Best Order for.a Ranger?

[Alexander.5796]

Hey there, everyone. I am starting a Sylvari Ranger pretty soon and I wanted to know your opinions on what order would be better.

 

The initial choices would be;

 

-Charm

-Fern Hound

-White Stag

-Where Life Goes

-Cycle of Dawn

 

For the personality I like to think of them as intelligent and strategic, both a combatant yet a proper diplomat, they value knowledge and subterfguge and combat all but their main mission is to destroy the Elder Dragons and ensure the safety of everyone. 

 

[Kodama.6453]

How you describe the character, you can make a case for any of the orders.

As a combatant and someone who wants to "save everyone", this fits the vigil pretty well. They want to unite the different races of Tyria to bring war to the elder dragons in direct battle.

That the character values knowledge and subterfuge makes them a good candidate for the order of whispers, since these garner all information they can while working in the shadows and behind the scenes.

These 2 orders, in my opinion, are the stronger candidates for your character. Durmand priory can also fit, considering that your character is a "proper diplomat" and values knowledge. But this order is relying heavily on the past, I am not sure if your character does that.

__________________________________________

From the vigil and order of the whispers, I would personally give vigil a slight advantage here. I see the order of whispers as more "pragmatic", they are willing to make sacrifices as long as that ensures that they can save the most people possible. Meanwhile the vigil seems more like idealists to me, which are not willing to sacrifice anyone. They will fight to save ALL, no bargaining.

[Alexander.5796]

25 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

How you describe the character, you can make a case for any of the orders.

As a combatant and someone who wants to "save everyone", this fits the vigil pretty well. They want to unite the different races of Tyria to bring war to the elder dragons in direct battle.

That the character values knowledge and subterfuge makes them a good candidate for the order of whispers, since these garner all information they can while working in the shadows and behind the scenes.

These 2 orders, in my opinion, are the stronger candidates for your character. Durmand priory can also fit, considering that your character is a "proper diplomat" and values knowledge. But this order is relying heavily on the past, I am not sure if your character does that.

__________________________________________

From the vigil and order of the whispers, I would personally give vigil a slight advantage here. I see the order of whispers as more "pragmatic", they are willing to make sacrifices as long as that ensures that they can save the most people possible. Meanwhile the vigil seems more like idealists to me, which are not willing to sacrifice anyone. They will fight to save ALL, no bargaining.

Much what I was thinking. They do value history and the past as part of Diplomatic Duties but not so much in a Priory Way, think of him as a kínd of good version of Thrawn from Star Wars. A bit of Julius Caesar too. An educated military man. 
 

That being said they don’t believe the past is all that is needed to beat the Dragons, their first tennet is preserving the peace in the now and saving others, everything is there to obtain it and their main skill is being a strategist and diplomat (Fighting and then seeing to the aftermath) such as stuff in Kryta or Ebonhawke. He is very in the now, he studies the past but he is very in the now. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Alexander.5796

[Mic.1897]

The Vigil is the only one that makes sense for a player character

 

 

[Danikat.8537]

On 2/12/2023 at 3:45 PM, Alexander.5796 said:

Much what I was thinking. They do value history and the past as part of Diplomatic Duties but not so much in a Priory Way, think of him as a kínd of good version of Thrawn from Star Wars. A bit of Julius Caesar too. An educated military man. 
 

That being said they don’t believe the past is all that is needed to beat the Dragons, their first tennet is preserving the peace in the now and saving others, everything is there to obtain it and their main skill is being a strategist and diplomat (Fighting and then seeing to the aftermath) such as stuff in Kryta or Ebonhawke. He is very in the now, he studies the past but he is very in the now. 

Based on that I think the Order of Whispers would be the best choice. The Vigil are very direct, but also very single-minded, they're not interested in anything except killing the dragons by any means necessary. The Priory are almost the opposite, they're mainly interested in study and only fight when necessary or when there isn't time to alert someone else to a threat. The Order of Whispers are kind of a middle ground, they will act directly when needed (including working in the open, in uniform) but prefer a delicate touch whenever possible and like to consider all the options and pick the best one before they act, even (especially) if that means stepping back and letting someone else claim the victory.

Since you have a good sense of who your character is one option is to let them choose. There's 3 story steps where you can choose one of the orders to side with before you have to choose one to join permanently. Listen to their plans and pick the one you think your character would prefer. Keep track of their choices and when you're asking to choose an Order to join pick the one they sided with most often.

That's what I did, unintentionally, with my human ranger. Before I got to that point I was certain she was going to join the Vigil, but then I ended up picking the Whispers plan twice and the Priory once, the Vigil's approach never seemed right for her, so she joined the Whispers instead.

I think any profession can fit with any Order, to some extent any character can fit with any Order, there's no wrong choice, but some might feel like a better fit for you.

[Alexander.5796]

5 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Based on that I think the Order of Whispers would be the best choice. The Vigil are very direct, but also very single-minded, they're not interested in anything except killing the dragons by any means necessary. The Priory are almost the opposite, they're mainly interested in study and only fight when necessary or when there isn't time to alert someone else to a threat. The Order of Whispers are kind of a middle ground, they will act directly when needed (including working in the open, in uniform) but prefer a delicate touch whenever possible and like to consider all the options and pick the best one before they act, even (especially) if that means stepping back and letting someone else claim the victory.

Since you have a good sense of who your character is one option is to let them choose. There's 3 story steps where you can choose one of the orders to side with before you have to choose one to join permanently. Listen to their plans and pick the one you think your character would prefer. Keep track of their choices and when you're asking to choose an Order to join pick the one they sided with most often.

That's what I did, unintentionally, with my human ranger. Before I got to that point I was certain she was going to join the Vigil, but then I ended up picking the Whispers plan twice and the Priory once, the Vigil's approach never seemed right for her, so she joined the Whispers instead.

I think any profession can fit with any Order, to some extent any character can fit with any Order, there's no wrong choice, but some might feel like a better fit for you.

You raise a good point, I do like the way you think, I do however often make plans for what order my characters join based on their personalities and their goals at large.

My Charr Necromancer from the Iron Legion, my Asura Elementalist from the College of Dynamics and my Norn Guardian are all from the Priory because their belief in obtaining knowledge to create a better world, one that doesn't need heroes to protect itself from the Dragons or other menaces in the future, they believe in prepraring the world by giving it new inventions, weapons and ability to fend for itself with what they create. My Charr and Asura are both inventors and my Norn is a historian.

I didn't made my Charr join the Vigil because he believes in attacking when prepared and in using new and efficient inventions like the Ghostbore/Ghostfire stuff he made "Solving problems from your labs and libraries before solving them in the field" felt right for him. My Asura chose Priory because she is an inventor first and foremost, she wants to make new stuff that can make the world a better place and study the technology of other races, she didn't join Whispers because she finds they are more interested in taking than actually making and finds their "Send the Dragons back to sleep" mentality largely absurd.

I originally was gonna make my Norn Vigil but she found that protecting innocents was more the Priory style in her missions and she ended up joining them.

My Human Thief is a secretive type who joined Whispers due to the political world that got her Parents killed and because subterfuge and espinoage came natural to her.

My Sylvari is someone who values diplomacy as his main but understands fighting, prefers to do so with sensible strategy first and foremost rather than throwing himself into danger. That being said, the first Order mission between using golems or attacking head on, he would likely consider the golems too unpredictable at the moment.

[Mic.1897]

The issue is that with everything from level 60 onwards including all expansion content, your character plays like a Vigil anyway

[Alexander.5796]

20 minutes ago, Mic.1897 said:

The issue is that with everything from level 60 onwards including all expansion content, your character plays like a Vigil anyway

I mean, not really, just because you fight? Baron's and Fero's missions is not precisely Vigil Like and sure, there can be puzzles and all but the game itself in an MMO RPG with action mixed on it. And to rebuke that argument, there are parts of it where you go into Libraries and solve mysteries via magical rituals or investigations so not exactly.

[Mic.1897]

13 hours ago, Alexander.5796 said:

I mean, not really, just because you fight?  

I mean yeah pretty much. The Vigil is the only order that lines up with the way MMOs are structured. You cant really have the Whispers/Priory style of game play on a larger scale without having it become boring so unfortunately those orders don't make sense if you're really invested in the main characters lore.

[Alexander.5796]

 

2 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

I mean yeah pretty much. The Vigil is the only order that lines up with the way MMOs are structured. You cant really have the Whispers/Priory style of game play on a larger scale without having it become boring so unfortunately those orders don't make sense if you're really invested in the main characters lore.

No, absolutely wrong. All orders fighth but their methods differ, just because they fight doesn’t make it Vigil, there are segments of investigation and research, crafting, etc. So that idea in itself makes no sense
 

Durmand Priory and Whispers still go out and fight while they investigate ruins, read tomes, etc.

 

That’s like saying only the Fighters Guild makes sense in Elder Scrolls because you fight. 

[Mic.1897]

Yeah but the commander never does any whispers or priory work for 99% of the game lol

 

[Alexander.5796]

2 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

Yeah but the commander never does any whispers or priory work for 99% of the game lol

 

-Explore Ruins
-Collect artifacts
-Scan for artifacts
-Test Weapons
-Repair Stuff
-Make potions
-Use disguises to spy
-Make functional old technology
-Build Stuff
-Help with experiments
-Look into Libraries

Pretty sure they do and there are plenty of renown hearts like that.

[Mic.1897]

That's a small list 

[Scolix.4879]

On 2/17/2023 at 12:24 PM, Mic.1897 said:

The Vigil is the only one that makes sense for a player character

 

 

When you first see their "barricades" in story if you choose vigil it doesn't make sense that the whole order even exists.