27 replies to this topic

[Vherax]

Hey guys,

Which profession would (in your opinion) fit the leader archetype best? Imagine something like Guild Master or WvW Commander. Which class would fit this role best (practically, visually and roleplay-wise)?

[Gerroh]

Guardian.
Hands down.

[Reikou]

Thief.

Practically; Thieves have stealth, which allows them to watch the flow of battle pretty easily.
Visually; subjective.  Really irrelevant.
Role-play; really?

[Vherax]

Gerroh, on 30 November 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Guardian.
Hands down.

Human or norn?

[Evans]

Offense: Warrior
Defense: Guardian

Norn don't have armies, at best they have hunting parties. A Norn commander is a rare thing, lore wise, and not something I'd put much faith in. Norn think of their own glory first and foremost. Yes there are of course exceptions to the rule though, in fact most of the NPC Norn we meet seem to embody the exception rather than the rule.

Humans have a more structured army and are a decent choice, but Charr are the most advanced in military structure.

I would say a Charr Warrior to lead an assault party and a Human Guardian to lead a defensive unit.

Edited by Evans, 30 November 2012 - 10:48 AM.

[Gerroh]

Except that human guardians run away from everything.

Charr guardian works, or sylvari guardian.

Reikou, on 30 November 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

Thief.

Practically; Thieves have stealth, which allows them to watch the flow of battle pretty easily.
Visually; subjective.  Really irrelevant.
Role-play; really?

↑Clearly a heavily biased thief player, reaching for whatever shred of sense they can grasp.

Edited by Gerroh, 30 November 2012 - 02:16 PM.

[Tyrantscreed]

Lol what a question...

You can be w/e best "leader" archetype class you prefer, but its your play style & social skills that would matter as a WvW Commander or a Guild Leader , if you are bad at those then everything else becomes irrelevant.

If you want pics of fancy "tough guy" poses, go with Guardian, you might be able to survive while taking screenshots!

[NerfHerder]

Lore wise, if a Greatsword wielding Sylvari Necro can lead, anyone can. But, Human Guardian or Charr Warrior sounds like the best fit to me. Go with a shout support build

[Firstborn12]

for the visal aspect, I would say Warrior or Guardian, Norn would be a good choice due to there size, not sure of the RP aspect. Now that said, its really doesnt matter what race or Profession you are, as long as you are able to organized crowds as a Guild Master or WvW commander, For instance, without giving his name, there is a guy in my server that is a Charr Necro, and people flock to his commander Icon whenever he's on. cuase he knows what he's doing in WvW, most commandes dont. some get the Commander Icon for show, but they really cant lead.

[raspberry jam]

Necromancer.

Like Trehearne.

[Nabuko Darayon]

Human Warrior with Cultural T3 armor all the way!

[Operetta]

This sounds fun!

A Charr Engineer:
Charr - "The charr race was forged in the merciless crucible of war. It is all they know....Victory is all that matters, and it must be achieved by any means and at any cost."
Engineer - "take control of an area... support their allies... or lay waste to foes."

[Ss Heretic]

I've been Guild Leader playing an Assassin in Guildwars 1.

I was laid back and understanding. And having other characters listening to an Assassin in the Guildhall gave me this cliché feeling of some random movie. In which the big reckless leader fails, and a small but wise leader needs to lead the group.

[turbo234]

I guess it all depends on how you portray your character. You could be a big bruising warrior, or a witty ranger. Guardian could be a good one too I suppose, like an honorable defender.

[Tregarde]

Any profession or race can be a leader. What matters is the ability to lead and inspire others to follow.

[CepaCepa]

A Norn elementalist can roleplay as a "Shaman" and as such would be a spiritual leader of the group. If he is specced into support and uses a staff, he can control the flow of the battle with fields and area crowd control, basically the wise old man of the group who doesn't rush forward but everyone listens to.

A Human or Char guardian, either Sword/Scepter or Greatsword/Staff, is obviously a leader either in terms of role play OR the battle itself. He'd be the first one rushing forward, especially with Sword + focus.

A Human mesmer can role play as a "high ranking nobility" and hence can definitely be the leader in the role play sense. In practice however, it does not feel as leadership heavy as say, guardian or elementalist.

[Ninja Battle Lion]

To me a great leader is a fierce warrior with a good grasp of tactics, so your question pretty much answers itself for me.

[Mekkakat]

Anyone/thing can be a "leader" - but in my personal opinion, the leader is the person that can operate their class fluidly while surveying and commanding their team equally, if not better.

This usually rules out front line builds/professions. Reasoning: the front line role is very demanding and should require 100% attention. Success is entirely dependent on Guardians throwing up skills at precise moments, and Warriors body blocking huge damage dealers. Thieves should be busy fighting and setting up defensive group stealth, and Engineers... God.. they already need any extra arm as is.

That leaves the casters -

Ele is in the same boat as an Engineer and should only be played in high-end PvE/PvP by experienced folks to begin with. It's just as demanding, and takes a lot of focus to be really really good.

Now your choices are those in the mid or back line, that are playing mixed or hybrid builds. Necromancers are almost always this role. Mesmers too. I'd say the best callers/leaders would be someone back there, watching the game happen at a slightly slower pace. The classes that don't have to be as reactive are typically the best callers.

I'll break it down by build now, as to show that any class would make fine/great leaders though:

Shout Warriors (they get a lot of free time with their utility and being more of a "linebacker" style play)
Staff or Spirit Weapon Guardians
Venomsharers
Trappers
Necros
Mesmers (besides shatter mesmers)
Elixir Engis
Water Eles
etc
etc

*note - this is just my opinion. In GW1, I was always caller in PvE, HA, and GvG and I played Warrior (hammer/linebacker) or Mesmer.

[Zechs]

Depends on their personality more than their proffession/race in my opinion.
In Ghosts of Ascalon, Dougal Keane leads his group, and he's a Human Thief.
Leader of Destiny's Edge is Eir Stegalkin, Norn Ranger.
Leader of the Pact, Trahearne, Sylvari Necromancer.
Etc, etc.

[NuclearDonut]

Warrior hands down. Grab a greatsword and a shout build and lead your army to battle.

[Sitriel]

Visually and roleplay-wise the answer to this question really depends on the kind of leader you wish to portray. Just look at some of the famous leaders of our history and you will find that many of them have very little in common. Tell Zhuge Liang and Napoleon that there is only one leader archetype and both will look at each other and call you a liar (if you told them in a language they understand, that is). Add magic and fancy tech to the mix and you would get an even wider range of possible leader archetypes.
So, you can concentrate fully on practical aspects, mainly your ability to play your character and do leadery things at the same time, which Mekkakat did quite a good job explaining.

[Gerroh]

I think the vast majority of people are completely missing what OP is asking.
Yes, anyone can be a leader, we've seen a blue chevron above the head of every single profession, but he's asking which fits the archetype the most.
What is the "leader archetype"? Well it's definitely not a goddamn thief, that's more of the cunning assassin archetype. Engineer is more of a gizmo and gadgets scatter-brain-genius archetype. And for the other professions you should be able to use your imagination, I'm not explaining them all.
Yes, there are necromancer and thief leaders in the story, but they are not the archetype.
I'd say warrur fits, but guardian fits better. To me, warrurs are more of a frontline trooper profession, the guys who lay down their lives to push the enemy back, but I can definitely see one as a leader.
Norn, lore-wise, don't fit as well as other races, neither do sylvari and asura, to be honest. Human, while (in my opinion) a boring race, does have a lot of chain-of-command stuff to it, and an organized military. Charr share the organized military thing, and it comes down to which archetype of leader do you want to be?
Do anything for victory leader? Go with charr. Do anything for your people leader? Go with human.

Edited by Gerroh, 01 December 2012 - 02:09 AM.

[MrForz]

I always found Engineer fitting best at leading small groups, strike teams. And it's what I'm usually doing during long WvW sieges where the key is to cut off your ennemy's access to supplies.

Large scale armies, well, it will probably go to Shout Warriors.

[rukh]

Warrior.

They shout orders, place down banners, call targets, and usually leading the charge due to their survivability and tons of gap closers.  There's your leader archetype.

[coglin]

It is a fortune cookie question. there is no real answer because it is such a subjective and a matter of personal opinion. So much so the question itself, almost appears to be purely intent on creating forums conflict.

It makes about as much sense as asking exactly how much liquid do you consider a "gulp" or how much air do you have to take in to consider it a full breath, or at specifically what age are you half way to your death?

Edited by coglin, 05 December 2012 - 01:34 AM.

[CepaCepa]

Mekkakat, on 30 November 2012 - 06:42 PM, said:

I'll break it down by build now, as to show that any class would make fine/great leaders though:

Shout Warriors (they get a lot of free time with their utility and being more of a "linebacker" style play)
Staff or Spirit Weapon Guardians
Venomsharers
Trappers
Necros
Mesmers (besides shatter mesmers)
Elixir Engis
Water Eles
etc
etc

*note - this is just my opinion. In GW1, I was always caller in PvE, HA, and GvG and I played Warrior (hammer/linebacker) or Mesmer.

If we're talking about typing out things in group chat though, versus having a voice communication setup, an additional requirement on CDs would be there. That is, how fast is that profession supposed to press buttons and how much does he/she lose by missing those CDs.

A grenadier engineer standing at 1500 range should in theory have a clear view of the battle, and if the battle allows (that is, nothing is chasing the engi and the mob isn't moving too much) the engi just needs to press buttons over and over again. However I never get to type out anything on my engi --- Too busy pressing 1, since there is no auto attack.

Mesmer dps has too much of a variation, it can climb from 700 to 7000 dps, and drops quickly back down if not carefully maintained, so I wouldn't say they're the best for calling out things --- They'd be busy enough looking at their own phantasms/clones/shatter/Summon CDs on both weapons. Unless, of course, he has 3 iWarlock safely aligned bursting on the boss and using Greatsword auto attack himself, and has basically nothing else to do, but those situations do not happen that often.

So my vote goes to necro for "practical reasons", and perhaps rangers whenever they've weapon swapped back to short bow or long bow and have a devourer/spider standing beside himself, doing nothing but auto attack (maybe a sharpening stone or zephyr) for 7-16 seconds.

Hey, maybe that's why Eir was the leader for Destiny's Edge.

[StaplerPie]

Vherax, on 30 November 2012 - 10:10 AM, said:

Hey guys,

Which profession would (in your opinion) fit the leader archetype best? Imagine something like Guild Master or WvW Commander. Which class would fit this role best (practically, visually and roleplay-wise)?

Visually and thematically the answer is definitely warrior.  Warrior is THE archetypal war general.  They have a LotR style Warhorn with "Call to Arms" and "Charge", shouts like "On My Mark" to inspire allies, and they can charge into battle with war banners which they can then plant to inspire allies some more.  They also wear heavy armor, which is the most general-like of all the armor classes.

Second place would probably be Guardian because of all their support skills.

[Xunlai Agent]

Warrior followed by Guardian.