games

always a sneaky/rogue type

Paladin with a big two handed reach weapon and tries their best but has trouble rigidly following their code.

i prefer DPS style classses but i will always choose the class with 2 handed swords in fantasy RPGs. i would play mages more often but i generally don't like the 'big glowing colorful ground markers with area of effect elemental damage attacks' genre of magic aesthetic, it comes across as gimmicky/fictitious/unimmersive, magic should be liminal/surreal/terrifying imo. i basically kind of hate the WoW style fantasy/videogame aesthetic and genre of RPG, the only one i really even slightly enjoyed was Guild Wars 2 (because huge playable cat guys with 4 ears and 4 horns and no paid subscription)

In typical metalhead fashion I tend to pick whatever has a dark magic aesthetic, like Necromancers and Warlocks

I look for cheese ability, speed, and damage output, and the aesthetics attached to the class aren't terribly important to me.

Something tanky with a bit of support magic usually. Paladin is my first pick if it's an option in a game.

Something that can fight solo, but with my social skills maxxed out. Picked up this habit because of Bioware RPGs I'm sure, because I didn't want to miss dialogue options but I also didn't want the game's boss fights or sections where you don't have party members to completely screw me over. Jedi Guardian in KOTOR, Paladin in Baldur's Gate, Guns/Medicine/Speech in Fallout, etc.

In MMOs I play tank all the time every time. Why? Because the tank is inarguably the protagonist of the party. Every other player is a member of the supporting cast, following ME as I go on my epic adventure. The instant dungeon queues are nice too.

I'm a bit of a number freak so I just gravitate toward whatever lets me stack a ton of modifiers and mechanics that multiply each other and cause crazy numbers to appear on the screen. That usually means mage characters that exploit lots of status effects but also can mean warriors that use every buff effect or similar things.

My favorite Path of Exile character was a build that would stack strength and int. Strength gave life, damage multiplier, and energy shield multiplier; life was converted to energy shield; int gave energy shield multiplier; energy shield then was converted to a sword. My spell damage scaled with triple the damage of the sword. Any small tweak I made to improve the build ended up giving huge gains just because of how much it would get compounded across all those things.

I found the best class for the PC to be a combo of rogue skillbot with a dash of magical ability. You can usually fill in a weak melee front with party members, but oftentimes rpgs will suddenly remove you from your lockpicker/magic shit analyzer so having those skills on the one character all but guaranteed to be in the party is useful.

In mmo's or more traditional crpgs I almost always play a tank or some kind of front line fighter, sometimes a healer. Bethesda rpgs is stealth archer.

in a single player RPG I'm a basic ass heavy armor tank with as much social skill as the game allows for. in an MMO I'm basically any form of utility, I like the extra thought that goes into being a tank or healer. dps tends to have a clear correct way to hit your buttons in every encounter in the entire game and the better you are at hitting your buttons exactly that way the better a dps you are. but tank and healer can have a slightly more nuanced thought process involving risk and reward and whatnot

Tank or Healer. Sometimes stealth

I will do a magic user every now and then but that is rare. Last time I did was Torchlight 2

Usually love playing healer/support classes

It depends on the game, really.

MMOs, give me healer, all day long. I honestly do enjoy it, but I'm also willing to give out as good as I can take. It gets easier when you learn what you're looking at, like no, DPS standing in fire, I won't heal your constant damage ticks you can avoid over the tank who can't avoid their incoming.

Solo play, if I can, social skills! Lemme talk the enemy into giving up. Lemme turn their entire army against them without firing a shot. If that's not available, some kinda Spellblade or Summoner. Gimme that mix of magic and smack you in the face, be it on my own or while my ferret companion climbs up your shirt.

Warlock

Mostly caster classes because they're more visually interesting than martial classes. Yeah, attack animations can get pretty cool, but I don't care how many flips/spins/tricks a martial character does, they're not going to stack up with most of the stuff a caster can bust out, especially when it comes to late-game spells.

paladin, you're strong enough that you can defend yourself but also you can heal yourself/your team. other healer classes tend to be too weak to defend themselves, and strictly aggressive classes rely too much on healers for me personally to wanna play one

Always some type of caster. Preferably with tons of CC and weird spell options, but I'll take a nuke wizard if that isn't available.

60% chance I pick mage (except in WoW, mage is boring and actual satan if we're talking classic)

40% chance I pick a sword and board fighter or warrior, it ain't much, but its honest work