Another new player

I know you guys probably see these kind of posts everyday but I am a noob and if anyone is kind enough to take 5minutes and answer a couple questions, I'd be grateful.

First I am looking to destroy in pvp, I am going to invest alot of time in GW starting this weekend when my friend buys me the trilogy pack. I would like to have fun pvp'ing WITH my friend as well, so I am looking to roll a healer class.

1. From the info I've gathered so far, Monks are healers. Are they the strongest healers in game? What about Dervish and Ritualist? Or do they all have the potential to be equally great in healing if built right?

2. I would like to get to 20 ASAP to start end game pvp, I know I will end up doing all campaigns for skills but which should I start with that will get me to 20 the fastest?

3. Can healers in general compete in 1v1 pvp? Like in WoW, am I able to heal and slowly damage my opponent and eventually overcome him? Or are healers only good in pvp to support other damage dealing classes?

4. I am slightly confused about 2nd classes? If anyone played WoW before, what would be the closest thing to a paladin or a priest? Meaning how can I heal as a main but have a few offensive abilities to hold my own in a 1v1? Can anyone suggest me a good class combo?

5. Do gear imbalance pvp in a noticeable amount? Or are we pretty much equals in the battlefield?

6. What type of pvp are there? Duels? Arenas?

7. Question 4 again because its so important! Can someone recommend me a good class combination for a mainly healing pvp'er?

I will check back tomorrow and hope for some answers, thanks guys!

1) Monks are the best healers in pvp. End of.

2) You can create a lvl 20 toon automatically and dive straight into pvp that way, otherwise factions.

3) Under no circumstances you you ever be in a 1v1 situation as a healing monk, never ever, don't even think about bringing damaging skills.

4) Read previous answer.

5)Yes, but not as it does in WoW. Switching to a health set/armour set so you don't die as fast is about as close as it comes to having different gear than someone else.

6) Arenas, 4v4 (random areans, codex arena), 8v8 (GvG, Heroes Ascent), and 12 v 12 (alliance battles, this is one is a joke competeively, but a good lace to see how the pvp side of the game can work.

7) Run a Mo/w, look at pvx for a generic healing build with stances as defense.

I'll help where I can...
1. From the info I've gathered so far, Monks are healers. Are they the strongest healers in game? What about Dervish and Ritualist? Or do they all have the potential to be equally great in healing if built right?
-If you want to heal play monk. Rits can do ok derv isnt worth your time.

2. I would like to get to 20 ASAP to start end game pvp, I know I will end up doing all campaigns for skills but which should I start with that will get me to 20 the fastest?
-If you are mostly interested in pvp its bets to roll a pvp character. Otherwise its going to cost you a lot of time and money for skills and equipment

3. Can healers in general compete in 1v1 pvp? Like in WoW, am I able to heal and slowly damage my opponent and eventually overcome him? Or are healers only good in pvp to support other damage dealing classes?
Guild Wars is not a place for 1v1 pvp in general.

4. I am slightly confused about 2nd classes? If anyone played WoW before, what would be the closest thing to a paladin or a priest? Meaning how can I heal as a main but have a few offensive abilities to hold my own in a 1v1? Can anyone suggest me a good class combo?
-Never played wow but if you want to heal just heal without offense. If you want to mix offense and defense Ritualist would be a great choice

5. Do gear imbalance pvp in a noticeable amount? Or are we pretty much equals in the battlefield?
Yes equipment matters. You can find many guides on optimal equipment. This is where having a pvp character is nice because you can change out equipment free and use any unlocked skills on the account. pve characters have to buy everything which is a big pain.

6. What type of pvp are there? Duels? Arenas?
Fort aspenwood, Jade quarry, Alliance Battle, Random Arena, Hero's Ascent, Guild vs Guild. FA JQ AB and RA you can play immediately HA and GVG will be much harder for you to get into at first.

7. Question 4 again because its so important! Can someone recommend me a good class combination for a mainly healing pvp'er?
Healer: Mo/W
What you want to play: Ritualist
Also keep in mind if you are pvp you can change your second proffesion whenever you want. If you are pve you have to get to a certain point in the story before chaning your second.

I suggest you to learn something about game mechanics in PvE before entering PvP. The best campaign for newcomers is Prophecies because it's the slowest and it gives you the time to learn a lot of things about how the game works, but it seems that you don't want to waste time, so maybe this isn't the best choice for you. The fastest campaign is Factions, where you can be 20 in one day if you want.

However, it's a bad choice to do PvP with a PvE character, because preparing a PvP-only character, in terms of gear and skills, is way faster and cheaper than doing the same with a PvE character.

When you learn a new skill with your PvE character, or when you identify a new item, you "unlock" it, which means that you can now use it with every PvP (not PvE!) character you create in that account. So, from a PvP point of view, playing PvE is also useful for unlocking skills and items. The other way to unlock things is by spending Balthazar's faction points, which you obtain killing things in PvP. If you unlock things in PvE, you don't need any faction.

When you create a new PvP-only character, you can use every skill and item you have unlocked in your account, without spending money nor faction nor anything else, so this is the best way to get ready to PvP.

There isn't any official 1vs1 in this game. You can do it as a scrimmage with one friend for the fun of it, but that's all. If you are doing 1vs1 for fun, you can run the build you prefer

I never played WoW, but i think i have an idea of what a paladin or a priest are. In GW's PvP you can choose to play a damage dealer class, a healing class, or a support class (roughly). While damage dealers are only focused on dealing damage, and healers are only focused on healing, the support characters can help the previous two in dealing damage or healing, but they can't be strong damage dealers nor strong healers. If you want to be a solid healer, play your monk as a healer, you will do damage indirectly, keeping alive your teammates who directly deal damage.

The second class is used to improve the effectiveness of your first class with addictional skills. Since you can change your second class whenever you want (but not when you are fighting), you can choose the combination that you like the most (so try a lot of combinations and see what happens, or find builds somewhere).

In GW armors' and weapons' effectiveness has a maximum value, for example the caster classes have a maximum armor rating of 60 (you can add +10-20 AR with insignias in some cases though), or the sword has a maximum base damage in the range of 15-22. Items with better stats don't exist, and, since armor and weapons are free for all PvP characters, there isn't any gear imbalance in PvP.

Hope it helped

To clarify - PvP-Only characters are created at max level (20) and have access to max armor for their class (monk 60) and max damage weapons. Where a brand-new character is hampered is that your account will not have unlocked skills or armor/weapon modifiers to use in battle. Therefore you will not be effective in high-end PvP.

You will need to participate in low-end areas (Jade Quarry, Fort Aspenwood, Alliance Battles, Random Arena) to earn Balthazar Faction which can be used to unlock those skills and modifiers you need. This will also let you become familiar with the builds that opponents will be using.

Link to wiki page on PvP http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/PvP

If you have the real world gold, you can purchase Unlock Packs for skills and items from the In-Game Store accessible from the log-in page.

My friend told me that I need to have a level 20 role playing character before it lets me make a pvp character. Is that true? In which case I will have to level up a main char anyway. And what would be a good 2nd class with Ritualist?

I never heard this, and wiki

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/PvP-only_character

doesn't say it, so it seems to be false (my first PvP character was created after one of my PvE ones had reached lvl 20, so i never experienced this situation). Maybe your friend wants you to make a bit of experience in the game before trying PvP, i don't know.

You may create a PvP character as soon as you login for the first time, but you won't have too many skills, mods and runes unlocked.
It's just wiser and better to start with a PvE char, best in Prophecies, to feel the game, learn the mechanics, unlock skills via quests, while in the meanwhile, you may create a second char, PvP one, and start farming Balthazar faction at JQ/FA (after you unlock a semi-decent build) so that you can unlock more skills and items for PvP. I wouldn't suggest you go into even RA, especially as a healer, before you unlock a few decent builds and actually learn the game's mechanics. Also, wiki is your friend.

You will have 8 character slots to play around with different professions and PvE/PvP. There is no penalty for deleting a character. You can have a PvE character to learn the game and attend events and still have your PvP characters to play in the arenas.