Grand return

I haven't played guild wars in quite some time. The only character I ever got serious with was my W/R which is my only level 20. The other 3 slots were nothing but characters I'd make and play for an hour or two and then make another one. Since I'm starting over I'd like to start with a new character and try something I've never really played before. I was thinking Ne/Mo (hoping for a summoning/healing build) a R/Ne or Ne/R (summoning and ranged damage build), E/Ne (summoning) or Mo/W (tried it once and was a menace in the level 1-10 arena). Any help? I was thinking about a Me/Ne build or Ne/Me build for summoning as well. Does anybody have any advice on which to choose? I'd really like to try a summoning build and I'm really looking into the Ne/Mo or Mo/Ne for summoning and minion healing or perhaps summoning and casting the skill monks have to reflect damage and convert damage to healing on the minions? I'm no really sure it just seems like a Ne/Mo or Mo/Ne would be a lot of fun. Any build ideas for me? Mainly PvE with some PvP arenas thrown in every now and then.

The lowbie PvP arenas aren't really populated anymore, as far as I know. If you want to do PvP, you'll need to get in to the "real" arenas, in which case it's advisable to roll a PvP-only character. Mo/W is popular because of defensive stances and ability to fully utilize shield sets.

As for "summoning" or "minion-mastering," only Necro and Ritualist primaries are any good at it, with favor going to the necromancer which can get up to 16+ Death Magic (don't know how long ago you played, but there's a minion cap now). Don't try to force a secondary into a primary role.

As for minion healing, the necro skill Blood of the Master is quite effective, so don't feel that you have to go /Mo. Don't sweat over your secondary. It's only meant to augment your primary build, and can be changed once you reach a certain point in the campaign(s).

It's been a few years actually hahaha. I've played for an hour or two a couple times but haven't had the inter net at my house for a long time so I could only play at a friends house. I don't have any of the expansions so I'm rocking the original hahaha. Like I said I was really looking into a Ne/Mo build because I know monks of those 2 skills that reflect damage and convert incoming damage to healing and if I used those 2 in conjunction with a summoned creature it could stay alive longer and deal more damage. It sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure if it will work. The last time I played was a few months ago for about 5 hours. All I did was sit in the 1-10 arena with my Mo/W and only lost twice it was pretty entertaining.

First off, Necro/Rt is a lot more effective healer than a Necro/Mo.
It's nearly impossible to manage healing on all your minions at one time with Monk Spells.
Blood of the Master pretty much covers that aspect.
Save your heals/prots for your party members. THEY deal more damage and survive longer than your minions ever would ;D

When I first played....
R/Ne was my first choice too, but just isn't possible to manage energy.
Ne/R you can try, but it's hardly makes the Necro damage efficient ;D

If all you want to do is summon, try out Ritualist.
It's primary attribute is COMPLETELY dedicated to making your summoning better ;D
But if you don't have factions, N/Me is the way to go.
Me/N and E/N are hardly energy efficient. (Bonemancer's Insignia makes up for loss of casting time, and the as the OP says more Minions too).

Metas change, and Mo/W builds are still a part of the meta, although NO ONE plays in 1-10 arenas anymore ;(

So What I'm looking at is Ne/Mo for summoning support and healing/ressurection for my teammates? I played R/Mo up to level 14 and bat was a lot of fun too because I honestly don't think I've ever seen a single monk carry a ressurection skill (ok maybe 1 or 2) everybody carries the signants then when the signants are used up everybody yells at the monk hahahaha I guess that's why everybody takes the healing hench. All of the player monks I've played with were smiters not beakers so like I said I'm leaning twards Ne/Mo for summoning support and healing/ressurection because it's always nice when somebody in the party has an actual res skill instead of the signant. I'm sure we've all been in the situation where it comes down gto 1 person who res's the wrong person and it's game over hahahaha

1. don't delete any old characters until you check out their b-day presents. In fact if you have characters that old, you might not want to delete them at all as they will get presents that are worth more on the market than any new characters would get when they are one year old.

2. check out the sub forums in the Campfire section. Each sub forum has a stickied thread on the basics that goes through the advantages and disadvantages of each secondary.

3. You might have problems in PvP as current builds use skills from all three campaigns.

Ok so I think I've narrowed it down to the 2 I like the most. Ne/Mo for summoning support and healing and res support OR R/Mo for trap support and healing and res support. PLUS I love hanging out with my pet hahaha yeah it might sound lame I know but I do enjoy seeing my pet scurrying around. Thoughts on this? I've never actually had skills to help my pets before just the charm skill so he'd follow me. Could I use somehow make a trap and pet support build that heals an resurrects? Or would that be too broad of an attribute spread? I always tried to stay in a 3 area spread. So this would be wilderness Something (I forget what affects trap skills), beast mastery, and healing. Or should I focus less on the pet and more on dealing damage myself?

ACTUALLY my W/R has an elf miniature or something like that. It's a little Christmas elf that follows me around. And he has some floating guy in a golden robe with black tenticles sticking out of his back. And a hydra

I agree. Don't delete your original character. The elf mini is worth about 10-20k, give or take, the "floating guy" -- a mini mursaat -- can fetch you 5-15k, give or take. Any future birthday minis you get will be worth much more.

Trapping isn't really that great. Unless you can get mobs into a bottleneck, you probably won't notice much payoff. That's not to say that you can't experiment. You can freely change your attribute points and skills in any outpost.

There are pet builds that can be fun to play (though I hear your average PUG isn't crazy about them), in which case you'll want to spec in to Beast Mastery and Expertise. You'll probably want to focus the rest of your points in Marksmanship, since the pet will only go after what you attack.

Please do visit the Campfire section, which Darcy mentioned above. You can get a good feel for the various playstyles of the different professions there.

Yo guys have been really helpfull. I think I may go R/Mo and focus on expertise, marksmanship, and healing. When I played R/Mo before I'd set up traps infront of me and stand behind them and use a mixture of marksmanship and beastmastery skills with the occasional heal when one of my teammates was running low. And the resurrects were vastly appreciated. I was more focused on playing tacticaly which is why I'd use traps. I it came down to me the enemies would in through my traps causing all sorts of mayhem while I could run around and res a teammate. I used the distance res skill though so I think they'd only come back with 25% of their hp. There was a touch res that gave them 15% hp and 10% energy I think but don't quote me on it i haven't played in a while.

Monk spells on a necro aren't worth using when Ritualist spells heal for more as a base heal (generally). A Minionmaster (MM) can get by with just Healing Breeze 2 moderate 8-9 spec, and Blood of the Master. The trend has shifted towards N/D since Mystic Regen lasts longer and with Masochism and/or Dark Bond up it's 9 regen @ 8 Earth prayers. Conviction is nice too.

A ranger build without expertise is not worth using. Also I wouldn't bother investing in attributes for spellcasters on a Ranger since you only have 3 pips of energy regen.

Traps aren't worth using because of recharge and the low damage output. The + damage on attacks is armor ignoring.

As a rule of thumb any bow ranger should staple d-shot (distracting shot) to their bar.

As long as you only have the first campaign you can ignore the advice about ritualists, they are not available for you unless you buy Factions campaign.
R/mo is nice if you want to play with your pet, and N/mo is the best for a minion master as said.
But I would really advice to buy at least 1 more campaign and add to your account. It gives access to more skills, also 2 more character slots so you can create new ones without having to delete any.

With a game this old they can be purchased quite cheap.

If I wanted to try healing what would be good? Me/Mo or Mo/Me? I've never touched Mesmer before it looked difficult to play.

Full healing then Monk every time. The Mesmer's fast cast attribute isn't going to do you any favours for healing.

You seem really undecided about the kind of class you want to play as well. You can always recreate a character if you're not happy so try some out and see.

Trying to squeeze too many actions (for want of a better word) into one character is a bad move. If you want to make a Ranger then focus on a Pet or Traps but don't bother with healing other party members, it won't go well. (Also Traps aren't great but that's up to you).
Same goes with Necromancer; focus on Death/Minions, Curses or Blood but don't try and do the job of a Monk as well. By all means bring a resurrection skill: Monks often don't carry these as they should be healing and protecting the team and not resurrecting.

With only the first campaign you're not going to be very competitive in PvP whichever class you chose as the Meta has moved on to involve skills from every campaign. The best place to start would be Random Arenas as the low level PvP areas have lack of players.

Well I'll probably keep my R/Mo and W/R and Mo/W but for the fourth I'll probably try minion master. I found an explenation of it on guild wars wiki and it looks really fun.