Guild Wars 2

Just a fun topic on what YOU think is the absolute worst profession(s) at donning the role of commander; primarily PUG commanding.

My list from worst to best:

8. Ranger
7. Thief
6. Necromancer
5. Elementalist
4. Engineer
3. Mesmer
2. Guardian
1. Warrior

I don’t know about you guys but rangers take the cake at being the worst when it comes to commanding; little support, always in the back longbow’ing away at god knows what, pet(s) die to cleave instantly, no reliable anti-CC abilities other than RaO and SoS which get stripped in seconds anyway.

Maybe I’ve just been having an ongoing plethora of bads in general tagging up with this profession? Ehhh.

The second worst profession to come to mind is thief. Sorry guys but I have witnessed uncountable instances where these bad boys tag up and command like their profession; teleporting everywhere (confusing players), running ahead of the zerg (losing players, long tail) because you can, downing a lot (quite squishy) and generally having zero stability other than DS which, in turn, will most likely get you killed by retaliation.

Other notable professions include necro due to barely any stability/escape/leaps and a toss up between engi/ele as I’ve one too many times had terribads clad in what seemed to be full zerk-twerk-time that go down very quickly with those professions.

What professions do YOU think are the worst at commanding? Feel free to discuss this topic amongst yourselves.

I don’t think you can dismiss a class solely based on people not knowing how to use it. If someone doesn’t pick a frontline tanky build to command, it’s not the fault of the class itself. Why would a ranger need a LB to command?

I don’t really command myself, thus this is largely based on my observing the commanders. When I was tagged, all instances were either as a guild or an emergency pug tag, Ironically, the later usually happens on an engineer or necro….

IMO, a good player could use any class and all thoughts are anecdotal….
8.) Thief— Have seen about one good thief commander. In the end, too squishy and too much aoe/cleave negates the thief’s strength. Getting focused down is a major problem. Stability is an issue. Best choice would be to run a venom share, tanky build (don’t shoot me!), shadowstep helps tons.

7.) Necro— Have seen very few good commanders on a necro, as the stability change really nuked their best source. No way to stop being focused, bad stability, no mobility. Is mostly saved by wells, wells, marks, and plague form/chilling darkness which will buy you time. Necros are generally good anywhere in wvw, but I think their talents are a bit wasted up front.

6.) Ranger— Have seen very few good ranger commanders. Unreliable stability, but usually enough to last on contact. Mostly RAO and Signet of the wild/signet of the stone (sadly, stone does NOT make you invul, it just negates direct damage). GS/sw/d provides enough mobility, blocks, and escape route lest things get too dicey. Unfortunately, the pet is going to die close up, and thus that takes away Empathetic bond as reliable condi removal. If you have reliable stability in your party, you could easily take Entangle/LR with SOTF though.

5.) Engineer— Have seen very few good engineer commanders. Lack stability, but have good mobility and ability to avoid damage. Slick shoes can screw people up if they try to focus it down. Some kind of bomb heal/slick shoes with prot injection and melandru runes should be pretty kitten ed hard to kill though I am skeptical about the bombs. Capable of some serious healing

4.) Ele- Have seen many ele commanders. Capable of obscene healing/cleansing and sustain via water attunement. Tons of CC; only weakness is being focused down but mist form and of course vapor form makes ele not a sure kill.

3.) Mesmer— Have seen a few good mesmer commanders. Mantra of Concentration is one of the best sources of stability. Distortions are lifesavers and blink is one of the best escapes in the game. Plus, they are slightly harder to focus down due to their access to a number of interrupts and bring lots of utility. No real weaknesses, other than Guardians and Warriors existing.

2.) Guardian— Have seen a ton, obviously. No real need to explain. Stab, cleanses, group support, and ability to mitigate damage via protection and blocks. Either Ring of Warding or Binding Blade is excellent for collecting enemies in an area for your group to blast down. Only weakness is the base health.

1.) Warrior— A lot of warrior commanders as well, for good reason. Similar to guardian, but more excellent at selfish survival thanks to the healing signet as well as high base health. Warriors edge out guardians slightly as they are more mobile although their stab is on some really long cooldowns.

Your missing the point I think. Op is asking which class in your opinion is the worst. Some classes are better suited for commanding than others. The player behind the character might be great but that doesn’t mean that class is the most optimal. For me it’s a toss up but probably teef.

While it is true that builds make a huge difference and if you command you need to run the right one, it is also true that certain professions just do it better and have far more options then others in this area available for those builds. My list of worst to best goes as follows:

Ranger
Thief
Mesmer
Ele
Necro
Engi
War
Guard

That said, I have ran under a commander of every profession, and tried it out on war, guard, mesmer, necro myself.

To each his own, but best tactical / strategic commander I have ran under played an engi, while my favorite is guard because there are such things as too much mobility and not enough condi removal. Guard keeps best group pace due to steady movement and provides far better group support while having overall the same survivability as a war, double that once expansion hits, those AOE condi removals will make or break teams.

The worst are definitively rangers and thieves. I agree with the OP and his reasons. Eles, necros, mesmers and engis can be grouped up together as mid-range. While each performs better at some things then the other, that all depends on the situation, they average out about the same. I do not agree with OP about necros though, necros can be extremely tanky, even situationally more so then guards or warriors, and have other tools available to them in order to prevent the need of stability in the 1st place, rather then use it to counter. Been there done that, so I wouldn’t put necros near the bottom.

Nuzt.7894:

Your missing the point I think. Op is asking which class in your opinion is the worst. Some classes are better suited for commanding than others. The player behind the character might be great but that doesn’t mean that class is the most optimal. For me it’s a toss up but probably teef.

I did list what I thought was the worst though, lol. That’s why the list is backwards.

The reason why I listed the best is because even if all choices are viable, you need to state why things are better and thus a hierarchy.

I do not agree with the OP’s reasonings that are based on players playing it badly.

Worst to Best:

Teef
Ranger
Mesmer
Necro
Ele
Engi
War
Guard

If you have a ranger trying to command from the back with a longbow then that is just a crappy player. I’ve tagged up plenty of times running something similar to this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBHhFakRl+VbYxiFuWDQIULDg3tdLUspgzkYHS5IZhtIA-T1CEwAQOEAtU/xpyjf7PsVJohTAQTlYt1EU5BA0RPAgjAApASZoF-w

Decent party condi cleanse, poison spam for downed players, very tanky especially with all the blocks, evades, blasts and leaps in the water field.

Next week it will be even stronger with the upcoming trait changes. Multiple blast finishers, more damage, more cc, tankier pets, higher uptime of regen, protection, and weakness on enemies.

In my opinion thieves are the worst. Even if they try building tanky they lack stability and need to evade and port to survive. They don’t have the tools to lead a push.

Warrior and guardian are so much better at frontlining than every other class that it’s meaningless to rate anything else. If you aren’t using warr or guard then the only thing you contribute to your team is a dorito.

Thief.

I don’t like my commander Shadow Refuging and slipping out the back door when everyone’s getting wiped.

That and they can’t push.

guard, war, ele strong
necro and ranger can do fine,
mesmer+engi+thief should never be touched.

It depends alot on the builds ppl are using though. Guard+war are generally fine where other classes such as ele+necro+ranger need to sacrifice their dmge to get enough surviveability.

Got a war, guard and ele, but my ele will always be my favorite commander class ^.^.
only downside of running ele is when the meleetrain isn’t familiar with the commander, they tend not to follow an ele his orders. Dat tunnelvision syndrome

Zephyra.4709:

Just a fun topic on what YOU think is the absolute worst profession(s) at donning the role of commander; primarily PUG commanding.

My list from worst to best:

8. Ranger
7. Thief
6. Necromancer
5. Elementalist
4. Engineer
3. Mesmer
2. Guardian
1. Warrior

I don’t know about you guys but rangers take the cake at being the worst when it comes to commanding; little support, always in the back longbow’ing away at god knows what, pet(s) die to cleave instantly, no reliable anti-CC abilities other than RaO and SoS which get stripped in seconds anyway.

Maybe I’ve just been having an ongoing plethora of bads in general tagging up with this profession? Ehhh.

The second worst profession to come to mind is thief. Sorry guys but I have witnessed uncountable instances where these bad boys tag up and command like their profession; teleporting everywhere (confusing players), running ahead of the zerg (losing players, long tail) because you can, downing a lot (quite squishy) and generally having zero stability other than DS which, in turn, will most likely get you killed by retaliation.

Other notable professions include necro due to barely any stability/escape/leaps and a toss up between engi/ele as I’ve one too many times had terribads clad in what seemed to be full zerk-twerk-time that go down very quickly with those professions.

What professions do YOU think are the worst at commanding? Feel free to discuss this topic amongst yourselves.

rangers have lots of AoE immobilize and power melee attacks. with pack runes and s/w rangers provide permanent group fury. Rangers have extremely high mobility when running a duel melee set, a 6s immunity to damage, and rediculous evasion uptime. I put them above thief and necro atleast in commanding capability. Rangers also have a powerful water field.

My ranking list: ( best to worst)
1. Guardian
2. Warrior
3. Mesmer
4. Elementalist
5. Engineer
6. Ranger
7. Necromancer
8. Thief

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Thief.

I don’t like my commander Shadow Refuging and slipping out the back door when everyone’s getting wiped.

That and they can’t push.

Thieves push farther than anyone else. They hit the backline far in front of the enemy melee train. You sir, are a terrible zerg theif.

ArchonWing.9480:

I don’t think you can dismiss a class solely based on people not knowing how to use it. If someone doesn’t pick a frontline tanky build to command, it’s not the fault of the class itself. Why would a ranger need a LB to command?

I don’t really command myself, thus this is largely based on my observing the commanders. When I was tagged, all instances were either as a guild or an emergency pug tag, Ironically, the later usually happens on an engineer or necro….

IMO, a good player could use any class and all thoughts are anecdotal….
8.) Thief— Have seen about one good thief commander. In the end, too squishy and too much aoe/cleave negates the thief’s strength. Getting focused down is a major problem. Stability is an issue. Best choice would be to run a venom share, tanky build (don’t shoot me!), shadowstep helps tons.

7.) Necro— Have seen very few good commanders on a necro, as the stability change really nuked their best source. No way to stop being focused, bad stability, no mobility. Is mostly saved by wells, wells, marks, and plague form/chilling darkness which will buy you time. Necros are generally good anywhere in wvw, but I think their talents are a bit wasted up front.

6.) Ranger— Have seen very few good ranger commanders. Unreliable stability, but usually enough to last on contact. Mostly RAO and Signet of the wild/signet of the stone (sadly, stone does NOT make you invul, it just negates direct damage). GS/sw/d provides enough mobility, blocks, and escape route lest things get too dicey. Unfortunately, the pet is going to die close up, and thus that takes away Empathetic bond as reliable condi removal. If you have reliable stability in your party, you could easily take Entangle/LR with SOTF though.

5.) Engineer— Have seen very few good engineer commanders. Lack stability, but have good mobility and ability to avoid damage. Slick shoes can screw people up if they try to focus it down. Some kind of bomb heal/slick shoes with prot injection and melandru runes should be pretty kitten ed hard to kill though I am skeptical about the bombs. Capable of some serious healing

4.) Ele- Have seen many ele commanders. Capable of obscene healing/cleansing and sustain via water attunement. Tons of CC; only weakness is being focused down but mist form and of course vapor form makes ele not a sure kill.

3.) Mesmer— Have seen a few good mesmer commanders. Mantra of Concentration is one of the best sources of stability. Distortions are lifesavers and blink is one of the best escapes in the game. Plus, they are slightly harder to focus down due to their access to a number of interrupts and bring lots of utility. No real weaknesses, other than Guardians and Warriors existing.

2.) Guardian— Have seen a ton, obviously. No real need to explain. Stab, cleanses, group support, and ability to mitigate damage via protection and blocks. Either Ring of Warding or Binding Blade is excellent for collecting enemies in an area for your group to blast down. Only weakness is the base health.

1.) Warrior— A lot of warrior commanders as well, for good reason. Similar to guardian, but more excellent at selfish survival thanks to the healing signet as well as high base health. Warriors edge out guardians slightly as they are more mobile although their stab is on some really long cooldowns.

venom thieves are meta, no one will shoot you

Zephyra.4709:

Just a fun topic on what YOU think is the absolute worst profession(s) at donning the role of commander; primarily PUG commanding.

My list from worst to best:

8. Ranger
7. Thief
6. Necromancer
5. Elementalist
4. Engineer
3. Mesmer
2. Guardian
1. Warrior

I don’t know about you guys but rangers take the cake at being the worst when it comes to commanding; little support, always in the back longbow’ing away at god knows what, pet(s) die to cleave instantly, no reliable anti-CC abilities other than RaO and SoS which get stripped in seconds anyway.

Maybe I’ve just been having an ongoing plethora of bads in general tagging up with this profession? Ehhh.

The second worst profession to come to mind is thief. Sorry guys but I have witnessed uncountable instances where these bad boys tag up and command like their profession; teleporting everywhere (confusing players), running ahead of the zerg (losing players, long tail) because you can, downing a lot (quite squishy) and generally having zero stability other than DS which, in turn, will most likely get you killed by retaliation.

Other notable professions include necro due to barely any stability/escape/leaps and a toss up between engi/ele as I’ve one too many times had terribads clad in what seemed to be full zerk-twerk-time that go down very quickly with those professions.

What professions do YOU think are the worst at commanding? Feel free to discuss this topic amongst yourselves.

Sorry but I know many Rangers who are better than Guardians or Warriors

Rangers do a good job of leading with the right build due to boons of their followers.

The one I have seen fewest of? Necro.

Worst to best: thief, mesmer, engi, ele, ranger, necro, warr, gua
Thieves, mesmers have nothing to survive in the first line. I cant decide which one is the worst because thieves have venoms, mesmers have mantras.
Engi, ele, rangers still nothing to do in the front line. Mostly squishys and lack of survives. Ele can be very tanky with signet, earth traits and earth attument + scepter/focus, but rangers have signet of wild, stone, rao and auto evaid on gs aa.
Necros have kittenload of hp + plague form and still can bomb with marks, wells, rip boons while do nice dmg in ds.
Warriors can lead with their normal wvw build with 3700 armor and 30k+ hp.
Gua is the best because they see the recharge of the stability shouts and can call it easy what is the most important

On Piken Square, we had this Thief commander that was… well, excellent. I dont think I ever saw him die and he lead pug groups as good or better than any Guardian/Warrior. Cant remember his name though (not playing on Piken anymore).

This thread is so ridiculous it’s confusing. I’ve followed outstanding commanders playing every single profession.

What kind of awful WvW experience are you guys having that you can’t find a decent commander?

Fluffball.8307:

This thread is so ridiculous it’s confusing. I’ve followed outstanding commanders playing every single profession.

What kind of awful WvW experience are you guys having that you can’t find a decent commander?

i think they follow commander by class instead by leadership.
If he knows what he do, the commander could be any class.

>_>

it is not the class that commands the players it is the player with knowledge in TS.

I will follow any ranger or thief that excells @ commanding i really do.

high mobility classes is more difficult to lead the zerg .

ArchonWing.9480:

I don’t think you can dismiss a class solely based on people not knowing how to use it. If someone doesn’t pick a frontline tanky build to

venom thieves are meta, no one will shoot you

The meta build sucks though while it gives great cc it has the flaw of having lost 2 utility skills leading too less survivability and thus lesser dmg while there are builds that can insta kill people and have torment ticking for 2.5k while standing still!

tbh, necros are right up there with warriors in terms of the best class to command with if you know how to theorycraft a good build and you know how to play. Very few do, so stick to the generally meta/cookie cutter guardian which is fine, but there are better options available to the top commanders if they can work them out and have mastered their usage.

Pretty much everything that makes a good commander is not connected to the profession he/she is playing. The only thing where professions come to play is how you deal with “on tag” actions (e.g. “stay, CC, AoE … on tag”).
Professions with a higher staying power (Guards, Warriors, Necros IMO) have some advantages, but a lot depends on builds and gear as well.

Good commanding is not dependant on “on tag” abilities most of the time, it is the ability to coordinate scouts and roamers elsewhere on the map, keeping an eye on supply in his group and supply lines on the map, predicting enemy targets and countering them, communicating his tactics on TS or /team chat …

Tiffany.8576:

tbh, necros are right up there with warriors in terms of the best class to command with if you know how to theorycraft a good build and you know how to play.

Most definetly not. Necros can probably build to survive in the middle of a zerg as good as any commander, but they are not “up there” with Warriors or Guardians simply because they have little in the way of tools. Necro dont even have a viable blast finisher. They offer almost nothing to the zerg except sporadic mark/well stuff (problem is, this is often used at range which means the friendly interactions like regen/condiconvert is mostly wasted).

That said, I dont think I have seen a Necro commander so my opinion is a bit biased.

8. Necro
7. Engineer
6. Thief
5. Mesmer
4. Ranger
3. Elementalist
2. Guardian
1. Warrior

I have actually seen many great thief commanders. Most using tanky builds based around group support.

While some may argue that thieves fail at commanding cause they can’t soak damage and can’t spearhead… well true, but they have so much utility in stealth and they’re very mobile. Of course the typical zergling will have trouble following their thief commander, but I guess it depends on the zerg more than on the commander in that case. Most commonly though, there’s thieves as second in commands, next to eles, because they can stealth their commander and core.

Class-wise I think this is my hierarchy of what’s worst-best:

Bad:

• Ranger
• Necromancer
  → usually egoistic builds, not extremely strong or tough, lack mobility

Hard but viable:

• Mesmer
• Thief
  → stealth and deception utilities

Sub-toppers:

• Engineer
• Elementalist
  → heal fields, might fields, tons of group support

Supreme:

• Guardian
• Warrior
  → utility, swiftness, tankiness… they have it all

I’ve seen plenty of really good Mesmer commanders. Just depends on the build they’re running and how smart they are. Generally the good ones I know can run multiple builds and their commanding build is completely different from their roaming build for obvious reasons. Mesmer commanders have the benefit of knowing exactly where and when they place their ports, veils etc.

For commanding?
8. thief.
Literally no sustain, not even nomads gear can fix that. I’ve seen 1 good thief commander in the past 2 years, and this guy never did lead something bigger than a well-organized 15-man group.
7. Mesmer.
Their utility in form of mass-invis and veil is awesome for zergs, but when it comes to commanding, their mobility-options – consisting of nothing but teleports – causes confusion amongst their own followers, while they also lack the ability to deal with spike-dmg beyond using F4 once, nor have they any viable melee-specs and tend to pirate-ship their group, rather than capitalizing on the melee-strengths of others.
6./5. Ranger.
They are able to negate dmg for an initial dive, and while their regenerative capabilities make them extremely strong in small-scale engagements, they get ravaged in seconds by spike-dmg, especially since their block is not viable against multiple opponents in melee.
6./5. Necromancer.
While being in the meta for their well support and spike-dmg, they suffer from a lack of sustain as well, adding the lack of any leaps just makes it worse for commanding.
4. Elementalist.
Successful commanding is possible with this class, if it specs solely for dmg-avoidance and camps earth longer than water. A player may lead a zerg with this class, but will not bring much utility beyond dropping waterfields and rock-wall.
3. Engineer.
The only non-heavy class that fulfills the commander-role easily, while also bringing enough utility, support and dmg to justify it’s presence. I can not guarantee that this still holds true after next tuesday.
1./2. Warri
We all know why.
1./2. Guard
We all know why.

I have come to an understanding that there are two types of commanding in WvW:

Strategic: deciding where to strike, what buildings to attack, when to fall back and defend. Strategic commanding revolves around controlling the current map strategy, developing plans for attack and defense and executing them.

Tactical: The art of combating an enemy zerg. Tactical commanding requires the commander to drive the fight from recovery phases to stacking might to leading the frontline hammer train or pirate ship.

Anyone can do strategic commanding. I do mean anyone. It doesn’t take a specific class to drive map strategy and this can even be performed by more than one person (though your results will probably be better with one commander calling map strategy). Strategic commanding is the first type of commanding someone learns too. Even with one map strategist the map should be driven by at least 3 commanders for your server to be able to conquer it. This gives you one group to manage each of the enemies plus one group to manage defense.

Tactical commanding (also known as Driving in some guilds) can’t be done by every class for every fight strategy. Tactical commanding is the source of this topic’s discussion I’d like to believe. I’ve seen 2 metas for tactical combat and the commander for each differs.

Hammer Train: Consists of a heavy contingent of guardians and warriors backed up by some ranged classes. Hammer trains play aggressively targeting enemy zerg’s support classes first (eles, necros).

Pirate ship: Consists of heavy ranged class components and few to no heavy classes (guard/war). Whoever pushes into the other zerg first loses as the defending zerg bombs their feet with CCs, traps, and heavy aoe.

If your guild raids with a “come as you want” mentality then you as the driver can decide what comp you match closest and pick the driver class for it.

With that framework mentioned i can describe my commander classes from worst to best (I’ve commanded on all but engineer).

Pirate Ship 4. Thief. Thief is slightly worse than ranger for tactical combat. They’ll excel when backed up by large numbers of thieves. If you must drive with a thief then go with a pirate ship group comp. Bring your sword, pistol, and shortbow. Spec for the thief traps. Set your rangers to traps too. This will make your pirate ship effective.

PS 3. Ranger. Rangers would be great drivers for pirate ships if only they didn’t have 40% of their effectiveness tied up in a stupid ai driven creature. That said they’re more durable than a thief in the long run as a ship driver. They can do traps and longbow to stay out of main combat.

PS 2 Engineer. Engie should almost be classified as a hammer train driver especially with healing bombs but they don’t get the raw mobility of the frontline classes. With grenades, mines, and turrets they’ll make great pirate ship captains.

PS 1: Elementalist. Ele makes a powerful pirate ship driver with static field and meteor shower. They can direct the aoe drops more effectively and direct recover better.

Hammer train 4: Mesmer. Mesmers can make fairly ok hammer train drivers with sword/focus. A mesmer commander has control over his own veil and portal. That is a bout it though, they can’t really drive a hammer train beyond that with a general lack of mobility.

HT 3: Necromancer. Necros form more of a support bomb role in a hammer train and could arguably drive a pirate ship effectively. They’ll be surprisingly durable at the front of the line especially specialized into siphons (definitely after tomorrow!).

HT 2: Warrior. Warrior is a heavy class and gets durability even in full zerker gear enough to drive a hammer train. Pick a weapon (greatsword, or hammer) + sword/horn or go with the metabattle builds for them. Warriors have the mobility to keep up with the hammer train and drive it effectively. They lack in the pure lockdown capability of a guardian though and don’t have the ability to broadcast stability. This imo puts the guardian at HT1.

HT1: Guardian. Greatsword or hammer, makes no difference. Guardians have the best frontline mobility and lockdown necessary to make a hammer train effective. They lock the enemy in while necros and eles bomb them with AOE. Even after stability stack changes Guardians are the best commanders for a hammer train.

obviously the worst profession to command is the revenant!

I would say warrior is the worst because most of the ones I fight spend 80% of the battle with their back turned to me, speeding away with their greatswords.

They should really invest in nicer back pieces…

(obviously this is sarcastic, just wanted to state so explicitly, because Internet).

Its guard and warrior is the best everything else is opinions of people.

And I would but ELE after warrior, everything else is meh.

I’ll start by saying that I am speaking from experience, I’ve driven pug groups, skill groups and roaming groups. I’ve tried doing it on every class and found out pretty quickly which ones were awful and which ones were usable. 1-4 are viable drivers, but none compare to the Guardian.

8. Thief – Not enough defense to jump in to fights without instantly melting.
7. Elementalist – Also not enough defense to jump in to fights without instantly melting. Plenty of defensive skills, but if you get focused by a ranger or two after blowing your cooldowns, there is no staying alive as an ele.
6. Mesmer – Also not enough defense to jump in to fights without instantly melting.
5. Engineer – Not too many defensives in the case of a condi bomb, they also don’t really have any great skills that would help with commanding. Best you can hope for is a really tank condi bomb build, which isn’t really useful in bigger groups.
4. Ranger – Rangers can be built to be very tank, they have plenty of defensives to last for awhile in the front line.
3. Necromancer – Thanks to Shroud, a big HP pool and plague form, they can generally outlive most classes if played right.
2. Warrior – While this is the most tank class, it is still not the best because Guardian has more defensives and healing abilities.
1. Guardian – This is number one for many reasons. Shelter heal, Renewed Focus, the Alteruistic Healing trait coupled with the staff Empower ability, any time you grant boons to allies you get heals, any time you dodge roll you get heals. Empowering might trait grants might to 5 near by allies every second if you crit, so that is about 500 HP being regenerated every couple seconds (if you built your guardian well.) The healing is the best in the game in bigger groups. Guardian is #1, no contest.

lloydst.6985:

ArchonWing.9480:

I don’t think you can dismiss a class solely based on people not knowing how to use it. If someone doesn’t pick a frontline tanky build to

venom thieves are meta, no one will shoot you

The meta build sucks though while it gives great cc it has the flaw of having lost 2 utility skills leading too less survivability and thus lesser dmg while there are builds that can insta kill people and have torment ticking for 2.5k while standing still!

Lol. With venoms you can insta kill 15 people

Sadrien.3470:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Thief.

I don’t like my commander Shadow Refuging and slipping out the back door when everyone’s getting wiped.

That and they can’t push.

Thieves push farther than anyone else. They hit the backline far in front of the enemy melee train. You sir, are a terrible zerg theif.

They do that because they know the enemy melee train won’t be on them, they’ll be on the thief’s allies. So yes, thieves can push, but not as a commander. Typically people stay on the commander – but not everyone can keep up with a thief’s teleports, and the thief can’t rely on their own melee train to distract the enemy.

Overall I think if you’re going to determine what classes are worst at commanding, you should keep in mind that there are widely different types of commanding. Although a thief is terrible at commanding a zerg, they can be very good at commanding a small group.

Personally I feel that the only class that won’t succeed any better (ultimately always being surpassed by others) is ranger. Although this can be argued otherwise due to builds, they’re generally more squishy compared to other classes, lack escapes, and will almost always get focused down first.

every class can lead its all about team work
and i see rangers ad last place pains my heart QQ

rangers can pretty much stay alive for a long time
my self am 90 % tanky build and with above 3k armor i cant say am that weak
to get down fast

and with all good trait setup it helps me allot to stay alive longer
and a ranger with a GS is pretty solid in front lines

but all comes down how good your zerk is you can’t do it alone

Musst see with the new Skills it can change.

1. Warrior
2. Guardian
3. Engi
4. Necro
5. Ele
6. Mesmer
7. Ranger
8. Thief

I’d say Warri and Guard are both equal.
Spot 3-7 are all possible, if well played.
Thiefs just suck.

Just .02 – two of the best commanders I have ever seen run necro: Indo and Dekar.

Rangers can command fine you just can’t lead a melee train… But for pug manding at least on T2 you can’t get kittenty pugs to stick with you to do anything anyways so I might as well be the captain of my glorious pirate ship.

Honestly I’d say Thief is probably the worst commander. You lack the range to lead a real pirate ship in any sense of the strategy, and in melee you do nearly 0 cc, you have a few stunbreaks at best with nearly 0 access to stability, so you have all the weaknesses of a ranger commander but you can’t make a paradigm shift and just range things because tief range too short to really use.

Honestly, Necros can command very well now with the new trait changes. They can run an extremely tanky death shroud build that basically throws life force at you. All they would need in terms of group support is condi clear and stab.

Quite funny how atleast half of the people actually start debating about the usefullness of the class during commanding. War+guard are the ONLY professions that can have a decent build running aswell as being tagged up at the same time, therefore in any small group, the only viable setup would be guard/war.

When talking about blobcommanding the 1 extra person won’t contribute that much to the zerg, so the effectivity of the commanderproffession is like 89% surviveability, 10% control/support and 1% dmge. Saying some classes are not able to survive in certain circumstances simply because they’re used to see them running zerker builds is because of this reason plain stupid.

When you want to compare different professions, you should be comparing them, running with full nomads and tanky traits+utilities. Armor, health, hps, condi cleanse, stability and escapes are the factors that determine the effectiveness of the class.

Professions such as thief and mesmer lack the hps to be a decent commander, engi lacks the stability, necro and ranger lack the escapes and condi cleanse.

Ele, guard, and war have all these aspects
armor (3.8k ele, 4k+ guard and war)
health (22k ele+guard, war easy 30-40k)
hps( all 1k hps+)
condi cleanse( ele 9 condi cleanse and -33% duration, guard 1-2, war 5 condi cleanse -33 duration
stab(ele 2×10stacks/60 sec cd, guard 5 stacks 24 sec cd+3 stacks 90 sec cd, war 10 stack/60 sec and 5 stack/40 sec
escapes(ele mist+vapor, guard shelter+renewed focus, war defiant stance and endure pain)

I’m not claiming that engi, necro and ranger are unable to command, but they can be countered by the enemy zerg by abusing the weakness of the class. Ele, Guard and War have all aspects to counter the commandersniping. Mesmer and thief simply cannot sustain their surviveability themselves and therefore are to risky to command with.

Obviously, front line, tanky, heavy armour, defensive, melee-friendly classes will always be best.

They can try to pretend that they have removed the necessity for tanks from the game, as much as they like, but they’re still inevitably going to be far more viable than anything else for leading a WvW zerg.

That’s not to say good players, with good support, can’t play something else; but it’s never going to be optimal.

The worst is, typically, going to be anything that favours ranged, lacks passive defenses and/or is squishy.

The only way they could get around this, is if they let all classes wear heavy armour, made all equally effective in frontline melee roles and let all build equally tanky and passively defensive.

…and I’m saying all this with absolutely no knowledge of playing classes, other than Ranger, in this game; it’s just an inevitable consequence of the design.

1.Warrior ( mostly seen)
2.Guardian ( mostly seen)
3.Mesmer
4.Necromancer
5. Elementalist
6. Ranger
7. Engineer ( sorry hardly see one )
8.Thief

ITT: A bunch of people that think nomad’s gear is profession specific, and people can only play PvP meta builds when they command. Seriously, if you think rangers command with a LB, think your posts through a little better.

Fluffball.8307:

Seriously, if you think rangers command with a LB, think your posts through a little better.

I think people know they, generally, don’t.

But that doesn’t change the fact that some classes are just inherently more suited to it than others.

Tigaseye.2047:

Fluffball.8307:

Seriously, if you think rangers command with a LB, think your posts through a little better.

I think people know they, generally, don’t.

But that doesn’t change the fact that some classes are just inherently more suited to it than others.

Well you’d hope, but some people have posted in this thread that rangers can’t command because they stay at 2100 range…

Anywho, there are 3 things that make a commander:

1) Knows how to play WvW and thus makes good decisision (i.e. will abandon a fight at enemy T1 Bay lord to save his T3 tower.)

2) Is a good leader of people (i.e. doesn’t swear at people when his team loses.)

3) Doesn’t die.

EVERYTHING else is irrelevant. And every single profession can bring some very useful utilities like fear walls, stealth, water fields, etc.

Fluffball.8307:

Tigaseye.2047:

Fluffball.8307:

Seriously, if you think rangers command with a LB, think your posts through a little better.

I think people know they, generally, don’t.

But that doesn’t change the fact that some classes are just inherently more suited to it than others.

Well you’d hope, but some people have posted in this thread that rangers can’t command because they stay at 2100 range…

Anywho, there are 3 things that make a commander:

1) Knows how to play WvW and thus makes good decisision (i.e. will abandon a fight at enemy T1 Bay lord to save his T3 tower.)

2) Is a good leader of people (i.e. doesn’t swear at people when his team loses.)

3) Doesn’t die.

EVERYTHING else is irrelevant. And every single profession can bring some very useful utilities like fear walls, stealth, water fields, etc.

Problem is those 3 points completely ignore a certain factor I like to call “The Will Of The Zerg”. Which is to blindly run straight forward furiously pushing 111111 while ignoring the commander on TS. It is also the thing that make a commander loose half his zerg because they decided for a pitstop at a nearby guard circle but the commander is too pro to lower himself to such menial tasks.

This factor heavily favor a strong melee commander. Because the zerg generally dont listen to tactics.

If you have a good zerg, then even a dead commander can lead them.