Strange my very 1st char is also a Ranger/Ele although some say the most potent guys turn out being Ranger/Monks - I haven't done nearly enough reading.
My dervish will also get monk status when I get him there.
btw, Acid ... N00b island on Prophecies (and Nightfall etc. I suppose) is MASSIVE! And what's worse ... no mounts.
Prophecies doesn't really have a noob island, it has a beginner section you can never go back to.. it is used to set the storyline for the rest of the game, all the way through to EotN. It is called Pre-searing. Once you leave it, you go into Post-searing. Once again, it is part of the storyline with The Charr and Gwen.
The other chapters - Factions / Nightfall have noob islands, which you can return to at any time.
There are benefits to being a certain profession.
The R/E builds are mostly Spike builds, to use the elementalist buffs on your attacks... this I guess you can call DPS, since they deal large amounts of damage in 2-3 seconds if there are 2-3 of these builds in a party, which is typically 8 on total.
The R/Mo builds are a lot more survivable, especially when playing in PvP. They still have decent dps though.
I would recommend on buying the whole GW complete edition pack, it is cheaper as mentioned by others already, plus then you can travel to all the continents with any character, once you unlock it. You will also have a bigger variety if builds, as the best builds are made of cross-campaign skills.
I would suggest starting in Nightfall, since this campaign have the addition of Heroes, which is basically customisable NPC's that you can give limited commands to. This is also where most of the people are still playing, in NF and then also in EotN.
Prophecies is the first chapter and the learning curve is bit drawn out and leveling is slower too. It is the classic one that you must try though, since the landscapes are the best of all, well except maybe for the dungeons and scenery in EotN.
Actually all of them are stunning!
