Warrior type melee fighters with biggest weapon you can handle are always my first picks. In wow I am pretty much Warrior/paladin and rogue for fun. I just cant find playing casters fun at all. Not because they all squishy, its just it does not feel Epic!

degrassinoel

generally play all until i find what it is i'm looking for, and that tends to be a sneaky rogue

I think it stems back to the days of the original 'Thief' when being a sneaky thief meant playing something awesome.

ShadowHearth

degrassinoel wrote: »

generally play all until i find what it is i'm looking for, and that tends to be a sneaky rogue

I think it stems back to the days of the original 'Thief' when being a sneaky thief meant playing something awesome.

Problem is, these RPGs dont really flesh out well these Rogue classes and it ends up just a class that backstabs once from behind and it becomes weak warrior class. :pac:

pixelburp

I picked rogue, representing whatever class or loadout that allows me to sneak around the place, sending arrows into unsuspecting enemies from the safety of the shadows - while picking their pockets of course. Charging about trying to smash everyone's head in doesn't interest me at all, and find it much more gratifying when I manage to skulk through a dungeon undetected. Mind you, when doing so in Skyrim, it meant my perspective was about knee-height, spending much of my time crouched, which was a bit odd

Similarly, if there's an option to play the game as a pacifist, be it through the total avoidance of confrontation, or simply the use of non-lethal weapons, I'll take it. Killing everyone in the room is easy, the trick is making it so they never knew you were there I always found it a pity the aforementioned Skyrim didn't offer a non-lethal path.

Varik

Depends on the game, you don't always have the most control over you allies and at those times playing Tank helps you control the battle a bit more. In MMOs I'm usually a tank, sometimes a DPS but rarely CC or Healer.

Looking forward to the new everquest, you pick a class at the start as per the norm but you find/unlock the rest as you go and can then mix and match abilities. Hopefully it won't end up like most RPGs were everyone picks the same build that's been found to be the best after a few excel files full of number crunching.

As they're RPGs, the story matters a lot so I'd tend to base my choice a lot more in that.

ballyargus

Mage first, rogue second and warrior third. Warriors have always seemed quite dull to play with. The other two seem to offer more ways to approach situations.

YouSavedMyLife

For me it would be a 50/50 split between warrior and mage. But in the end it really depends on the game. A game like Dark Souls I would pretty much always play a melee character. But in something like World of Warcraft I have never played the Warrior, Paladin, or Deathknight class.

Zapp Brannigan

I usually go for Ranger types.

Magill

Warlock/Summonor, Rogue or a support class. Depends on the game obviously but Warlock/Rogue/Shaman were the 3 classes I played most in WoW and so those kind of playstyles I like more than any other. Warrior styled gameplay never really did it for me tbh.

Reekwind

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

That said, I think every game should let you play before allowing you to make a decision. It's unfair forcing a player to pick a class when they haven't had the opportunity to see how the game works. To me, it's relatively poor game design to make a player assign stats and powers etc... right after the title screen. A more sensible approach would be to either offer a 'prologue' introducing better styles before forcing any choices, or better yet start as a blank slate and allow an individual style to emerge naturally and dynamically through play.

I can see your point but then these are very well established archetypes. Everyone knows that a rogue is stabby-stabby while mages are fireball machines that can be blown over by a gust of wind. That this discussion can even take place is because people automatically know what those terms mean.

And that, to me, is a bigger problem. There was an interesting snippet of the recent RPS interview with Josh Sawyer on how Obsidian deliberately backed away from more radical ideas when designing Pillars of Eternity, in order to keep that nostalgic 'D&D feel'. Which disturbs me slightly.

So I'd like to see more variety in classes, rather than constantly playing off the same three pillars. That said, I also like hitting people hard with virtual lumps of metal - fighter, here.

BizzyC

I always go for more of a Ranger type mold.

Hit them from a distance with your arrows, finish them off when they get close with some speedy melee skills.

gizmo

For years I was always a straight up Warrior class player, the typical big sword and shield type character.... and then I played Demon Souls. Whether it was the fear of melee-based combat with something that could **** me up at any point or just the fact that carrying heavier gear made me feel so sluggish, I slowly leaned towards more spell powers as I played. In the end I ended up with a dress-wearing dual-wield Curved Sword/Catalyst...SoulWarrior, I guess?

Not only did this prove to be more fun (and safer) but to echo what was said before about more concrete archetypes, I enjoyed building my character around my playstyle rather than just putting points into the usual stats. Sure, he probably wasn't as powerful as a pure Warrior or Mage but he was still incredibly fun to play with.

Since then I've had a PyroKnight in Dark Souls and what I guess is a slightly more ordinary Lightning-happy Paladin in Dark Souls 2. In other RPGs since I've leaned towards the Paladin type class since, using existing archetypes, it's closer to my play style than a straight up warrior. The current exception being Dragon Age where I'm playing a Dual Wield Berserker Champion Warrior. :pac:

Manach

Split between Mage type (cloth cannon) or Paladin (self-healing tank) - depending on different type of game-playing style.

Wossack

magic ninja

Sand

Reekwind wrote: »

And that, to me, is a bigger problem. There was an interesting snippet of the recent RPS interview with Josh Sawyer on how Obsidian deliberately backed away from more radical ideas when designing Pillars of Eternity, in order to keep that nostalgic 'D&D feel'. Which disturbs me slightly.

So I'd like to see more variety in classes, rather than constantly playing off the same three pillars. That said, I also like hitting people hard with virtual lumps of metal - fighter, here.

Agreed, I saw the class list and thought...hmm. There is so much cross over between say Fighter/Paladin/Ranger (and even Monk).

In the interests of allowing a player to start simple, experiment and then specialise wouldn't it have been better to have a core "Warrior" class and then allow the player to purchase Feats or Kits that would allow a bit of mix and match of Fighter/Paladin/Ranger skills and abilities? You could end up with a fairly unique "class" all of your own while allowing the player to make mistakes early on and not have to restart because they suddenly realise they don't find Ranger fun and want to be a Paladin instead.

But I suppose they are kickstart driven and they are delivering what the backers called for. They don't have the scope for experimentation that they would have if it was entirely their own project.

Reekwind

Sand wrote: »

But I suppose they are kickstart driven and they are delivering what the backers called for. They don't have the scope for experimentation that they would have if it was entirely their own project.

Which is pretty much what Sawyer said. To quote from the interview:

"Early on, and this isn’t going to happen now, we had some ideas that people might still be interested in. We use souls, your own and other peoples’, as a justification or a reason as to why powers work the way that they do. But ultimately, many of the ways that those powers work, mechanically, are locked into existing ideas. They’re not necessarily executed exactly how you’ve seen before but we are a little limited in how we can build our classes because we want them to be understood by a D&D audience. We can’t go too heavy on the souls.

So we don’t move too far away. A lot of people will come to this game and make one character that they use in all of these kind of games. A sneaky rogue or an intelligent wizard. If we don’t support that kind of class, or make it play radically different than what the player is used to, it can be frustrating. Because this is a nostalgia-driven game, I think it’s important that we meet that expectation."

Which is fine. I'm sure that it will still work in its own right (and I'll probably enjoy the nostalgia hit) but I think it does hint at the drawbacks of Kickstarter and nostalgia-based gaming in general. It's almost as if they've exchanged the constraints of publishers for the constraints of the masses.