I just started playing GUildwars and it really irritates me on how many different secondary skills you can get. I'm an assassin/elemental and the only reason i picked it is because someone recommended to me.

WoW i can handle. Guildwars...not so much. What do you guys think? Which characters are good to pick?

 

I would use only a few secondary skills. Focus on your primary skills.
When I played GW I was a necromancer/elemental. I used a combination of death magic, blood magic (long-term damage, hp stealing and party healing) and a few fire spells; It worked pretty well for me.

 

Stop now! Save yourself!

I went down the GW path for a while, even got into top tier competitions that had me staying up at all hours of the night for regional tournament play. Not a very fulfilling experience, but was entertaining all the while.

The GW classes basically spin in a few ways, based on what the general public desires in a prime team. As with all MMOs, Monks are the most sought after class, frequently becoming Monk/Mesmers for the energy management skills entailed. Elementalists are the next sought over class -- again, as with all MMOs providing ample AoE damage. Necromancers and Ritualists are your basic debuff/buff characters and are frequently handy to have on your team. Rangers/Assassins/Mesmers are typically the least chosen classes due to the more competative nature of the characters suited for PvP and not PvE play.

As a game, I'd say GW is up there because the PvE Grind is significantly reduced. Getting to the max level (level 20, Note: You probably won't have the numerous skills) is a process that only takes a a week or two (If a beginner. Established players with large resource bases can do it in a few hours...). Gear and equipment are available at relatively cheap and expensive prices, the asthetic value being the only true difference. Basically, you can run a minimum budget character that can operate as efficiently as a fully modified character.

As for the Player-Versus-Player aspect of the game, it's quite a hierarchy that you have to muddle your way through. Most top tier guilds don't even look at players before Rank Nine (Quite a feet in itself, took me quite a lot of time) and of course, prior guilds play a large role. Players tend to consider integrity and the versatility of builds that your previous guilds played when considering you. Therefore, stereotypes are frequently tagged on.

Skill, plays another major factor. Contrary to several other MMOs where a good build will get you into good, strong teams, Guild Wars is very selective upon individual player skill when it comes to top tier gaming. Can your monks effectively manage energy, catch rapid "spike" damage with fast reactions, know when to do exactly what without being instructed? Can your rangers and mesmers eliminate the enemy offensive in a tense situation, and ensure that all other advantages of the opposition are shut down? Usually, the answer is a resounding No.

But I digress. It's a fun game, free monthly, that you can pick up and continue at any time (barring expansions). The player base is fairly friendly, and many members will simply enjoy doing tasks with their friends that they may have done thousands of times before -- just because they like to help you. Real world prizes are offered monthly in tournaments, some of which can mount up to quite nice Graphics cards and various assortments (iPods, mousepads, etc)

As tl;dr as this was, I hope it helped. I played for a good length of time. I'm somewhat proud to say that my old mouse was won through Guild wars.

 

...I don't suppose you can give me all your items...seeing as you stopped playing.

But yea, it did help allot.

 

Guild Wars is fun. I played WoW for a while, but being poor and unable to pay for even internets most of the time, well, that died. WoW is a lot smaller than you'd think, I got to level 26 and I was starting to wonder how the fuck people play up to level 70..

On your question, I've had fun playing all of the professions.. except the mesmer. I can't seem to play that profession well. Despite all the builds you find on GuildWiki, though, it really does seem best to stick to your main profession with one or two complementary skills if you feel like it.

With assasin/elementalist, it's good if you use conjure flame with daggers that deal fire damage. I can't really see another use otherwise... I haven't played my assasin character much. More fond of Ele's and Rangers.

 

Technically, you're getting all the Assassin skills, and all the Elementalist skills, so there is no real 'secondary skills'. For the most part, your secondary profession should enhance what you do as an Assassin (they're good at spike kills, and precious little else), so you can look at modifying your daggers with an elemental dagger tang and putting a Conjure (Element) on your skillbar for extra damage.

Assassins tend to be harder to play than any other martial weapon class due to their strict attack chains, whereby if you fail to apply a lead/off-hand/dual attack sequence in the correct order as the skill limitations are, you auto-fail the attack skill (it does recharge instantly though). Also, due to the dagger base damage, it relies on attack skill damage to deal any decent damage against anyone. Bonus damage (anything that increases your damage in one packet, which is anything that says +damage and the conjures) ignores armor, which makes the Assassin able to deal lots of damage to anything, since their armor-affected damage is so small.

For ease of playability, Warrior or Elementalist, because even if you're an idiot, you can play through the game with little difficulty with either. Other than that, it heavily depends on what you like to play in other types of games, such as a debilitator/debuffer, heavy damage dealer, offense/defense hybrid support, etc.

For extra help, there are two wikis, the unofficial one (http://guildwars.wikia.com) and the official one (http://wiki.guildwars.com). The unofficial one tends to outperform with btter information on certain things, having been around longer. You can access the official wiki ingame with F10 and searching.