Do you have to take a second profession?

Well i think the better question to ask would be - what are the bad things about taking a second profession?

Mmm as I can tell... nothing? If you don't want to use the spells then don't they're just an extra handle to make the game more fun and help a lot in the game. Maybe more skills to juggle around but those extra skills can help

Yeah, I guess the only advantage of NOT taking a second profession is that you won't get tempted into distributing those points into your second profession if you're aiming to focus on one class in particular .

Advantage of focusing on one class: You become very competent at your skills.

Disadvantage of focusing on one class: Harder to take care of yourself, especially when in an unbalanced party.

The only benefit of not choosing a second profession is you look pretty cool at higher levels (like level 20) because everyone has a secondary profession and you'll be unique. I saw one Mo20 yesterday, I thought it was pretty cool.

so do u have to actually put points in skills to have the second profession show up next to your name?

I don't think so - I thought one of the quests in Pre-Searing triggers you to have a second profession. I might be wrong though.

The second profession will show even if you don't put ANY points on the secondary profession attributes.

yes, you have to have a second profession to go through the searing, but you dont need to have any points in it at all, many people dont use their second profession. I dont think there is any down side to having a secondary, you dont need to use it, and if at some point you want to, then you can.
AFAIK the only way to have a char without a secondary is if they are a RvR only char.

"I saw one Mo20 yesterday, I thought it was pretty cool."

How is this even possible?

He got to post sear before they required a second profession to advance.

There's absolutely no drawback to chosing a second profession. There's absolutely no advantage in not choosing (and you can't skip getting a secondary anyway).

RvR Characters do not need a secondary.

You may not be able to skip it, but I was told by a friend (who plays too much) that there is a way to disable your secondary profession.
Eg: It would only show W20, Mo20, N20, R20 etc. You wouldnt have the secondary profession skills either. And you could bring back your secondary any time. I dont know I this is true or not, and I doubt it is.

When creating a PvP charachter, you can select none as a choice (unless they changed it) so thats probably what you saw.

I think thats what Ketendra was refering to.