Guild Wars 2

I know most MMO players have alts, but I’m curious how many decided to stick with just one character and why.

Also:
What are the pros and cons of solo characters vs. alts specific to GW2?

If you have alts, do you do the same things for them all (legendaries, ascended gear, 100% completion, etc.) or not?

People who are able to stick to a single character forever have always impressed me.

I have 55 characters on one account and 5 on the other. None of them are a true main and they all perform the same job for me. Which is really to just enjoy the game as I like to play it, and the way I like to play it is by rolling characters and watching their stories unfold. I’m currently getting a whole bunch ready to be my focus characters for the expansion, and planning out the rest for what I think the other expansions will involve. The con for me is that I can’t play them all as often I’d like.

Out of interest I don’t have any 100% map completions or legendaries or ascended, and I haven’t even fought Zhaitan yet.

I was initially going to run a single character. But then I got curious as to what the warrior mechanics were like…then guard..then ele…

Today I have one of every class at 80, besides necro (I don’t like the theme, plus they’re pretty bad at pve)

I think the game stays fun for longer if you have some variety.

I have Generaly always Stuck to my Main Ranger though i have made other charaters quickly understanding their machanics i got bored relativly quickly though being and playing a Ranger type class since forever its my personal choice and find them much more challenging that other classes because they have so much more variety of builds/combat methods since Melee is kinda restrictive to what you can do and sets limits of range vs ability to be Effective in many difference situations where those other classes have to choose what type of situation there build is based around.

but rangers don’t have that problem and i enjoy their flexiability too, as i have been the same in all games apart form Pso online 1&2 i made a mage+hunter :P the melee weapons still bored me.

I have one of each class, many at 80, but I do near everything on my ranger.

i recently got my guard to 80 (mostly via tomes and crafting) but i still have about 95% of my playtime on my ranger.

I think a major pro of having one character is not having to spend the money gearing out tons of character. and a fault is that you -obviously- only have the one character :P

Where’s all the single character players? This is a potentially interesting thread topic.

I’m normally a single character player, I have each class to 80 but I only use them for PvP achievements and otherwise have them at a harvesting position.

Alts don’t really make much sense to me, you create your character and that is an avatar of you. Once you’ve made your character all your efforts should be in trying to advance its position (gain more items, complete more content, hunt rarer items).

Making an alt splits your available time and makes you “waste” resources by having to gear up, level up and do other things again on a second character (not sure about other people but once I’ve played content once I remember it for a fairly long time so I don’t get the new world feel). Generally leveling up is also my least favorite part of an MMO, its just a time gate before you get to the actual competition and the stage of advancing your character in a meaningful way.

I also always play the exact same character on all MMO’s/Gaames so there’s that too (Red hair/blue eyes elementalist/mage equivalent).

What is the point of having only one character?

There are 8 classes, 5 races currently, playing 1 character means your are accessing only 1/8 class mechanic, 1/5 personal story, 1/3 cosmetic gear, 1/2 gender specific cosmetic gear. Dude, you do really missed out a lot of things in the game, and you will run out of content much faster than someone who make alt.

I could not do that xD
I have all 8 professions at level 80, in exotic or better gear, 5 with 100% map completion, which makes me have 5 main characters in my eyes. The first was my Mesmer.
The mechanics of other professions interested me, so I rolled them. I like to be able to get to character selection and think “Should I confuse or blow people up?” “Should I protect other characters or hide in shadows?”
Variety is the spice of life right?

I have only one character. The benefit is I can focus completely on him and his achievements. I don’t have to go back and redo certain things (i.e. Silverwastes) in order to gain those benefits for alts.

I also save a ton of gold not having to buy gear, level skills, and other similar actions.

Plus, I get to understand the class better if I focus solely on that class that I not only enjoy, but feel it is superior to the others for my play-style.

The other thing will sound odd, but there’s something . . . special . . . about that one character. He’s done everything since beta. He’s my original character and the one I’ll stick with until the game is gone.

But, to be fair, I’ve always been that way. Play one, and only one, class if I enjoy it. Just makes sense to me.

Why divide my attention?

i have all professions to 80 except thief (just cant get away with it) and all asuras lol.
My main was a raanger with 2k hours and then swapped to mesmer which is now over 2k hours also.
I’ve got my main (mesmer) kitted out exactly how i like and love to play her and play her 95% of my time.
Only time i use my alts is for the different pvp requirements.

I have 9 level 80s out of which I enjoy 2… I tried giving a legendary to my alts to see if it improves my enjoyment. Nope. Though I still keep them for the various different functions that they serve.
The ones that I ended up playing often: elementalist, my main and necro my favorite alt.
I suppose I could get a feel for engineer and mesmer (maybe?)
The ones that I’ll remake as asura to see if it helps (asura is my favorite race): thief and warrior. Don’t know what’s about them that makes me dislike these two classes so much.

I have 7 80’s (no necro), and while I play most of them at least a bit every month, I definitely play my guardian the most. Guardian is over 60% of my total play time going by /age. The other 80’s are generally only used for special purposes (ele AC, thief CM and TA f, engi WvW roaming, war WvW grouping).

My guard is the only one I bought all the convenience items for, has everything all ascended, and is the one I know the different playstyles best.

I have 7 characters, 6 of them at 80. Only my thief isn’t. Hard to survive on that one. The only class I don’t have is the guardian. I absolutely hate the guardian. I tried it once and couldn’t win fights against range characters. Against one, I could sometimes run away, against 2 ranged characters, I always died. From my POV, that class is absolutely worthless. Obviously, others had a better experience with it, but I have no idea how they do it.

I have no Charr characters. They just don’t appeal to me. Three of my characters are Asuras. I find them amusing. Two Norns, and one human.

I like to have variety in the classes to ward off boredom from doing the same thing all the time.

Pockets.3201:

I have one of each class, many at 80, but I do near everything on my ranger.

I’m the same, except that all my toons are at level 80.

I have the best stuff on my ranger (asc set and weapons and frostfang), but almost all my alts have ascended trinkets and I’m in process of crafting an asc heavy set.

Have options is great, I mainly play as ranger but in pvp I prefer eng, guardian and necro. I can bring my mesmer for some JPs and guild missions/events, I can fill any spot in a WvW “raid” if my guild needs and so on.

For me , I learned many years ago in other games , that having all the classes leveled up and geared gives significant advantages over 1 character . The biggest one for me is getting an in depth understanding of what each class can and cant do . This not only makes pvp much more fun due to knowing what your opponent is going to do before he does it . But when they nerf my favorite char to oblivion in the latest balance patch , I can just go find the char they buffed to the moon and run them till next balance patch .

I also like to craft . So , in the process of leveling up all the char in the various areas . You end up getting a massive stock of mats to easily and quickly max all crafting disciplines . Because of this , you make tons of gold just leveling them and selling the products you made to level , so gearing all your chars is a breeze . Into ascended ,of course not , but minimum rings ,back and accessories ascended the rest exotics no problem . then you just slowly build up there end game gear till the level cap rises lol .

I cant play 1 char as it will just bore me and force me into another game . But these are the things that make good MMO’s . Variety , a little something for everyone

How does one stick to a single character, exactly…? oO

I admit I played at least half of my hours with my main elementalist and my main necromancer, but I have at least one character for each profession, plus three rangers, two necros and two eles… in short, I’m an altoholic

Class differences aside, I have them either for convenience (second necro is a condimancer, while the first one is a power necro, and I don’t have to constantly switch builds and gear), or because they were spawned from my very first character’s backstory. No joke. All but two of my alts are somehow, in my mind, connected to my first elementalist. It just… happens.

I mostly play them for fun, and they don’t have any special gear. One ranger has Kudzu, and my first elementalist has ascended gear with agony infusions for fractals, but that’s about it. Most characters don’t have a special purpose, aside maybe from my second ele whom I mostly play in PvP.

I always roll one main that is my numero uno.

Why? Because the biggest commodity and currency in any and all MMORPG’s is time. Hands down.

As such I don’t have the luxury to have 5 alts with map completion and legendaries, etc, etc and I can’t play 6+ hours a day.

In saying I usually have a secondary which is usually born from the need for gameplay variation and in games like this the fact I enjoyed the leveling experience the first time around and I enjoy repeating it on a secondary character.

The other toons I have are inventory mules due to this game sucking balls in regards to throwing crap at you 24/7 without the space to store it.