Guild Wars 2

In GW1 I had an Assassin and Mesmer. I loved the idea of a secret society working behind the scenes to direct the course of history.

That being said, their “leader” and main liaison to the player was the Master of Whispers, a Necromancer.

I’m curious, from a lore standpoint, what would be the GW2 profession that MOST exemplifies the Order of Whispers? I look at the Thief, but Rogue archetypes in most games are the order takers, not the order givers. I’m curious, were this a single player game, which profession type would most likely rise to leadership of the Order. It would have to be a profession capable of deceit, manipulation and the “forest view,” not the individual tree.

In my mind that throws the Soldier professions right out (perhaps I’m biased). A Ranger doesn’t seem to fit, and an Engineer seems too occupied with gadgetry and inventions to worry about subtlety. Elementalists seem too overt, which leaves the Thief (Assassin), Mesmer and Necromancer, at least in my opinion.

An opportunistic Warrior could very well rise in the ranks of such an organization. To me it would be based moreso on personality than their choice of Profession.

I envision ranger but then thats because I fight with bows and in most things they are a pretty stealthy weapon

Thieves would easily be the most prominent regarding whispers because as a stealth based class being able to infiltrate and hide among plain sight would easily be the best advantage. Also saying rogues have taken orders in other media shouldn’t just disprove them from being able to give orders because if they joined an order to begin with then they should be also capable of giving and taking orders(also thieves belong to a guild of thieves by default and the only mention of it is in the thieves elite skill which summons thieves. at least what i took from it anyways.) for order of whispers a quiet class would make most sense as a thief because rangers are more solo based because of their nature of hiding in the forests and usually not in cities or organizations.

Mesmers have access to disguise spells, which arguably makes them better at gathering information than Thieves. We see an example of this with the sylvari order representive, who states that her skills as a mesmer make her an invaluable Order member (or along those lines).

Don’t forget that Tybalt was an engineer. Sometimes the OoW needs some gadgets to do their spy work (think James Bond), so the profession fits to them. To be honest, everything, but Guardian and Ele seem to fit, imo. And even those could do fine, if you give them a mysterious, scheming personality.

A Guardian can be a perfect fit. What more can you ask for than a spy that nobody would ever suspect of being a spy?

That aside, as seen in one of the personal story steps sometimes there are missions where you need to escort/protect people.

All three Orders need members with diverse skills. This is probably more true for the Whispers than the other two since many of what they do is done in secret. Last thing you want is to have rely on someone you don’t necessarily trust to perform those actions.

Also, if you’re going to use heavily armoured agents in general, then there are clear advantages to having guardians. If you’ve just performed the ‘hit’ part of a hit and run attack, for instance, a warding becomes a suitable means of slowing down pursuit.

When it comes to elementalists… we’ve already noted that the Whispers makes use of gadgets. Well, an elementalist is a heck of a lot easier to smuggle into a sensitive location than a pile of explosives and the engineer to set them…

The most suited professions, however, are probably thief and mesmer. It’s possibly worth noting, though, that the Master of Whispers wears medium armour – close observation during a certain mission might reveal what profession the Master is.

Order of Whisper doesn’t mean “Order of Stealth”. They are not just a group of assassins. Their main objective is spy and sabotage. They can pretend to be your gardener for 5 years, and then BAM they kill you. They can pretend to be your kids’s nanny for 5 years, and then BAM they kill you. etc.

They can be any profession. In fact classes like warrior have their own advantage, because you won’t suspect them at all. Who would have thought that loud mouthed big fat Norn warrior over there drinking beer is a Whisper member?