The three orders: which one to join at level 30

At level 30, in the final mission of that chapter, the game asks you to join an order. The choice is permanent: the only way to see another one is another character.

“Which is best” has no answer in terms of power. They are mechanically equivalent. What differs is whose banner you carry for twenty levels of story and who stands next to you while you do it.

What separates them

Each order answers one question differently: what do you do about Elder Dragons.

Durmand Priory are scholars. They hold that a dragon can be beaten using knowledge of how it was beaten before. Libraries, digs, ancient texts. Pick this one if working out how the world functions is the part you enjoy.

Order of Whispers are covert agents. They hold that dragons cannot be defeated at all and must be put back to sleep. Espionage, false identities, other people’s hands doing the work. The most intriguing of the three storylines.

Vigil are an army. They hold that a united force of every race can kill an Elder Dragon. Direct battle, no cleverness, a lot of dead friends.

When the choice happens, and what it locks

You pick during the last chapter of the level 30 personal story, and the wiki is blunt about it: the choice is permanent. No swapping later, no second order on the same character.

What it decides, concretely:

• Where your story goes next. Three different openings: Dredging up the Past for the Priory, Stealing Secrets for Whispers, A Fragile Peace for the Vigil.
• Your mentor. Magister Sieran, Lightbringer Tybalt Leftpaw, or Warmaster Forgal Kernsson.
• Your headquarters. Lornar’s Pass, Bloodtide Coast or Gendarran Fields.
• A gear set you can buy, in your order’s look.

What it does not decide: your class, your stats, anything about how you fight, or any content outside the story instances. Nobody in an open-world meta will ever know or care which order you joined.

The mentors

This is the real thing you get with an order, and the reason people argue about the choice.

• Durmand Priory: Magister Sieran
• Order of Whispers: Lightbringer Tybalt Leftpaw
• Vigil: Warmaster Forgal Kernsson

All three are written well, and they are what makes the second act stick. No spoilers here, but players still name their mentor years later, which is rare for the genre.

If you would rather choose by character than by philosophy, Tybalt is the one the community brings up most.

Pick the mentor, not the philosophy.

The three orders are written as three answers to one question. The Priory thinks the dragons can be beaten with knowledge recovered from the last time it happened. Whispers thinks they cannot be beaten at all and must be put back to sleep. The Vigil thinks an army of every race, properly united, can just kill one.

That is a genuine three-way argument and the game takes all three seriously.

It is also not what you will remember.

What you will remember is the person assigned to you. These three mentors are the best-written companions in Guild Wars 2, they are funny in a way the rest of the game rarely attempts, and the level 40 to 60 arc spends its time making you like them. People who played this in 2012 still bring one of them up unprompted, more than a decade later, and there is a reason the community has never stopped arguing about which order is best when the mechanical difference is a shirt.

So the practical advice inverts the usual one. Do not read the three philosophies and pick the one you agree with. Watch a minute of each mentor talking and pick the one you would want to spend twenty levels with. You are choosing a companion, and the game knows it even if the selection screen does not say so.

What the choice changes

The middle of the story. The whole second act, levels 40 to 60, runs under your order: its missions, its locations, its allies.

Your gear options. Each order sells its own weapons and armour, and you can only buy from your own. The looks differ sharply: academic for the Priory, concealed silhouettes for Whispers, heavy military for the Vigil.

Map completion. Claw Island only unlocks through the order storyline, and without Claw Island you cannot finish Kryta. Skipping this line entirely is not an option if you are completing the map.

What it does not change

Your power. No stat bonuses, no unique skills. Order armour carries ordinary stats and differs only in appearance.

The ending. Act three folds all three orders into the Pact and the finale is shared.

Anything after 80. Fractals, raids, expansions: identical regardless.

How to pick

The quick method: decide which way of solving problems appeals to you.

• Read up and find the answer in a book → Priory
• Learn other people’s secrets and use them → Whispers
• Gather everyone and charge → Vigil

The quicker method: search for images of each order’s armour set. You will spend a large part of the game wearing it, and aesthetics outweigh philosophy here.

And remember this is not your last story in the game. Your next character can join a different order, which is how most people end up seeing all three.

The structure of the story as a whole is covered separately.

Why people still argue about this

A note on what you are choosing, which is not a faction.

The second act gives you a companion. They travel with you for twenty levels, they have opinions about your decisions, and they talk while you walk. A dwarf scholar who cannot stop taking notes. A charr who talks too much and knows it. A norn who thinks every problem is solved by standing in front of it.

Guild Wars 2 does not have a reputation for its writing. This stretch is the exception, and the reason is unglamorous: the game keeps one character next to you long enough for you to get used to them.

You will not notice it happening. You will notice it at the end of the act, and so did everyone else, which is why a decade later people in map chat still say the name of theirs the way you say the name of a first pet.

So pick by whose company you want. That turns out to matter more than which philosophy you agree with.