Support class?

I am having a little difficulty knowing what is the difference on paragon support and ritualist support. I saw that the paragon takes away hexes and condition as well as apply them. ritualist on the other hand are more of a spike/heal support. Honestly I like the spirit spammer, but imo I think its too laid back for me.

I'm a returning GW player and play often with my friend who is an elemental. I just want to hear some opinions and thoughts of what each class is good at. Also would any of threader two classes help or sync with an elemental?

I might have some more questions later on, but for more this is all I have :-P.

Thank you in advance :-)

sos is always good, and paragons are good only in a few specific roles, so if you want advice, id say pick a ritualist. they fit into almost every SC, and you can almost always find a pug team that wants an sos for a mission, especially on zm day, and if you need prot st is nice

i have a full up Paragon, all campaigns, EoTN, got about 520 skill points at the moment; use it a lot. That being said, I would recommend Ritualist overall as the support class. Sheer versatility wins. Besides which, Paragons are hard to level IMHO. And you really do need PvE only faction skills from EoTN to really make it shine. Paragons can farm but it is a bit like an elephant tap dancing; can do it but not well. Rit on the other hand is an excellent farmer with spirit spam.

Never sneer at spirits. They work really well. But rits can do many other things besides spirits. Look at skill lists on wiki.

Also look at builds on pvxwiki.

My rec for support is Ritualist. Go Rit and never look back.

As has been said above me, ritualist is a better overall character.
My para is my secondary character (after my necro^^), and I love playing her, but I find paragons to shine best when put together with other paragons and melee. They got a few nice skills which trigger on an attack skill or when a shout ends or is used, but their ways of supporting casters with energy needs an update imho.

A ritualist on the other hand can go full offensive, defensive, or raw healer. So it's very versatile and a good addition to any team.

Both require you to think a little about your positioning, which is always fun^^

Ritualist is more powerful offensively and much more versatile.

Paragon = imbagon, cruel spear/stunning strike, half-baked melee and bow stuff... that's about it. SY! (Save Yourselves!) can be done on W/P or R/W with barrage so Paragon has only "TNTF!" (There's Nothing to Fear), technically (and they get it very early on, as evidenced by my test P/W on a secondary account). They also have energy problems in 4 and 6 man areas and shouts are up there with spirits in terms of boring to play. Almost all builds consist of spear attacks, an IAS, and a shout (or two). The entire motivation line is pretty much garbage.

Ritualist = Soul Twisting Protter, SoS spirits, SoGM damage spirits, DwG channeling, Splinter spam, Spirit's Strength spear, Splinter barrage, channeling+restoration magic hybrids, Spirit Channeling + restoration magic ... among others

Spamming spirits is stupidly boring as you said, but if you play a channeling or restoration build you won't be solely spirit spamming. Human Rits are better than Hero ones simply due to Summon Spirits.

...and then if you decide to PvP, nobody uses Paragons these days except in Alliance Battles (and never really did in 4 man Codex) but everyone runs rit flaggers in GvG.

It's fairly telling when Arenanet puts something like http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Jade_...hood_Ritualist in Winds of Change, where a Ritualist is using 2 Paragon shouts and restoration magic. The converse isn't really possible (P/Rt).

Spirit spamming can be a bit boring at times, but you don't actually need to only use a spirit based build. Back when I first decided to try a Ritualist, it was before the update where they reduced the casting time for spirits. So, the slow cast times of spirits plus the initial lack of skills, lead me to make just a simple DPS type Ritualist build based around Essence Strike, Pain Inverter, Technobabble, Clamor of Souls and other Channeling damage spells.
I've sometimes continued to use a similar build (with a couple of spirits) when I party with my SoS buddy.

Btw, my SoS Rit build includes Painful Bond and Technobabble (or Pain Inverter sometimes) so there is a bit more to do than just stand back and watch.