Which profession should I try first?

I'll be a new GW player. I currently only own Nightfall, so I'd only be able to select from that group. I'm a former hardcore WoW player, with my 3 main toons being a paladin (warrior/holy magic/healer/tank hybrid), a Warlock (demon summoner/spell caster/DPS), and a Priest (main healer). I loved all three classes.

Any suggestions on which professions I would enjoy the most? And are healers as sought after in GW as they are in WoW?

Well, I don't know how sought after priests are in WoW, but Monks or wanted quite a bit in GW. I think you would like the Dervish, because they use holy magic, can heal, and can tank a little bit.

Welcome to GW. Sounds like the equivilants to those WoW professions would be Warrior, Necromancer, and Monk. All 3 are pretty popular in PvE, especially Monks.

The nice thing is, you've got 4 character slots to play around with and can test them all out.

If you only have Nightfall it's probably best to try Dervish or Paragon since you have all skills for those two and only a part for the other classes.
Not to mention a Dervish is incredibly fun ot play. It's probably a bit like the paladin, but I'm not sure.

Warrior is a great profession to learn the ropes. Monks have a medial learning curve and are nearly always wanted in groups due to the few PvE monks. I personally would go Warrior at first..but before that I suggest flicking through all the professions available to see which one you like the looks of.

If you prefer fighter classes, then warrior would be the best profession to start with. If you are more into casters then elementalist would the best class to learn the basics. Eventually, having a monk is a lot of fun and can make finding groups easier but i think its best to start with another profession. Dervish is also a nice profession for a new player.

I suggest that you go with warrior/monk for your primary and secondary. the warrior is the easiest proffesion to learn and is needed almost as much as the monk. combine this with the monks healing and smiting and you have good survivability and support healing. i remember when the pvp creation screen used to have templates. the origional Warrior/Monk template was called a Paladin.


Hope this Helps, and welcome!
-Illithen

w/mo = pally
Necro/mes = Warlock Demon spec
mo/anything = Healer

i have been trying new professions aswell, i beat everygame with a necro (my fav) and i got 3 necros, i have been in the last 3 weeks trying new professions, i made a monk (Beat nf), derv (beat nf) and ranger (Beat nf). my favorite was the ranger it was the most fun.

Here is the link to guildwiki http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page

You can check out the different Professions and what skills are available in Nightfall for each of them. You will be able to purchase (regular) from skill npc or capture (elite) from bosses. skills that are maked as being Nightfall or Core.

It is really down to a matter of taste, but I picked Elementalist as my first char (way back in 2005) and it is actually quite a good first character:

• You are not right next to the enemies (like a Warrior or Dervish) so you aren't at as much risk of death (the caveat to this is that you have the weak caster-armour, but monks, necros etc. have the same problem)
• You aren't being relied upon heavily by your teammates (like a Monk) so you won't get moaned at if you make a mistake
• You have a lot of energy - saving you from having to learn energy management which is tricky for other classes
• You don't rely on timing (like Mesmer interrupts), you just pick a target and press a skill button (hint: when in doubt, spam Flare)
• You don't rely on a good-quality weapon to do damage (like a Ranger, Warrior, Dervish) so you won't need to get as much Gold ingame

above post is correct, elly is easier, but is that what you want? I'd say buy the other chapters, make a monk and beat all 3 games. Start in Factions because it is faster to level up and you can beat the whole game in a half day if you have some help, a couple of days if not, then beat Nightfall (to get hero's) then go back to Tyria and beat it just to get skills that you need there..if I had 3 days to do nothing but GW I could easily get a character thru all 3 games and have all the skills I need, but the order I would do them in is 2, 3, 1 just because I already know the storyline so that doesn't matter to me

Starting with a monk is a bad idea. You'll have lots of problems keeping the team alive and you'll get yelled at back in turn.

Warrior is still the best starting choice, although it's too overused. But for most part you'll be able to run in and survive. This isn't true for many other classes.

Healers don't really exist in GW or at least aren't really useful. Damage mitigation and prevention is where the art of monking is. All best monk builds still rely on protection attributes almost exclusively. That's a major difference between GW and other RPGs. Too many try to be straight healers, they cast 4 heals, they wait till end of battle for energy regen. Above all, don't try to be a warrior/healer - paladin type.

If you intend to play with others, N/Me is a safe bet. Look into minion master, but keep in mind, that some areas are devoid of corpses, so MM doesn't work there.