A "Main" Character?

I've always played Guild wars with my focus on more than one character at a time, which I guess is why I've never had alot of "sucess" you could say.

I figured it was finnally time I settle down and create a main character.

But I don't know what to chose :|

I have acess to all campaings+EoTN and bonus items. I also have bonus missions+every pvp skill+item unlocked.

If I make a main character, it has to be made in the factions campaign, so I can get to 20 fast and get survivor. (For me, it's fastest to get to EoTN from factions.)

I need something that's good for solo farming, pvp and pve. :P lol.

So, what do you think I should choose?

And, btw, for discussion purposes, have any of you had this problem before? Split too much of your GW time between too many characters?

I would choose whichever class you like the best. Seriously, you'll get way more enjoyability (is that a word?) out of the game if you play what you love.

If you really don't care which profession, I would say Assassin, since they're Canthan born, and are probably the best farming characters. They're not the greatest character for questing, vanqing, etc, but still not too bad.

I tend to spend all my time on one character, and only use others as sort of utlities...for farming etc. For example, my main title char is my ranger, while I use my monk occasionally for 600/smiting and my assassin for UWSC's and solo farming.

Warrior. Now go kill stuff.

The grass is always greener, my friend. Once you pick a "main" character to play nearly exclusively, you'll feel as though you've narrowed your online world to 1/10 of its former size, and you'd be correct to feel that way.

There's no harm in having a farming character that you use exclusively for making money or a PUG character like a Monk that can just hop in to almost any group for Z-Mish, etc., but don't pigeon-hole your GW experience. Try to perfect at least a few characters so that if you don't feel like playing your "main" you aren't restricted to noob island.

All that having been said, my favorites are Assassin and Monk. Nothing but preference really.

Yes be manly and brave,

If you let other people decide for you, you will probably be disappointed. Think for yourself -- it's healthy.

He's right. But if you want my opinion, go monk. People will drool over you. You'll get bashed for being bad though.

You should choose something you like aesthetically and build-wise.

PvP characters - not really necessary for a main.

Eles......they win

To Helix: Stop trolling everywhere.

To the OP: You don't "make" a main character, you just happen to like that prof more than you like the others so you spend more resources on it, like time, money and effort.

Ratson is correct. Your "main" is not chosen, it just happens. I have eight characters that I play (just described them in another thread) and my main is my warrior by a wide margin.

Why? Because I really enjoy going out and taking an axe to things. I use her for everything - titles, vanquishing, farming, JQ & FA, helping others. I enjoy my mesmer & necro characters also, but still don't spend as much time with them.

So just try out professions until you find the one that you like the best.

Having a 'main' is for the weak. Hardcore players get GWAMM on all 10 professions.

Now seriously I do concentrate most efforts on the character I like most - Monk. Like others said, he wasn't 'chosen', it just happened I used him more than any other character I created over the years.

That doesn't stop me from having a few other characters, like a Mesmer in an armor I love, a Warrior that looks great and is nice to have whenever I want to hit stuff hard, etc.

Trolling everwhere? How am I trolling.

They are awesome.

Great farmers, awesome tanking ability. They can dish out MAJOR DPS, and awesome support in Hm or Doa areas, ect with wards.

Was THAT trolling?

In terms of starting a new main in cantha; I would NOT chose a sin. Reason being when anet hits the sin with the nerf hammer, and trust me it will be hard; then sin will once agian have their place in Guild Wars. That place being nowhere.

play a paragon and get save yourselves

I have a char of each profession, My assassin is farthest on the KoaBD track, but I don't really believe in "mains."

assassin is the best class overall

for pve purposes (both solo and for just killing stuf in missions and vanq)

Necromancer is my fave! They are very versatile, have an excellent primary, and are used often in both Pve and Pvp. If you don't go with a necro, I would choose one of the core professions though.

Honestly, chosing a main to stick with is the best advice I can give for people playing this game. It is a giant pain the the ass to have lots of characters and lots of different money sinks like armor and weapons for each.

It's not like I'm suggesting you only have one character to play (of cource I have lots of different profs on standby) but in terms of "I wanna get fow and tormented weps zomg" I have always found it's best to have one character, especially for players who don't grind the game.

I have had lots of fun with my mesmer who is just over three years old now. Mesmers where never popular pre-CoP in pve and that was great. gave me a challenge to not only find teams interested in letting me tag along, but to make builds that worked efectivley.

Also then theres the title issue. it's so much easier to grind titles for one character rather then worrying about several. Once you get legendary carto on one character, you will never want to do it again.

I would have to agree with everyone else "main characters" aren't plammed they just happen. My first character to reach lvl 20 was a ranger, whe was the first to beat proph, she even did the titan stuff, she was and still is my fav.

Then I thought a MM would be fun, I beat the proph, slowly she developed into a powerful and versitile combatant. I took her though all campains and sorrows furnace, the to eye of the north. I stopped playing my ranger and my necro got all my playtime. She has developed into my primary character. I didn't set out to play that way it just happened.

MONKS FTW
or sins but MONKS FTW lol

Pick the profession you enjoy playing the most! It's that simple. You're going to be spending A LOT of time playing your main, so why use a profession that doesn't suit you?

Personally, I don't like playing a Monk. I've seen it happen too many times in PUGs (as a Monk, Mesmer, Warrior, Ranger, etc.) where some 'tard gets down to 85-90% health and spams "OMG WHERE'S THE HEALS???" But others love playing one.

I've had a blast playing my Mesmer. The class provides a different kind of challenge that just appeals to me. I'm having a lot of fun with my Dervish, as well - slice 'em and dice 'em FTW!

This ^

I also have a ranger main, with a monk and assassin for farming.
Although a crit scythe is amazing when doing hm missions/vanqing so assassins are very useful for that.

However you really have to play something that you enjoy and what feels more natural as your main.

Yes, I recommend to have a main character. Especially if you like to hunt goals and titles. It will be much more manageable and rewarding if you do that on a single character.

Which char? Select the one you like playing with. One that plays great in different situations. For me it is my ele. (I just love to play with fire)

What do you mean, HAD this problem? I still have it! I've completed my first main and choosing him was a no-brainer for me because I loved the mesmer playstyle and the way he looked - sure I played the other classes for variety sometimes but nothing came close to the fun I had when playing him. I'm now having problems choosing a second main to get all the ranks and PvE skills for because there are too many classes that I enjoy playing which are (currently) useful in HM PvE.

The only advice I can really give you for your first main is the same as everyone else above: pick the class you enjoy playing the most, and/or the one with the most elite armours that you like the look of, and/or the one with the best face/hair combo. If you're thinking of choosing the class based purely on what they can do in the endgame, ANet's nerf bat says hi.

MAKE A PVP SLOT! one profession gets boring overtime. delete/remake any profession as often as you like without losing armors or weapon.

Yeah that's another good suggestion. Reserve 1-2 slots for PvP characters so you can just delete/remake them at your choosing. That's what I also did haha.

I personally haven't decided on a main yet at the moment since I get tired of using the same class for prolonged periods but I'd suggest Necromancer/Ranger/Assassin since they seem the most fun for me. I love my rit too and its close to clocking in to my necro as most used char but its mostly because I just like the way she looks. Other than that, not so satisfying to play :P

Well, what I do is I play my main (my monk <3) and pull out the others at my leisure, so I don't get sick of playing my monk too much. Vizunah Square ZQuest? Awesome, let me go reroll to my necro. Minister Cho's? Well, my ele hasn't got it on HM yet. But the one I want the titles on is my monk.

And boring. Don't forget boring.

I'm another one of those who keeps switching between characters. Warrior, ele, ranger, dervish, mesmer. Just like OP, I was finding that I got in a rut when I stuck with one character -- and one play style -- too long.

In the end, the solution for me was to go with the Ritualist, because of their sort-of-jack-of-all-tradeness. Now I can go and play healer, or ranged spiker, or melee. Obviously, not as oober as other classes in those roles, but it's PVE I mostly do and it's fun that I play for.

If I ever do feel like REALLY want to play a mesmer or something (and mesmers ARE fun), then I roll a PVP character and do a Zaishen Quest with her.

Having a main character is great, however after playing one class extensively for a period of time, the game can get boring. So having other classes to 'switch things up' on occasion isn't a bad thing.

That being said, usually you pick your main based on your enjoyment of playing that class. If you are title hunting, you may also want to consider the ease of achieving the title and ability to join a group with that character class.

Personally, the main character that I am focusing on currently is my ele for title hunting. After that, my monk will become my main, and then my necro, and so on. However, I still play on my other classes for a nice change of pace, as well as for farming.

Example: I spent 2 hours running Morah in HM on my monk for free last night, simply because it was an enjoyable change of pace.

Each class has it's pros and its cons, but it basically comes down to this - what do you enjoy playing? What builds do you enjoy? Are you more into dealing damage, or protecting your teammates?

Figuring out your play style will help you decide which class you think you would enjoy spending a vast majority of your time on. Only you can answer those questions. If you let other people tell you what to play, most likely you won't be happy and you'll end up bored.

The only thing we can do for you is tell you what we prefer and why, you have to make your own educated decision from there.

Login with each character you already have.
Type /age and write down the numbers.
Login with the one with more played hours.

That's your main character.

Currently, two characters own the game in PvE:
- Elementalists and Ritualsits.
A party composed entirely by them is literally immortal in the whole game.
Highest armor, blocking, wide-range healing, single and AoE damage...
Spirits have now +24..26 armor (thanks to their increase in 4 levels) making them have armor over 80 at certain levels. so not they can be effectively used as bodyblockers (and Armor of Unfeeling and helps a lot with that too).

My elementalists rampages like wild fire leaving only charred corpses behind.
My ritualists brings spirits and death like a one-person army.

After the Ritualist update, I've been checking what things can be killed solo by a ritualist by flagging the rest of the party and fighting alone little fights.

So far, I've been able to kill single-handley with a Channeling build with Signet of Spirits any party composed entirely of melee fighters, and also many other parties. Against the Great Destroyer, I just summoned 6 spirits, shadow step them so they got in range, and waited. It died in no time. Undead Rurik could do nothing against them either. And poor Glint... ah... poor Glint... I only had to interrupt Crytal Hibernation once and she was done.
The Lich went down too like that.
And Vanquished Gyala Hatchery just with Spirits, XDD. That was just GREAT, XDD.
I'm going to try Shiro and Abaddon too, although I doubt it would work, my spirits have beaten Titans and Destroyers alike. Even the Sparks of Titan had trouble dealing with them, they don't have time to cast enough Rodgort's Invocations before the spirits kill them. So far I only had trouble with elementals, with that build, specially fire djinns and flowstone elementals. Stupid elementals... I could use another build with wanderlust and things like those, but I refuse to change my build just for them I love stepping in the middle of a party, summon my spirits and kill them all with 3 Rupture Souls.
Of course it's way slower than going with a full party, and it's even slower and sometimes troublesome when the spirits don't target the same enemy, but it's really fun anyways. They kill a boss in no time if you are lucky and all of them attack the same target.

LOL, yeah, you don't need to make a "main" character...

You already have one.


As to whether I have this "problem" or not, I don't consider multiple characters a "problem."

I wish I had time to get all my characters everything!

(In fact, I just made a new character in pre-searing last night... Ok, maybe I do have a problem)

In fairness if you really want GWAMM, you basically have to have a main character. And for leg skillhunter/carto/vanq monuments, you'll still have to put all the efforts in one category on the same char.

If you can't decide, I recommend going ranger for physical chars, or necro for casters. Both have absurd energy management primaries that let you focus almost entirely on your changeable secondary profession if you choose, which means you can try a lot of professions out while still progressing the same one character.

Well, that's a whole other issue if he wants GWAMM...

My Xunlai, however, does. Oh well, small sacrifice.

i fell in love with my little ranger to the point that i just hardly ever play on the others. She has completed all of the camps all the elite missions has 17 maxed titles and is a powerhouse. Find a toon or profession that you really really like to play and learn to play it as best as you can. If your having fun and kicking tail then youve found your match.

As others have said, your main isn't really chosen it happens. As I have recommended countless times everyone should play every profession at least once, you never know what might be your favorite class until you try them all. After a while you'll realize what you like playing as the most and that is your main, since it's a character you enjoy then it's no problem to start doing everything with it.

I have a main because I cant be bothered to go through all three (+EotN) storylines again and doing all those boring missions again in NM.