Guild Wars 2

Something some altoholics may be familiar with is retiring certain characters and not playing them anymore. In Guild Wars 1 I have a couple of retired characters and I’m about to retire my first Guild Wars 2 character, the first character I got world complete on.

The character is a human engineer, and though he has a legendary and pretty much BIS gear…I’m just not feeling him. I can’t find a play style I really like. Particularly now that necro has become so much fun to play, I just don’t feel like going back to him.

Now, retirement doesn’t have to be permanent, but I do have another engineer that I like better, so it’s likely this character will stay retired.

Does anyone else retired characters?

why would you waste a character slot on another character of the same profession?

I’ve retired my elementalist. I just cannot play the ele without dying every other step…

And why “waste” a character slot? Because I like different play styles on different characters. My main ranger I prefer to use axe+torch on, but on my Charr ranger, I didn’t like it. So, I use long and short bow on him. My Asuran ranger will use a greatsword (not sure about the second weapon set on him), etc.

I won’t call it retired but my main Mesmer that I have played since the betas (played her exclusively until about January this year) and have the most world complete on is sitting pretty much unused.
She is a full condition Mesmer, human and I am just not in the mood for her atm, also she has been in the same gear since she reached level 80 back in Sept- can’t find a new look for her.

I find that I play my Ranger and my Engineer much more- they are just more fun for me atm.
Doing world complete on the Ranger now- since I sort of have Kudzu in the back of my mind for her

I have started a new Mesmer this last weekend though- a Sylvari this time and she is fun to play.
My intention was to try out the different weapons and play-styles with out having to re-gear my main- did that for a bit and guess what- she is also playing with a GS/Staff

-_-

My engineer is also pretty much retired. My first one that is. He looks great, has done every job I’ve asked of him, but he’s just tired now. I’m thinking of just using him as a crafter so he won’t be completely retired. I think really its because he was one of my first characters. I know what I’m doing now so my other engineers feel more “useful”. And fun. I can see a time when a few other of my older characters get a well deserved rest as well.

My asuran mesmer is now purely used for weaponsmithing and jewelcrafting. I have a new human female mesmer which I use in dungeons. I couldnt enjoy the mesmer with the terrible asuran attack animations. Since re-rolling as a human i have a lot more fun with the class.

I retired my Sylvari necro and started a Norn necro because I like the Norn necro starter Demon Masque and general appearance much better. The armor I have is the same but looks better on the Norn. I’ve already gotten a couple of compliments on her. ^^

I retired my lvl 27 human engineer because I found out that norns are way cooler than humans and engineer was to weird class for me.
But I kept my engineer because I leveled jewelcrafting to max

I play them all except my thief, so if I am thinking about retiring one it will probably the thief. And He is just lvl 20 because of the scroll I got :/
I probably would buy another slot before deleting my char though.

I retired my charr warrior not too long ago, I got this nagging feeling I could be enjoying warrior more, but I bit my lip and soldiered on to 80, couple weeks later I decide to level a human warrior to 80, haven’t looked back, it was definetly the charr I didn’t like, loving warrior like never before.

I was originally drawn to charr because of their guns and battle theme, so unreal tournament tough guy stuff, I expected something epic, but I got none of that playing a one.

Not sure if I’ll delete my charr warrior, it was my first character… but I’m never going to play it seriously EVER AGAIN, charr look too silly, and nothing looks good on them >:|

Go humans ! (t3 human cultural too good)

I don’t retire characters. I might not play a certain one for a period of time but they are all available for me to use when I feel like it. I had one of each profession in GW1 and I have the same in GW2. I never thought about creating a 2nd character of any profession until recently and it is solely because of looks but I haven’t decided if I want to level a 9th character to 80.

C’mon OP fess up. You didn’t retire your engineer, Retaliation retired your engineer. ;D

I never retire..just shelf for a while.

I used to play 3 or four classes. Now Im down to two…thief and mesmer. Thief for PVE, mesmer for WvW.

I always thought it would be cool to have a ‘bronzing’ system for stuff you don’t want anymore, but are still proud of, like items or even characters. ‘Bronzing’ them would basically turn them in to trophies that you could store in your personal instance.

If you mean truly retired (meaning done everything you want to with it after maxing it out and will most likely never be played again) and not simply underplayed due to class changes/nerfs/whatever, then no, I have never retired one. The ones I do not play are still around, but they’re not truly retired, because I have situation-specific builds on them.

I have deleted a few higher-leveled ones because they became unplayable (for me) or the class has changed so much that I can’t get into them.

I have retired my warrior, elementalist, thief, ranger (all 80), I quit progressing my necromancer (53) and engineer (22).

I haven’t deleted them yet, but I harvested their non-essential gear. For example, my elementalist does not have a staff.

All I play is my guardian, my mesmer, and my other mesmer

My “retired” characters are on the Pavilion-Invasion pension system.

I am still trying to figure out if there is a reason other than aesthetics that would make someone want to have multiple of the same class. Am I missing something or is that it?

My Guardian is hung up on a shelf in Rata Sum, watching his brethren venture out into the world in search of adventure. He is sad. But he is boring to play so he can suck it.

KeybladeMaster.3148:

why would you waste a character slot on another character of the same profession?

Because I don’t consider it a waste. lol

My characters are sort of real to me. It’s not really role playing but more like immersion. Comes from a background in writing. All my characters have back stories.

My engineer, he likes to blow things up. He’s a completely different guy than my other engineer, who’s more of an alchemist at heart. They’re different people…they do different things.

In Guild Wars 1, even though my warrior could use every weapon I had a different warrior for a hammer, a different for an ax and a different one for a sword. Why?

Because my thin, agile sword master wouldn’t condescend to use a hammer. It’s too big and clunky. Not enough finesse. He’d scoff at hammer users.

It’s who he was.

Dasboba.1652:

C’mon OP fess up. You didn’t retire your engineer, Retaliation retired your engineer. ;D

If that was the case, why do I have another engineer? lol

Funny though.

So there is a character you’re not playing much anymore…ok, who cares? Why do you have to call it “retirement”? You’re just not playing that character anymore, cool bro.

Toat.2761:

So there is a character you’re not playing much anymore…ok, who cares? Why do you have to call it “retirement”? You’re just not playing that character anymore, cool bro.

Apparently some people care, since they answered. Now if you personally don’t care, why do you feel it necessary to come and say that?

Forums are for discussions, this is a discussion.

I’ve been thinking about retiring my sylvari elementalist for a human or norn ele. I’m just not feeling my sylvari anymore but no way in hell will I delete her (she was made in the head start). It would just be much more beneficial to buy another character slot and make another ele.

Yeah the whole deleting character thing is very hard for me. I might never use this guy again, but I can’t see myself ever deleting him.

I actually thought about trying a makeover kit to see if that changes how I feel about the character…but I’m still not sure about that.

I haven’t retired any in GW2 yet, only just made 80 the other day, and still got a lot of exploring to do with her. However I have on other games, either I have just grown tired of the character, or changes to the class meant it didn’t play the way it used to and the new way did not suit that character or a different class suddenly seemed to click for me.

I always end up with a lot of characters (already up to 15 on my main account and 4 on my secondary account) so I have multiples of most professions and each variations tends to get specced differently so if I don’t feel like playing one it can sit there until I do want to play it.

I can’t retire a character.
Emotionally I just can’t.
I’ll re-trait them, I’ll re-armor, re-equip, and basically replay them in a different light if I can.
If I can’t, I will just not use that character slot because I know one day I’d regret hitting that delete button.

Yeah, I retired my 80 Thief because, just like you, I didn’t find a play style that I liked or enjoyed. I transferred all of his money and anything useful over to my Elementalist. I honestly don’t feel attached to a single character that I own, so it wasn’t too difficult to just say, “Well, all done with this character. Bye bye”.

One character in the Priory to craft the daily charged core – one character in the home instance to mine quarz – it’s not really playing them, but perhaps limiting their purpose.
At one point I’ll likely rotate.

Other than that I can effectively only play one character at a time – what does “retiring” mean exactly other than … well not playing them for an extended period of time?

Vayne.8563:

Yeah the whole deleting character thing is very hard for me. I might never use this guy again, but I can’t see myself ever deleting him.

I actually thought about trying a makeover kit to see if that changes how I feel about the character…but I’m still not sure about that.

Don’t delete, just place them in extended vacation.

To me, Anet retired all my champions (I have all professions at level 80, and yes, they are my champions not characters or alts) after Zhaitan — but instead, they are on vacation visiting tropical places and site seeing molten areas, just to name a few.

But, lately, I feel like playing some other game…

Vayne.8563:

Yeah the whole deleting character thing is very hard for me. I might never use this guy again, but I can’t see myself ever deleting him.

I actually thought about trying a makeover kit to see if that changes how I feel about the character…but I’m still not sure about that.

It might actually help you- especially if your characters are people as you say.
It has helped me for some characters
I am seriously considering this for my Mesmer but I am too attached to her looks- I made her originally in bWE2
I just want a new armor look for her- she is shy, bookish and snooty lol

I don’t delete characters because I want to have 1 of each profession just in case, and I always have access to crafting at 400.

I have never deleted a character and never will no matter what. I would far prefer to pay real money for a extra character slot than ever delete one of my characters…

I have ‘retired’ my 8o Ranger, decked out in full available ascended trinkets, Rox’s shortbow and endless mining pick. I retired my Ranger when they reduced shortbow range by 25% and nerfed pets. Have not played the character since.

Its taught me a valuble lesson, never buy stuff with real money for any of your characters because Anet are perfectly happy to nerf a class into being useless/not enjoyable to play any more.

My Thief, who was my original character during Head Start, is retired to spvp only. He completed the main storyline and did a fair amount of WvW, but I just got bored of him in pve and found I prefer the more play style choices of the Warrior for PVE. Also since I mostly only WvW in large guild events these days I prefer bringing a high support guardian so I keep keep my fellow guildies up and killing. I am still slowly leveling characters of every other class.

KeybladeMaster.3148:

why would you waste a character slot on another character of the same profession?

FORE THE SAKE OF ROLEPLAYING.

Learned this in another thread. Pretty dope huh?

ShadowPuppet.3746:

I am still trying to figure out if there is a reason other than aesthetics that would make someone want to have multiple of the same class. Am I missing something or is that it?

I have 2 of the same. I have them both geared according to a different play style. If I’m heading to WvW, I use one, and if I am going to PvE, I use the other. Also, if I have a friend holler for someone to go do (insert activity here) then I can grab either and go, rather than fish around for 20 minutes re-traiting and re-gearing. If Anet ever institutes one-button gear swapping, one will probably be either a mule or get “retired.”

KeybladeMaster.3148:

why would you waste a character slot on another character of the same profession?

you are obviously not an altoholic. You wouldn’t understand.

I’ve retired my one Charr character by deletion once I got the racial story achievements. I will retire my one Asura character once i complete that racial story. The rest get played depending on how they are geared and what I intend to do, which means that some see more play than others. That does not mean retirement to me, only deletion would accomplish that. I did retire a L72 Norn Guardian, though — by my standards.

While you say, “retired,” I hear, “temporarily not being played.”

Eventually there will be a weapon skin, armor set, or bit of content released that will make you think, “hey this would be perfect for my other engineer,” and BAM no more retirement.

My Thief is semi-retired. I don’t care for the Thief play style but when the Molten pickaxe came out I gave her one before I figured out I didn’t really want to play Thief. Now she is parked at my home instance to mine the crystal node. Heck I almost never even do that anymore because I have no use for it and the novelty wore off quick.

My other 11 alts just get to take some vacation time every now and then.

I let them sit there until I feel like using them one day.

Retired my thief.

I’ve played a lot of pvp and wvw on it, and it disgusts me how much your hand gets held, with no recharge, lots of shadow step stun breakers, perma evasion and perma stealth. But noobs do need an easy class to feel like they’re competing. I have no problems killing them (or at least not dying to them, the thief usually runs off) due to playing it, it’s just a really lame gimmick filled class and I feel dirty playing it.

My assassin in Gw1 only had 100 hours logged, I couldn’t bring myself to play it because of how lame shadow form got abused for farming, it tainted the class for me. Thief is comparable to shadow form sins.

My ele has been retired since one month in, the effectively-4-weapons spamming just doesn’t appeal to me :p

Ashen.2907:

While you say, “retired,” I hear, “temporarily not being played.”

Eventually there will be a weapon skin, armor set, or bit of content released that will make you think, “hey this would be perfect for my other engineer,” and BAM no more retirement.

Then we can have a thread on characters making their Big Comeback. They’ll be done with traveling the world incognito, writing their memoirs, going to rehab – they’ll be back, baby! Back!

Vayne.8563:

Something some altoholics may be familiar with is retiring certain characters and not playing them anymore. In Guild Wars 1 I have a couple of retired characters and I’m about to retire my first Guild Wars 2 character, the first character I got world complete on.

The character is a human engineer, and though he has a legendary and pretty much BIS gear…I’m just not feeling him. I can’t find a play style I really like. Particularly now that necro has become so much fun to play, I just don’t feel like going back to him.

Now, retirement doesn’t have to be permanent, but I do have another engineer that I like better, so it’s likely this character will stay retired.

Does anyone else retired characters?

I just delete the level 80’s i don’t like anymore, the exotics i can get again, and its another reason i do not get legendaries..

KeybladeMaster.3148:

why would you waste a character slot on another character of the same profession?

So you can get an Asura version of every Profession of course, why on earth wouldn’t a player want an extra Asura Character..

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Yeah the whole deleting character thing is very hard for me. I might never use this guy again, but I can’t see myself ever deleting him.

I actually thought about trying a makeover kit to see if that changes how I feel about the character…but I’m still not sure about that.

It might actually help you- especially if your characters are people as you say.
It has helped me for some characters
I am seriously considering this for my Mesmer but I am too attached to her looks- I made her originally in bWE2
I just want a new armor look for her- she is shy, bookish and snooty lol

Yeah but he’s my 400 huntsman and leather worker, so I guess he’s not quite retired…just retired from adventuring. lol

Ashen.2907:

While you say, “retired,” I hear, “temporarily not being played.”

Eventually there will be a weapon skin, armor set, or bit of content released that will make you think, “hey this would be perfect for my other engineer,” and BAM no more retirement.

The thing is, I probably won’t ever play this guy again in the open world…though I will probably have to craft with him, since he’s my 400 huntsman and leatherworker.

But no, when I retired a character, even though I tend to keep them I never play the again. At least that’s the way it was in GW 1.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

While you say, “retired,” I hear, “temporarily not being played.”

Eventually there will be a weapon skin, armor set, or bit of content released that will make you think, “hey this would be perfect for my other engineer,” and BAM no more retirement.

The thing is, I probably won’t ever play this guy again in the open world…though I will probably have to craft with him, since he’s my 400 huntsman and leatherworker.

But no, when I retired a character, even though I tend to keep them I never play the again. At least that’s the way it was in GW 1.

Understood.

Keep your options open though. GW2’s approach to content addition makes it more likely that a bit of content will come along to catch your fancy for a given character.

i park my less played characters at lions arch’s trolls end and sharkmaw cavern jumping puzzle chests. that would be 7 of them.

i play my warrior mainly nowadays.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i park my less played characters at lions arch’s trolls end and sharkmaw cavern jumping puzzle chests. that would be 7 of them.

i play my warrior mainly nowadays.

Hmm, that’s a good point. I should park my Ele in LA at a chest. Would make him more useful!

Me too. I completed World with necro and it also was my first character and I cannot Enjoy it anymore since months. I still prefer guardian, warrior and Mesmer. Plus, I’ve made an asura Mesmer and I enjoyed that playstyle very much, but asura doesn’t fit me and don’t Wanna spend rare skin on it. So i already create a new mesmer human, gong To level it and Get it a legendary