Best class for PvE Commander?

I've seen posts in the past about WvW commander classes, but I've recently gotten interest in doing HP Trains and help with map completion and events. Is there a "best" class for this? My thoughts are Guardian or Mesmer. I've played Mesmer before and I think having the ports would be handy for non-mounted players. I've never played Guardian but I'm taking an interest in it and have heard good things over WvW but I'm specifically looking at PvE purposes. I'm open to other suggestions as well!

Necro and Rev are both great options.

Necro can do great damage while being tough as nails and can mass ress newbies that get downed, as long as you trait blood magic for it.Rev has extreme flexibility in builds he can literally be anything he wants save maybe long range sniper. He can be a healer, tank, support, condi and power dps and any mix of the before mentioned. Also his staff #5 is infamous for smashing break bars so hard it's not funny.

Also both professions have the ability to rip boons - often overlooked aspect in PvE but there's fair amount of bosses that like to gain 25 stacks of might, some quikness and nasty retalliation that removed will make the fight much easier.

I would think Herald with their 10 person boon share!

Necro, you can either go tanky bruiser with Reaper or full support with Scourge. One Mercy Scourge makes the group practically invulnerable until you hit the target cap on the skills, very important at HoT HP trains (and metas, like Dragon's Stand) especially.

(In particular, Necro has an ability to mass ress their entire party with F4 and Well of Blood with traits.)

That said Spirit Druid, Herald and Healshout/WH Warrior make good choices due to the increased target caps. And if you particularly like Mesmer, support Chrono is extremely powerful with their healing Wells, healing on every illusion summon, all the Alacrity and Quickness, fast ress, on-demand reflects, portals and the highest tanking capacity in the entire game with traited Shatters.

Oh, and that's all in one build. :p

Remember, being a Commander in either PvE or WvW isn't about DPS, in fact you want to avoid it. You'll want to be able to survive everything, almost never go down and the last thing you want to do is take contribution away from your group. Just make sure you have at least some damage so you can (slowly) solo enemies when you get caught out on your own.

Especially avoid damage when working with PUGs (low-level maps, dungeons, etc.).

The best gear to wear is probably Magi/Cleric/Crusader for Power builds and Shaman/Settler/Apothecary/Plaguedoctor for Condition Damage builds, and you can reach 60%+ Boon Duration on them with Water runes, Sigil of Concentration, food and traits.

The one that you can play the best since it's irrelevant for the most part. The only exception is using mesmer if you need to portal people often, but generally you can use any class since the commander role in pve doesnt exist like it does in wvw, where class would matter.

Compared to WvW, zerg compositions in PvE aren’t something you need to account for, so essentially any class can be used to command.

Some basic goals you would want to meet with your build though are that you are able to stay alive for whatever kind of content you are doing. The commander constantly going down or full dying would cause set backs for leading whatever event you’re doing, so playing a tanky class or build might be a priority.

I personally think buffing classes such as Chronomancers, Firebrands, and Revenants would be good classes to command with. You can have increased survivability, deal a reasonable amount of damage, and provide buffs that may not be provided by other people.

Since you’re running a zerg in the open world, you already have tons of other people doing damage so being able to provide quickness and/or alacrity can be a massive buff to your group since other people probably aren’t bringing any, and it is a greater gain than adding one more open world dps player.

It’s great to see players interested in helping others unlock their elite specializations. Thank you for helping others. I would like to share my experiences.

I do not host map completion trains but I do host hero point trains for both expansions every day of the week. I have been hosting runs for three years. This past week I hosted 19 runs between both expansions. I also help other commanders with their runs.

While hosting runs players will encounter large gaps or points that are up high. These are some of the biggest challenges players will face when navigating the expansion maps. It becomes a road block for them if they don’t have raptor canyon jump, springer, skyscale or ley line gliding. Without help they will not be able to proceed with the group. This is where the mesmer portals come in handy. Large gap ahead that 10 players cannot jump over? No problem with mesmer portals. Next hero point is 20 feet high and 17 players cannot access it? No problem. Just port them to it. If portals are unavailable a good chunk of the group will fall behind.

If there is a group of mobs ahead I will use mass invis which makes players invisible from the group while we run past them. And the mesmer utility, blink, is incredibly useful too. Maybe mass invis is on cool down, no problem. I will blink past the group of mobs up ahead.

There is a reason why most HP Train commanders are mesmers. If I can help you in any way please let me know. I’m sure you will do great. I wish you the best, mate.