These are the most common archetypes in most RPGs and adventure games, so which one do you usually play? Do you like poking things with pointy sticks, or would you rather back and incant spells or fire arrows? Personally, I usually play as a swordsman. I like being more hands-on and I'm not a fan of waiting for spells to cast and such. I'm playing Oblivion right now though and my character is a hybrid swordsman/mage, which I'm really enjoying a lot. But in stuff like Tales, I hate being a mage.
Mage, then archer, then swords/fists. I don't like being right in the fray; the best spot for me is keeping well away from the enemy and sniping them with ranged attacks. :D I'm also pretty lazy so I like playing as ranged characters because it means I don't have to move much once I'm in a battle (assuming I have characters up front tanking). I don't have a bad reaction time or anything, but I hate having to be so close to the enemies. You have to worry so much more about guarding, about your positioning (so you don't get crit hit from behind), and it's harder to focus on your job (hitting the enemy) because you also have to do crowd control and make sure your ranged party members aren't doing something stupid or getting attacked. :( There's so much more babysitting involved as a frontline character and I don't like that very much.
I've never really played many RPG games where you pick and build you character because it's all usually really expensive and such, but the ones I have played I'd usually go for mage. It makes me feel like I have to do less because most of the time I'd just be used as a tool of some sort healing people and enchanting weapons and stuff. That plus even when fighting a mage is usually more defensive, from what I've seen anyway, casting spells to immobilise enemies and stuff.
I love Archers and Mages; I'll usually play as both of them in a separate save or account. I am not really a fan of swords characters at all, I just find them boring. I love magic and long ranged weapons/attacks.
Thief/Archer > Warrior/Fighter > Mage. I love the idea of being stealthy and striking from a distance, but up-close combat is alright too. However, I cannot stand being largely restricted to magic. I don't know why, I just do.
Fighter > Mage > Archer, for me. I love having either a super high attack or a super high defense (which characters in the general fighter character tend to have) over anything else. Especially since it is usually paired with super high health, making for a bulky tank that just runs over everything on the battle field. Plus, from many of the games I have played, they're usually capable of equipping just about any type of armor, allowing them to build up at least a somewhat decent enough magical defense so they don't die on contact from the smallest fireball. I'd love if they could make one with huge physical attack and huge magical attack. That'd be the perfect one for me. I don't care if I have to sacrifice all the Speed in the world, make it so!
