Choosing an Order

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

I've reached Lv30 as a Human Necromancer, so it's time to make my permanent choice about what Order to join: Vigil, Whispers, or Priory. I was going to choose Priory to fit my character (I intend to make multiple characters, an Engineer at the very least), but saw that the Priory's armour has Healing Power as its affix, which may not be as useful to the Necromancer as Whisper's Condition Damage. Are Order armours ever used in high-level gameplay, or should I choose it based on aesthetics and story? If I eventually create characters of all 9 classes, is it worth having one class from each weight class join each order, so that I can add each combination of weight / Order to my Wardrobe?

[Xylion]

Purely aesthetic and story!
The stats will become essential only after lvl 80

[Bohoo]

They are for skins. You can always make an alternate and choose a different path.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Alright then, I'll go with the Priory as I feel it most fits the Necromancer story.

[Livy]

You can always unlock the cosmetics from the other orders on another character it won't lock you out from using them.

[GeeEl]

From memory all the order armours are of "Rare" quality. Not the sort of thing you keep - you just buy them to unlock the skin in your wardrobe then use transmutation charges (fairly plentiful if you do a lot of map completion or some WvW) to change the appearance of whatever armour with better stats you like.

[Harrison]

For the record... Never, ever, buy transmutation charges with gems. it's probably the single largest rip off in the gem store. If you're going to buy gems there are much better ways to use them.

[Livy]

Also never buy dye packs. There is currently only one pack with any value and even then you are better off just buying the dyes directly.

[Teratus]

Order should match your characters personality/how your playing them and nothing else.

And yeah it's worth doing all 3, there are order specific backpacks you can get later in the first expansion which you can only unlock on characters within their respective orders.
Plus each order has it's own story and characters so if your interested in that you'll wanna know all 3 and how they play out.

[Aris]

If I eventually create characters of all 9 classes, is it worth having one class from each weight class join each order, so that I can add each combination of weight / Order to my Wardrobe?

You'll be able to buy armors of all weight classes from each order vendor, so no need to do all combinations, just 1 character for each order.

[Krag]

Choose an order for the lore implication based on the kind of character you want to be, the only real reward from orders is a skin of their outfit. To get the other ones you have to play with a different character and pick a different order.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Aris:

If I eventually create characters of all 9 classes, is it worth having one class from each weight class join each order, so that I can add each combination of weight / Order to my Wardrobe?

You'll be able to buy armors of all weight classes from each order vendor, so no need to do all combinations, just 1 character for each order.

Okay, so I can buy all three armour sets; that means I only need three characters to unlock all the outfits. Then it makes sense to pick Priory for my Necromancer (since their quests so far already have death-magic themes), then the other two orders on other characters. I'm thinking of Engineer for my second character, so I might pick Guardian or Revenant for my third. It's so nice that cosmetic unlocks are account wide.

[Vences]

For me:
Light armor classes - Priory
Medium - Whispers
Heavy - Vigil

[Silcone_Slave]

If you end up AP hunting you will more than likely do a quick run to about half way with each race to get Achivement Points to unlock and do the same with each class. this will give you plenty of time to chose each order, also each order will give you a choice of quest out of 3, given time you learn how to rush the main story fast to unlock the different paths if needed.