As for me, i love healing, i do get blamed alot for wipes but the need to pay attention to everyone's health bar, status, surrounding  and the constant pressure makes me choose this role over others.

I like tanking but  i felt that tanking has way too much responsibility like threat management, knowing how to pull and also how to go about doing the dungeon. 

Im curious about the preference of you guys, pls participate in the poll and discuss your reasons ^^

tank.

i get to set the pace, pick the engagements, I decide the battleplan and ... there's a female player in the back who spends her entire time making sure I'm healthy, and my welbeing makes her happy.

Sorry. that's the extent of my rp abilities :)

but also...that big dragon the size of a village hits me and yet I'm still standing. that's pretty BA.

the fact that people die when I mess up is great incentive NOT TO MESS UP.

I like being a tank for the reason OP hates it. :). the boss looks at me, the healer looks at me, the dps looks at my threat...I am in the spotlight. If I mess up, everyone sees it. If I do not mess up, everyone sees it. It's amazing - if I'm not sucking.

Tankings my favorite.

But i don't mind switching to any role..

I enjoy healing and once I get used to a game and how the different healing classes work I can be badass at it - I am always nervous about it though and don't want to cause a wipe ^^ I hate it when people blame the healer, even if it wasn't their fault...

I also enjoy dps (ranged and melee) I tend to play hunters/rangers in all my MMO's, as well as a few melee dps.  Never been the tank, so not sure if I would enjoy it or not!

i had a very hard time with MDPS.

reason being its an involved role. you move, you position...as a RDPS you click and shoot.

not being a big fan of MDPS I never 'felt' it enough to do the required work to play it properly. As a tank I had no such problem because I did 'feel it'. I could heal and RDS fine but melee I just couldn't get in the mood to put forth the effort.

weird, i think.

I prefer healing or tanking, but due to a lack of tanks in just about every MMO I tend to spend just about all my time tanking. I loved playing my Enchanter in EQ, but very few games actually require crowd control anymore so it seems to be an abandoned role.

As long as I have something useful to do in the group besides being the lolDPS I'm happy.

I play casters in a DPS or CC role, although its hard to find a MMO that makes a good crowd controller.  My fav CC classes were the sorc from DAoC and the illy/coercer from EQ2.  Right now I'm toying with GW2's Mesmer and it seems to be working for me.  DPS-wise I love the necro, although I've been known to play wizards.  DAoC's Animist and Theurgist were pretty good as well.

I also like the battle cleric role, but for solo or small groups.  While I really love playing healers, the way they are generally treated makes me loathe grouping with them.  Too many people like to finger point rather than accept responsibility for their own mistakes, or simply realize that sometimes shit happens.  There are too many jerks that like to dump on the healer, so I prefer to play the more melee oriented ones and head out on my own.  RIFT allows for a good battle cleric build, as does Vanguard and EQ2.

MDPS and off-tank.  Chasing down adds or runners so DPS can finish them.

Even better if I can off-heal in a pinch.

realistically I like having a ...surgical role.

I like to play a very small role but a very critical role. why? because that's the best way I feel that I'm a small part of a large group.

so if I'm the guy that takes a mob to a corner and kites him in circles while everyone else kills the boss...I'm the happiest. but realistically this is very rare lately so tanking is next best thing. I like being the guy who pulls. If my only role was to run 100 yards, do a precision pull a certain way and - if succesful - my job is done for the fight, I'd be happy.

healing is exhausting. you're constantly engaged. tanking requires brief moments of very high awareness, particularly at pulls, but then only cruise control. I'm not good enough to be a healer. :)

I like making very fast critical decisions...that can decide the battle...but not every 2 seconds. that's too intense for me.

Originally posted by Robokapp

 

 ... there's a female player in the back who spends her entire time making sure I'm healthy, and my welbeing makes her happy.

Shhh...  just don't tell him that the "female" happy to keep him alive is actually a guy in New Jersey eating burritos while playing healer *grin*

Originally posted by Quesa
Healer alot of the time but if the MMO has a good support class then I often try to play that.  In WoW, I loved the Paladin and Druid playstyles before Blizzard removed 'Hybrids'.

I miss my Druid.  *sniff*  He was great fun.

Originally posted by XAPGames

Originally posted by Robokapp

 

 ... there's a female player in the back who spends her entire time making sure I'm healthy, and my welbeing makes her happy.

 

Shhh...  just don't tell him that the "female" happy to keep him alive is actually a guy in New Jersey eating burritos while playing healer *grin*

it does not matter...healer's real life gender is irrelevant. in my fantasy its a female.

since we'll never have irl interactions, the irl gender plays no role...only the in-game role is relevant. it's a RPG afterall. Any interaction with that person will strictly involve interracting with its online persona anyway.

without going into a long essay...what character you play will affect how you interact with others. your level of confidence, positioning, calling things out, aggressiveness etc. eventually combined with your irl personality, a pseudo-persona develops that is a function of yourself as well a how you see the game world thru your character's eyes. aka how confident you are in your ability to play your character.

it's that pseudo-persona that I care about interacting with not your irl one. I interact with people irl for their irl personalities.

that made no sense did it ? basically you + your character A differs from you + your character B. substracting YOU, what remains if a personality entirely driven by your character. and that one...will be that of a female healer most often in the case of a female healer played by any gender. :D. BECAUE I IMAGINE IT AS SO.

Personally I like to tank, but if I had to choose I'd like a tank/DPS hybrid. So far my favorite class of all MMOs I've played was WoW's feral druid around TBC. I loved switching between bear and cat depending on the situation.

Heck, I haven't played WoW in years... and sometimes while tanking in other games (like in TSW), I still feel naked when going in to tank without turning into a bear.

Tank.

I like being in control of the pace of pulling and ensuring the group has a good time.  Being a good tank makes plenty of dps and healer friends for future dungeon runs.  Nothing worse than a tank that can't hold aggro or pulls too much/ too little.

I usually play all the roles (alt-o-holic), so I know what to expect from the other players.

Rdps.

Hunter/Ranger was my favorite toons in PnP D&D.

Originally posted by Robokapp

that made no sense did it ?

It made fine sense.  I enjoy taking on the role of my character and acting it out based on the characters personality.  For me it helps them come alive.  It's like I'm (IRL) the puppeteer directing my character as its own person in a fictional environment.  I feel it contributes a sense of additional content beyond that provided by the developers.

I've played sluts, pervs, lesbians, muscle bound body builder types with huge egos and inferiority complexes, gay-ish male mages, and plenty more.

This aspect of gaming is one reason I find it very difficult to engage in developer provided personal storyline.  Often they contradict how I see the character and spoil that side of the fun.

What happened to CC/Support? :P

I am all for adding more roles (some maybe not "needed" but helpful). I don't believe in the "Holy Trinity" in that I mean I don't want only 3 obvious roles. There's room for more.

My favorite roles in an adventurous party is:

1. Tanking

2. Healer

3. Support/CC

4. Pulling + DPS

5. Pure DPSing

6. Buffing/Debuffing

Originally posted by XAPGames

Originally posted by Robokapp

 

 ... there's a female player in the back who spends her entire time making sure I'm healthy, and my welbeing makes her happy.

 

Shhh...  just don't tell him that the "female" happy to keep him alive is actually a guy in New Jersey eating burritos while playing healer *grin*

Or a Transvestite/Transgender from New Jersey eating Burritos :P