New ranger entering the field.

Hi everyone, my name is Sio and I am planning to buy Guild Wars tommorow. Well.. It's over 24:00 so it's kinda today, though I just need to sleep first. And I think my mother's birthday is tomorow, should figure that out...

However.

I have never ever played Guild Wars before and you can therefor consider me as a "n00b". Though I have played World of Warcraft for two years and City of Villians for... well for 12 days.

However.

I have decided to be an archer, not because I think they are imba, but because I like the way the move (fighting animation) and the way feeling I got when I saw them at youtube. Now I wonder what I am exactly going to do when I start my ranger.

The first thing I will need to know from some more experiend (yeah sorry, it IS 2:00AM, I am allowed to type like a shot yeti) guys is how I make my character. On World of Warcraft you simply choose you class and get going. On City of Villains it's far more complicated, choose class, then primary powers and secondary. I guess GW is more like CoV.

I seriosly need help, how do I make my character?
Do I mix two classes?
Do I choose one class and then I choose different ways of playing it later?
Do I just choose my class and get points I can spend in my talents?
or is it something else? I would love some answers, please try to explain it too me as I was a two years old kid. Guild wars is new to me.

P.S: I won't be able to answer before around 12:00 tomorow as I will be asleep at night and morning.

Right...

In Guild Wars, each character has a primary and secondary profession.
The Primary profession determines what armours you were, what runes you can use, and your Primary attribute - an attribute that only primaries can take, which generally entails an inherent bonus to that class. You may not change your primary at any point, short of deleting and creating a new character.

The secondary profession allows you to use all skills from that profession, as well as use all attributes EXCEPT for the primary attribute of your secondary class. So, a Ranger/Dervish can use all Dervish skills, and can place points into Earth Prayers, Wind Prayers and Scythe Mastery, but not Mysticism, the Dervishes primary attribute.
The secondary profession can be changed later on in the story, so it's not a big deal if you pick a secondary you end up not finding a use for.

Oh, yeah... some stuff:

Runes are magical-type things that you can add to armour. They can provide health and energy, or boost attributes. Any profession can use 'general' runes, such as Vigor runes, to boost health/energy, but you are limted to using attribute-boosting runes of your primary profession - A Ranger/Necromancer can use a Major rune of Marksmanship, yet cannot use a Minro Rune of Death Magic.

Beware, also, that stronger attribute-boosting runes - Superior and Major - incur a health penalty, for the expense of higher attributes. Also, the bonuses of runes do not stack - if you have a +1 Marksmanship rune and a +2 Marksmanship rune, you'd only get +2 to your Marksmanship.

Attributes... Are the 'stats' of a character, determining what skills he's powerful at using. Boosting an Attribute will increase the power of any skills linked to that attribute - the ranger's Troll Unguent skill provides more health regeneration as you increase Wilderness Survival, for instance.
Some attributes are tied to specific weapons - The more points you place in Marksmanship, the more damage you'll do with a bow, for instance. Many of the weapons and other equipment you find require you to be at a certain level or higher in an attribute to use it effectively - you'll do paltry damage with a bow that requires 11 Marksmanship if you only have 5.

Also, the Primary attribute of each class has a passive effect, whiich often makes it worth investing in even if you don't use skills from that attribute. In the rangers case, they have Expertise, which reduces the energy cost of skills. Investing in it is almost a given - it allows a ranger to use his skills much more frequently, without draining his energy reserves dry.

Oh, and don't be scared to play around with skills and attributes - you can change them freely at any time in an outpost or town.

I think that's about your question covered... My fingers hurt

Welcome to Guild Wars (soon).

One thing you may actually want to look at before or as you start playing if you haven't already is Guild Wiki (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page). The site is the most comprehensive and up to date online resource for info on GW. There is an 'Official' wiki for guild wars (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page), but it's a little newer and isn't much different than the other wiki.

Also if you are coming from WoW, I would mention that a lot of people who come to GW from WoW tend to look as Rangers in much of the same light as Hunters. While they are similar in that they are both ranged weapon professions that can also use pets, Rangers in GW aren't really renound for their DPS. Instead, they are more known for their versatility, adaptivity and survivability. They can deal some decent damage with the right build and setup, but in most cases other classes will be able to deal more raw damage.

One particular advantage of the ranger class is their ability to interupt enemies. While there are other classes that can also interrupt, rangers are one of the best at doing this. Until you get a bit farther in the game (or start dabbling in PvP), there's probably not going to be much need to worry about interupting, but when you start facing stronger enemies, being able to interupt at key moments can make a big difference in a battle.

While there are a lot of good resources online to find out information on GW the community here is also (usually) pretty helpful, so if you find that you can't find out what you are looking for from fansites or the search button in the forums here, feel free to ask around as you have and there will usually be someone who can point you in the right direction.

It is easy to be overwhelmed starting this game from scratch. The dual-class thing took me a bit to adjust to as well. Check out the wiki, poke around the forum, and then just hop in and play and you'll get the hang of things pretty quickly.

Couple key things:
1. Make sure you upgrade your armor as often as you can. As you progress to new areas, you can often buy better armor - make sure you do or you'll be dropping in one or two hits before too long. Hold the "alt" key and look around in town to see what vendors are available.
2. Make sure you meet your minimum requirement on your weapon. When you look at a bow, it might say something like "Req. 7 Marksmanship." If your Marksmanship attribute is not 7 or better, you won't do any damage with that weapon.
3. Don't worry too much about your secondary class on your first time through the game. First of all, you will eventually be able to change it whenever you like. Second, the Ranger class is pretty self-sufficient, and doesn't need a lot of help from a secondary to have a lot of fun and wreak some havoc. A good secondary for a beginner would probably be Monk for the reusable resurrection skill. What you DON'T want to do is, say, go Ranger/Elementalist and try slinging fireballs around. When in doubt, stick to your primary (Ranger) skills and you'll do fine.

All-in-all, the game is pretty newbie-friendly, I'd say. You start at level 1 and don't have any stats at all. As you level up, you gain attribute points, which you can redistribute anytime if you feel like a change. Don't be overwhelmed. Read the in-game hints, group with other players, ask questions, and you'll pick it up in no time. Have fun!

You didn't mention which version of Guildwars you were planning to buy.

Here are the versions in order of release:

Prophecies - fairly slow learning curve (easy to play), lots of missions, good story line.

Factions - fairly steep learning curve (jump into lots of action early, a bit more difficult), less missions, not so great storyline (in my opinion).

Nightfall - medium learning curve, medium amount of missions, medium storyline, addition of heroes.

You will get 4 character slots when you first buy the game. You can make dedicated player vs player (pvp) only characters, or role playing characters that play the storyline mode and can also do pvp.

A common storage for your account allows you to transfer items and from one character to another, so don't worry if you don't like the character you made, just delete it and start another. Please note that a character cannot wear armor designed for another character.

The game tutorials you pretty well on the basics hey, so just play the storyline and you will learn the basics of fighting, moving, aggro (which is very diofferent to WOW) and the likes...

One important thing when choosing your skills is to look at the description and try to match something to it... EG, Read The Wind is a prep that adds damage to your attacks and makes your arrows fly twice as fast, so it's a great preparation to use with the flatbow. Try to put things into the build that will work together...