not sure what character to start out as.
Engineer, Mesmer, Necro, Elementalist and warrior all sound interesting. The others are interesting too but not as much.
from the guild's experience, leveling seems vastly superior on warrior--much easier to solo through content if you wish (you're rarely soloing anyway, there is almost always a mob of people about. But since there is no mob-stealing, no real competition in the xp/loot department )
and it is great damage, great survivability.
I don't know much about guardian, but it's more of an ultrasurvivor support/damage class. As I understand it, you have to stand around a lot and deal with some casting times, which is odd....because the casting classes can cast on their feet--which is awesome.
Nec is a rather viable tanky/caster. I only played for 9 or so levels. I enjoyed it, but it's nothing like the minion master (meat-shield spamming) or shutdown/DPS class from GW. the Oh shit! button is pretty sweet, though.
Thief requires a lot of skill to get it going from what I've heard. It might be difficult to play if lag is an issue at times, as it's very reaction/twitch-based combat. very squishy, too.
I find engineer and ele to be tons of fun. Unique use of the F skill slots. While ele can't swap weapons during combat, each weapon set has it's own 4 sets of elemental attunement. During battle, you can swap between these attunements--which really gives ele the most skills in the game. Ele can DPS, support, and heal pretty well. Probably the squishiest. I really like the dual-dagger skills. (btw, when you see caster using mele weapons, or mele classes using ranged weapons....don't assume that it means they have to fight at those ranges. the skills can be quite strange: ele dagger = flinging shards of ice or a lightning whip. stuff like that).
Another cool ele skillset--you can drop enchanted weapons of each attunement (fire, water, air, earth)--like an ice bow or fire axe, and either equip it or drop it for an ally to pick up. They pick it up, they get a new set of skills for this weapon, and it lasts a rather decent amount of time. I find this to be insanely cool and fun.
Engineer only gets 2 weapon sets the entire game: rifle or dual pistol. that's it. HOWEVER, the many utility skills that you unlock (the ones based on the skill points that you collect from leveling and completing challenges int eh world) often grant their own unique set of skills, when activated they replace your main set, and often are influenced by the tertiary skill set (the F keys). You can build turrets (like rifle, flame, heals, rocket, etc), a whole set of grenade skills (my favorite), equip a flamethrower with it's own full set of skills, mines that also have timing functions depending on how you activate them, etc, etc. The heals are also more diverse: not only do you have the self heal like every other class--you can toss your heal skill on the ground to grant the effects to allies. there are other kits that provide similar ally support, as well. so even though it has the fewest weapons, by far--it probably has the most diverse and total number of possible skills, and maybe play styles. it is very good damage, and great support.
that being said...it could be that my love of engineer was in playing an Asura--which is the best race if you ask me. Simply great content, one of the better starting areas--maybe the best--well-designed models (awesome animations), just an overall good attitude from the entire race. Asura = "fun"
Mesmer...my favorite. Hard to explain, though. Either you're popping clones to provide distraction or ally support, or some that provide amazing damage (iDuelist with secondary pistol), jumping in and out of large mobs and spamming massive condition spikes and jumping back, all the while stealthing your allies at the same time, it just offers a good balance between ranged an up-close mele. I must say though, that it is
very hard starting out on this class. Not because it is difficult (it is pretty difficult), but you often find yourself wondering what the hell it is you are supposed to do as a mesmer. I really don't like the shatter function (the set of F skills for mes). It simply explodes all your clones on target, all at once, each of 4 choices offering a different type of condition on top of the damage. even through 30 levels, there is no way to trait any amount of serviceable damage with this function--simply spamming your main sword attack does about 5x the damage of shattering in less than half the time it takes for your clones to run in and explode--assuming they are alive,a s they tend to die as soon as they are spawned (either one shot, or being that they are targeted skills, the target may be dead before they spawn with the delay). On top of that, clones do no damage (you also have phantasms--a higher class of Illusions--clones and phantasms are all illusions--the phantasms, for the most part, are quite excellent). The phantasms do decent to great damage, and offer good support. I find myself building mostly around those, as I simply do not want to use shatter, and so clones, to me, are even more useless.
Ranger...haven't tried it. If you like pet classes, it is the pet class. You can get a pet shark. Seriously. for some people, that is probably all they need to hear
I don't really like pet classes, and was disappointed that you
can't roll a ranger without a pet (as in GW1). They do very good damage, though I've heard mixed feelings about the type of skills they have.
I think Human and Asura have the best starting areas--best balance, most fun. Divinity (human capitol) is simply gorgeous. You'll find yourself exploring it for hours.
Charr is great to, but the starting area is very difficult. I think this is great, but it's seriously punishing when simply trying to figure out the initial weirdness of the game. Form the beginning, you have access to all starter zones if you want, by going into your capital, taking asura gate to LA, then finding each racial gate. This allows you to run around and grab many skill points early on, explore all over...jsut do whatever.
To me, Norn and Sylvari are intensely boring. I think the Norn area is rather gorgeous, actually...but the events and the repetitiveness of the area...I don't know. I didn't want to keep playing :\