Secondary Profession Mission

I have a Factions assassin that is on the "Choose Your Secondary Profession" primary quest. Here is my problem:

I would like to have the secondary profession Paragon, which isn't available to me until I get to Nightfall (I assume?) so I don't want any of the secondary professions that are being offered to me in Factions. It looks like I can't proceed with missions though until I choose one. Which leads me to three questions:

1) Do I have to pick a Factions secondary profession?
2) If so, which one pairs well with an assassin for PvE?
3) How and when can I change that profession to Paragon later?

I'm swimming in a mass of newbie confusion.

Right now you'll have to pick one of the secondary professions just to get through the game. Once you ascend or become Weh No Su in factions you'll be able to change your secondary to anything. :]

My first assassin I did A/W for shouts, it's up to you on how you want to play so take a look at the skills and decide what might work together.

1) Yes you have to pick one of th proffesions avaiable in factions.
2) don't really know... maybe ranger
3) although there is a proffesion changer in Senji's corner (a little way into kaineng part of factions) I think you might have to go to get to the profession changer in nightfall... you will have to get a bit into it before getting to him... but not that far.
There may be a chance you can use the profession changer in great temple of balthazar, which you should be able to get to once you reach kaineng center. (still need to ascend though)

1) Yeah, you have to pick one of the professions offered in Factions.
2) Well, assassin really doesn't need any secondary. Just pick something, maybe warrior or ranger (pet?).
3) You just have to get to Senji's Corner (become Weh No Su by completing Nahpui Quarter mission) and unlock Paragon at the profession changer. You DON'T have to get to Nightfall profession changer.

So just pick any secondary now and continue the Factions storyline. You'll get a chance to change your profession soon.

Just pick Elementalist, once you ascend as mentioned above go to the Temple of Balthazar and pay gold to change your secondary profession. After the first payment you can change to that profession as many times as you like for free.

Just pick whatever you want, it doesn't really matter and you can change it later. You're not required to actually use your secondary profession, after all.

When I started my Assassin, I went A/R, because I liked Antidote Signet.

I would pick ritualist. They don't really fuse well but as most said you wont be using anything other then sin skills for the most part. This way however you will be able to unlock rit skills that you can make use of on your hero, assuming you don't already have a rit with all the skills unlocked.

/W... "Save Yourselves!" is a Factions skill. You have no use for adrenaline anyway.

For lols you can swap to hammer and hammerbash.

As stated above, getting a paragon secondary prof. isn't possible when starting in factions UNLESS you become Wen No Su in Factions, Ascending, or completing the Building a Base quest chain in Nightfall. Once that is complete, you may talk to a secondary profession changer and pay 500g to change your prof. Furthermore, a good secondary prof. for a Sin is Warrior or Elementalist.

I don't understand why a normal player would want to go A/E in PVE. It's not like in PVP where grasping earth, conjures, or shock are important. (Barbs triggers, mark of pain triggers are more useful and don't require speccing in elemental atributes)

A/E in PvE ends up as perma-shadowform-sin. There's few cases wherre glyph of swiftness would be useful for a normal assassin.

When you buying skills for your heroes you need to change secondary so that the skill person will sell you those skills. Eg. If you go to one as a N/Me, skill trainers won't be selling you any Ritualist skills

You'll get to a point in the game where changing secondary prof. is just a dropdown box click in towns and outposts

you have some options...
monk-healing prayers that synergize with fast attack rates with low attribute investment like live vicariously or that other non upkeep healing one. monk also give a hard res. and strength of honor is nice too since you wont get heros for a while in the factions campaign.

rit-hard res, splinter weapon or other weapon spells.

ranger-preperations to spread conditions like poison. or to go bow for a crit bow build.

ele-conjure spells for increased damage.

mesmer-eh very little use other than some nice hexes and stuff nothing mindblowing.

warrior-shouts

necro-barbs, mark of pain, and other similar hexes benefit from the increased hit rate.

personally i usually go monk/rit/paragon for the hard resses.

edit-seeing as how this is 2 days old now i hope he made a choice

Actually, I hadn't chosen a subprofession yet. I decided to wait a couple of days and took an elementalist and a ranger to level 10 to check them out. Thanks all for the responses. Guild Wars can be overwhelming for a newbie given the amounts of skills and professions to choose from.

Not sure if I should start a new topic or ask this here, but... when should I be looking to get new armor for my toons? Now I have an assassin, ranger, and elementalist all with the cheap 20g newbie armor. When should I be looking to upgrade and to what? Thanks again (in advance).

Since your in factions the best bet for you would be to upgrade as soon as you reach Kaineng center. There is some collectors and crafters on the newb island which you can make use of if you really need extra armor but once you hit the city that is your first chance to get max armor.

After that its just about looks and what inscription/rune combinations you want to have on hand.

when i start a factions character i usually keep starter armor till i get to the first 6 man area then get that armor then i wait till i get to kaineng and just get max armor. i dont get elite armors for my alts just because i already have all the ones i need for the hom besides obsidian and vabbian on my warrior. plain old max armor works just fine for me. if i want to class up an alt i just dye it all black

In Factions, armor crafters can be reached, in order of armor level: Shing Jea Monastery, Ran Musu Gardens, Seitung Harbor. There are also 5 collectors in Haiju Lagoon who will provide the same armor as the Seitung crafter for free, provided you manage to get all the required drops; which, depending on your luck, can be easy or very frustrating. Frankly, I usually prefer to spend 1k and get it from the Seitung crafter. And a tip: 2 Naga Pelts are more useful for a later Kaineng quest than for this armor.

Then there's of course the Kaineng Center crafters once you reach mainland, and some collectors there as well. And do not forget you can jump over to Nightfall (if you have it) and once you reach Consulate Docks there's a couple more armor models (provided you run one of the core professions ie. not A or Rt).

The quests on the way should provide you with enough money to get each armor set as you reach it. Max armor should be a little more effort but not outstanding. So I don't really see a reason to skip any armor crafter, because the game assumes you make use of them and the quests WILL escalate in difficulty every time the story takes you to a crafter outpost.

It's possible to do what chilly willy does and skip some sets, but IMHO that's masochism. It's 100g for Shing Jea armor and 375 for Ran Musu armor, plus 100 for a salvage kit to get mats, come on, is saving 600g worth the pain of doing the entire trip to Seitung in starter armor? Not to mention you get to try various armor models so once you go to buy your max you know what kind you want.

On a related note, regarding weapons: Seitung holds three quartermasters with decent non-max weapons, and a weapon crafter, who offers 20/20 staffs for 750g, outstanding value for the money which is pretty much unique for a crafter, I think, in the entire GW world. Great one-stop shop for all your caster heroes and even your characters, since on a staff having 20/20 is much more useful than max damage.

Thanks for the replies. They have been very helpful as always.