Decisions Decisions... Suggestions?

I would love to get your thoughts on a few things, and I thank you in advance for your input.

Today my new desktop arrives and in preperation for its arrival I was looking for a new game to play. I have played my share of MMOs (DAoC, Earth & Beyond, Motor City Online, SWG / JTL, CoH). I have always been drawn into the concept, but one thing or another has kept me from sticking with any one game. In most cases I would gt a level 10 or 15 character and be kind of bored. I also got tired of the endless treking and getting lost. I have never been part of a quality guild either. (By quality I mean a guild that routinely has players on-line to play with and ask advice). The level 20 cap and similarities to MTG were just a couple of things that made GW attractive to me. No monthly fee as well.

To the point. I have always been a tank, except for a stint as a dancer in SWG and some failed attempts at crafting, and I am looking for something new. I have never been much for the healing prof. due to the pressure and anger you reap if you don't heal correctly and a group member dies. I would like something a bit more comlex than slash spaming. On the other hand, I don't want a worthless build. I know tonight while I am cruising around pre-sear I will get to try out all the secondaries and that will help, but I have been looking at some possible combos and would like your thoughts. Keep in mind I have never done PvP (unless you count CS). This would be a PvE build, but I would like to be able to take it into a PvP battle someday.

Ranger / Nec or Nec / Ranger - With this build, would Ranger be a better primary, since I don't have much exp. working with spells and such. I thought the Death Magic looked like a pretty fun skill to play. (Is death a good skill line or is it worthless) On the other hand, a primary Nec means more energy production, and from the sounds of it that is important.

The same above goes for a E/R or R/E build, except for the fact I would be playing with fire not dead people. Seems like Ele as a primary is a better option for energy, or am I too worried about that concept?

I would entertain any other suggestions, even a W/R, since it does closely resemble my past playstyles.

I look forward to your input.

If you are planning on any kind of serious spell casting then energy is key, as without it you can't do anything!

If you are planning on using Death Magic (minions especially) then I would recomend a Necro primary, this will assist with energy management and allow you to boost your death magic attribute.

Simaler sort of thing for Ele spells, if you plan on using them a lot energy management is key therefore Ele primary is a must.

Tanking with a W/R can be done, you could also play about and have a decent runner build.

One of the great things about GW is that most combo's of primary secondary can be made useful with a bit of thought put into it!

Yes E/N Or N/E can be good for PvE due to ele's energy storage skills. However solely for PvE I found it incredibly useful to have Monk skills to keep you alive, Having secondary Mo skills for PvP is useless imo in most cases especially for warriors. Currently for my PvP build I use a W/E, and use Knockdowns with backbreaker or earthshaker and mix them together with ele skills such as aftershock for substantial dmg. But self healing is good for PvE and you should maybe consider that for an option? I'm currently building up my level 8 R/Mo and he's very capable of taking care of himself in team PvE so that the monks can concentrate on the less protected members.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Unless you have the unexplainable desire to only use your PvE character in PvP it's much easier to create a PvP character than to try and turn your PvE character into a PvP character. (Not counting the lower level arena's which can only be accessed by PvE characters).

As a result, I wouldn't worry too much about trying to make your PvE character usable for PvP. Just play him as PvE and when you want to finally get into PvP you can design a PvP character with the skills you've unlocked up to that point. I'm not saying it's impossible to make a PvE character as good as a PvP character but it takes a lot of money, time and knowledge.

Thanks for the input. I guess I have a loyalty issue and is why I would want to use the same character for PvP and PvE. It sounds like I will be creating a PvP charater when the time comes.

I have been playing with some Skills templates and such from a few sites and making a wish list of a character. I am guessing though your character will develop around the skills you unlock first and then you can start trying to track down the attractive skills you want to use.

Do you have access to many of the Skills durring the pre-searing phase, or do you need to hit the academy to get the cool spells? I will find out soon enough, but thought I would ask anyway.

Thanks again.

You do have access to skills during pre-searing which can be gotten via questing.

As for R/N and N/R - if you want to use death magic a lot, I'd suggest along with others have to go for N/R.

Rangers only have about 25 energy if I recall correctly and the basic death magic spell (minion) costs 15 energy.

However R/N can be a lot of fun. Curses and blood magic would complment a ranger very nicely.

It's perfectly rational to use your PvE character when starting out - you don't have faction, and you probably don't have a huge number of unlocks (runes especially) unless you are one heck of a farmer.

My first PvP forays were done with PvE characters, and I had bought the runes. It would be expensive to buy runes anew each time you wanted to PvP, so a PvE toon is a fine way around this until you can get the runes unlocked via faction.