We have all hopefully taken part in the Beta by now. What was your favourite combat style and what class/role do you generally prefer?

Personally, I only tried Sith Inquisitor/Sorcerer. Wanted to try other builds as well but by sheer luck I came across the one I really liked even though I was usually a melee tank in other RPG's.
I enjoyed taking on a support role using a combination of shields and buffs on meself and other players and then just farcasting stuns and damage dealing lighting and healing. I must say that sometimes communications broke down and my team mates would run off before I could heal them and went full Leeroy Jenkins style ahead...which resulted in the initial fail of Black Talon after we got pretty much owned by the Jedi. Since this is a republic guild I hope that Jedi Consular/Sage will have similar abilities but I will definately miss the force lighting

My maiin in WoW was a Hunter, but I eventually leveled a Holy Priest and a Prot Paladin. Towards the end, I mostly tanked as there was virtually no queue for him. I love my Hunter dearly and played him since Vanilla. I got the original Spirt Beast and am STILL proud of that to this day, but 45 minute queues got really boring, real quick.

People laughed at me for healing with a Holy Priest, but they never died. It got really boring after a while and even more so once I started using Healbot.

I played a Sith Warrior/Juggernaut all weekend and tanking was a blast. I did BT with Elendin as and Imperial Agent (I believe so, anyways...) and I tanked Hammer Station with three Sorcerers by my side. :p

I'm going to be Shadow, but I may end up being Telekinetics and tanking with him instead of being Infiltration.

~D

I usually play a healer or support role. I have done a large amount of spiked and sustained DPS too, but never honed my tanking skills. I know how to tank but have never put it to practice. It is mostly because in every MMO tanking gear is expensive as hell!

I tried an Imperial Agent/Sniper first weekend beta I got into, and it was okay at first, and really boring as I leveled more. I like the whole cover mechanic, and I think it is a really neat and refreshing take on a combat style, but I found the Sniper immensely boring. But that is just me.

On the other hand, I decided to go SI/Sorcerer this time around and had so much more fun. I just loved shocking the crap out of people. My Inquisitor felt so much more powerful as well, both in actual damage as well as aesthetics. I didn't get bored like I did with my IA. I went healer ,and had a blast. I was limited in skills since I only managed to get to level 18, but it was still decently challenging doing flashpoints (did BT, HS, and Athiss) and kept me entertained.

I hope trooper, which will be my main, is just as fun. I plan on going either tank or medic. I am sick of straight DPS classes, as is my usual in MMO's, and I find tanking/healing much more enjoyable.

Tanking, healing, and DPS are all completely different playstyles in their own and everyone enjoys one type more than the others, and finds one unbearable. One reason I never got into tanking is because it is a lot of stress in a raid, you never do a ton of damage, and you have to put a lot of trust in your fellow teammates to keep you alive. Healing requires a lot focus, patience, and sacrifice. You usually can stack some good defensive skills on a healer (which I recommend since you will be adsorbing damage more often then dealing it), but you never can be top tier in PvP due to reduced DPS. DPS can be entertaining too but losses its luster after awhile, especially in raids where one must stagger their DPS so they don't get the boss's attention. I think of it as you either are a master of one or skilled of the many. I find masters have more of a call, but the beta testing proved to me a jack of all trades is necessary too. Playing an Operative allowed me to off-heal, tank mobs, get aggro off the main healer, and DPS the boss when necessary. I found myself mostly healing, but being able to clean up and do whatever was a huge benefit to the team. If anyone in the Athiss run (Pinkie tanking, Twilight DPSing and off-tanking, Kaizu healing, and me Off-healing/DPSing) we would have most likely failed, or had a much more difficult time. I also felt that we worked perfectly with one another as well. The specs we had were all complimentary. We also had pretty good communication too.

TL;DR: Experimentation leads to many failures, but ultimate success!

I'm sad that I missed that flashpoint.

Oh well, probably not high enough level for it anyway.

My favorite combat style is getting close and personal. I really enjoyed being an operative. Having the versatility of using my blaster then getting in close to finish the job was thrilling.

Normally, I tank. I like to tank and it is fun.

Gregam wrote:

Normally, I tank. I like to tank and it is fun.

LOlL, hence picture

So far, I have tried the Jedi Sentinel, the Sith Sorcerer and the Trooper Commando. Once I finish the Sorcerer (as in, get my ship), I'll be trying out the Imperial Agent, so that I get a view of not just all the different base class styles (Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor/Jedi Consular, Trooper/Bounty Hunter, Smuggler/Imperial Agent), but also of all the starting planets.

So far, I by far prefer the Sentinel. While both the trooper and the inquisitor was fun, I vastly preferred the playstyle of the Sentinel, which I was kind of relieved to find out. I was slightly afraid that I'd hate the playstyle xD
I highly doubt the Agent (and therefore, Smuggler) will be my kind of thing, so I can only assume I will continue being a jedi. Later, once the game launches (since I don't have time between the exams and stuff now), I might just try the other advanced classes too. Probably on the other side too; Sith Juggernaut, Jedi Shadow, BH whatever-the-tanking-spec-is and whtever the opposite of my Agent will be.
I haven't even gotten past the prologue on any of my characters, but I still enjoy this game a lot xD

Come to think of it; me liking the melee jedi so much is actually kind of unusual. In most games I have played, I prefer the mage-type, staying back and blasting things with spells. For once, it seems I enjoy the melee instead xD

The Jack wrote:

Come to think of it; me liking the melee jedi so much is actually kind of unusual. In most games I have played, I prefer the mage-type, staying back and blasting things with spells. For once, it seems I enjoy the melee instead xD

Confound this game. It complete changes ones play style, I was always the Melee tank type and now all I wanna do is farcast and heal

I've always been a fan of the melee DPS classes in games, which helped decide that I was going to try out Trooper. The last time I've played an MMO hardcore was on my Death Knight in WoW.

Much to my surprise, Vanguard AC plays quite similarly to a DK: you want to stay in melee range, but you also have a few ranged abilities to use while closing the gap. Hell, you even have a Death Grip-wannabe ability!

That said, I also leveled a Sage to 15, and PvPed as both a healer and a DPS. That was quite a bit more fun than expected, even with the small repertoire of abilities at that level.