Mesmer or Ritualist for PvE

1) Out of all professions? Personally, I prefer playing a warrior, but that's neither here nor there. Between mesmer and rit, I'd say you're better off playing a rit. Heroes can handle mesmer skills better, as they can view the entire battlefield and know all enemies' skills and what they are casting, and they're much quicker about interrupting. That said, it doesn't make a huge difference which profession you go with; just pick the one that you think you'd have more fun with.

2) I don't think there's a definitive answer for this. Guild Wars is all about customizing your builds as you see fit. Take anything that you know works and tinker with it to make something you prefer, or just start from scratch entirely! That's what is at the core of Guild Wars: being able to change and customize your build to your preference. But if you really want an answer, I'd say mesmer. The ritualist usually runs one of 3 or 4 main builds: SoS, SoGM, ST (all spirit spammers, offensive or defensive), or a restoration build of some sort. That said, you can still take any of those builds and customize them as you wish.

But the mesmer has more options available in the meta, and more capabilities overall: ESurge for damage, Shared Burden/Panic for caster hate, Ineptitude for phys hate, Keystone Signet for badassery, damage, and interrupts. But, as with rit, you can customize the build you go with as you see fit.

3) I would hope this doesn't have a huge impact on the class you play, but if it does, definitely go mesmer. Playing as either sex, I find mesmer armors to be much more aesthetic than ritualist armors. In the event that you can't decide, there are also costumes which can be worn over your armor by any profession. My favorites are the Shining Blade and Unity costumes.

Hope this helps.

Ritualist

A Rit is better when played by a player, due to the PvE only skill Summon Spirits, which a hero can't use. A hero Rit. is much slower than a player. A mesmer can be payed as a hero just as good as a player. Possibly even better due to near instant reaction time on interrupts.

You are gunna wanna have both classes in your party at all times. You might as well play the one that allows you to get through stuff faster. Times runnin out.

I'd say Rit, as well. Spirit Spammer is one of the more potent builds out there, and like voltman said, Mesmer heroes can handle interrupting duties, with a little bit of micro-targeting-management, much faster.

1. Forget interruption, Mesmer dishes out more damage than any other profession. Use Energy Surge or Ineptitude. If you aren't confident in using heroes, you will want to use spirit spammer however.

2. Mesmer are many times more customizable.

3. Completely by preference.

Ritualist is the most easy profession to play. it is very versatile so you can have a lot of different roles in a team and when using heroes your prolly end up spamming spirits wich is very easy. So if thats your game, go for it.

Mesmer has two difficult levels. The first is your basic skill-clicker. It takes some effort, more then the spirit spammer rit build. But it still is easy enough to roll through everything. The hard part bout the mesmer is if your playing interupter. So if you like a challenge, that would be my suggestion. The interupter is using skills to stop foes for casting their skills. there are very basic interupts like panic. It interupts the next skill being used by any foe in the area. that is a solid basis. the fine art however is to know wich foe really needs interuption. to know what skill to interupt and then do it in a split second and succeed. To be succesfull in interupting you need to have a lot of knowledge bout the foes and the skills they are using. to top that you need a good reaction time.

So in short. if your here to enjoy the game, the scenery, the missions and the landscape, go rit. If you like to have a challenge on the way go mesmer. if you fail the mesmer has very nice other builds that let you roll through the game with ease.

Rit. You can also use a Rit better for some solo farming

I have ele, sin, mes and rit.
I totaly own PvE with mes and rit. I did everything including WoC HM with both pretty easily, so it doesn't matter which one you choose.

It's more about strategy, tactics and your heroes.