Guild Wars 2

Heya, I’m about ready to try my hand at being a commander but I’m torn between my two mains. I play both a Thief and a Warrior. I enjoy both and both are equally geared. Which would be more.. Viable in a WvW Setting?

It depends on your play style, honestly. I am a thief commander, I always run head first into battle; however, I am not a glass cannon build. The most important part is being able to survive in combat. No one wants to see their commander die and spawn back at the WP, essentially abandoning them in combat.

If you want to frontline as a commander, it’s better to go guardian or warrior in T1-T3. Otherwise T4-T8 pretty much any profession with bunker stats and armor (PVT) is fine.

FW

99% of the time warrior commander would be a better choice

I’ve loved my ranger and have commanded under that profession for months, but with the way field tactics are evolving its not as practical frountlining. As a leader you need to be in front of the group able to route in a specified manner absorbing and sustaining as much damage until you or the other team wipes. I cant tell you how frustrating it was trying to lead when i was dead on the ground as a ranger.

Without a doubt, i recommend running a Warrior/Guardian.

I run staff ele as Commander. I like ele, because I have alot of combo fields (for might stacking, area heals, area swiftness, area frost armors). In your case, I would go for warrior, with a tank’ish build.

Guardian or Mesmer commanders are best

Juggernaut Flamethrower engineer can pretty easily get over 2700 armor (got mine over 2800 with ascended amulet), lots of utility, combo fields, some healing and plenty of control abilities (stun immobilize, etc)

my commander character is a glass grenadier… but i generally dont want to lead a zerg in a charge and thats definitely more suited to bunkers.

i believe i at least have the respect of many of my server’s regulars / semiregulars; its more of a communication / personality / experience thing and not based on class choice.

id recommend not wasting the 100g if you “just want to try your hand”. if you feel like having people listen to you would be more beneficial for your team… then its not a waste.

Have it on my warrior. Hard to imagine commanding on anything else. Being tanky is the most important thing. It’s hard to lead an army if you’re dead.

D/D Ele Commander with the occasional staff use.

Henrik.7560:

Guardian or Mesmer commanders are best

Nop, on mesmer, it’s really easy for the ennemi to identify clones, because they do not have the ‘commander buff’.

TatsuKan.5412:

Henrik.7560:

Guardian or Mesmer commanders are best

Nop, on mesmer, it’s really easy for the ennemi to identify clones, because they do not have the ‘commander buff’.

Portal bomb.

Who cares about clones if you are commander

The way I look at it, survivability aside, determinig factors are essential skills and frontline effectiveness.

1. “If you want to do it right, do it yourself” may sound too extreme, but premise is true. You don’t want to desperately look for mesmers around you with vails/temporal curtains/portals/time warps or guardians with LoW/sanctuary/etc or eles with water field/focus, and then if you are lucky to find them, to depend on them using these skills only when you need them and the way you need them.

2. Every class is capable of being frontliner, but depending on your battle strategy, some of starting rotations may fit better than others. You as a frontliner should have optimal one.

3. As a commander (strictly IMO), you don’t really need mobility in terms of self speed buffs. It is royal PITA for a raid as a whole to keep up with commander who is running like sprinter and blinking away constantly. Usually it leads to most mobile classes/specs with aoe speed buffs to concentrate around you while a lot of slowpokes form huge tail behind. Not the best kind of formation and frequent regroups become necessary evil.

Melee tank.

Standing in the back pewpewing is bad.
Dying is bad.