new player, lost

i bought this game in 2013 and then went back to wow, having not played it :(. im sick of wow and back, but now i'm the noob and have no idea where to start. i mainly enjoy pvp and in wow i play an affliction warlock. i was wondering what is a good class to start with? does GW2 have stealth classes like wow rogues? and what in your opinion is decent at pvp without being too complex? any advice, links, etc. would be helpful and appreciated.

First off welcome back to the game friend~May I suggest as a first step that if you are looking to get back into the game and improve you search for a guild? If you are into PvP there are guilds out there who do exclusively that and a few of them are new player friendly and willing to help you learn the ropes.

Secondly I haven't ever played WoW (to poor as a kid lol) but I'm guessing affliction warlock is a spellcaster that uses conditions a lot? If so you might enjoy necromancer, they're not a bad class to start out with and have the potential to do a good bit of damage. As for stealth yes GW2 has primarily thieves and mesmers in that category, both of which are capable of stealthing and doing high burst damage. Engineer also has some access to stealth but its not so built in as the previous two classes.

You can always check Metabattle for some decent builds that'll show you what to use and help give you a basic idea of whats good right now, what you'll need, and how to play it until you start to decide more on your own and can make your own tweaks. Luckily for you everyone in PvP is level 80 and gear doesn't matter, just what stats you equip to your character in the lobby, so you can start testing immediately. ^^

Scourge (Necromancer) is probably the closest thing to an aff lock. You can kit out several different classes for conditions, though, so if you like the DoT playstyle, other good options are condi Soulbeast (ranger, PoF spec), Berserker (warrior, HoT spec), Mirage (mesmer, PoF spec).

Stealth in GW2 is significantly different than in WoW, and the duration is very, very short. Most stealth skills only last a couple of seconds on their own, and you need combinations of several different abilities to get a longer lasting stealth. The different flavors of Thief are generally the best at it, and stealth affects combat directly for them (your autoattack, in stealth, changes to a more powerful ability (like a WoW rogue using ambush instead of backstab). Engineer and Mesmer can still have some stealth for sneaking past things, but it doesn't directly change any skills for them in combat.

For PvP, Scourge is still very strong and easy to pick up - they tend to want to stick with a group and like to have support to do their thing, and are strong at AoE conditions. For a more direct damage class that's easier to play, I'd probably suggest base ranger or Dragonhunter (HoT guardian) as they're fairly straightforward. PvP in general amy take some getting used to, especially in regards to different builds and what skills to dodge, as the bursty specs fighting other bursty specs are way more fast paced than WoW. There are some support specs or tanky specs that like to hold points - Druid (HoT ranger) or Firebrand (PoF guardian) are solid there. I only do occasional PvP, and I'm sure others can speak more to that. If you don't have the expansions yet, things will be a bit harder on the PvP front.. there are a few builds that don't use the elite specs, but they aren't very common. This doesn't mean that they aren't playable by any means, but there will be times when you wish you had the options of some of those abilities.

Scourge (Necromancer) is probably the closest thing to an aff lock. You can kit out several different classes for conditions, though, so if you like the DoT playstyle, other good options are condi Soulbeast (ranger, PoF spec), Berserker (warrior, HoT spec), Mirage (mesmer, PoF spec).

Stealth in GW2 is significantly different than in WoW, and the duration is very, very short. Most stealth skills only last a couple of seconds on their own, and you need combinations of several different abilities to get a longer lasting stealth. The different flavors of Thief are generally the best at it, and stealth affects combat directly for them (your autoattack, in stealth, changes to a more powerful ability (like a WoW rogue using ambush instead of backstab). Engineer and Mesmer can still have some stealth for sneaking past things, but it doesn't directly change any skills for them in combat.

For PvP, Scourge is still very strong and easy to pick up - they tend to want to stick with a group and like to have support to do their thing, and are strong at AoE conditions. For a more direct damage class that's easier to play, I'd probably suggest base ranger or Dragonhunter (HoT guardian) as they're fairly straightforward. PvP in general amy take some getting used to, especially in regards to different builds and what skills to dodge, as the bursty specs fighting other bursty specs are way more fast paced than WoW. There are some support specs or tanky specs that like to hold points - Druid (HoT ranger) or Firebrand (PoF guardian) are solid there. I only do occasional PvP, and I'm sure others can speak more to that. If you don't have the expansions yet, things will be a bit harder on the PvP front.. there are a few builds that don't use the elite specs, but they aren't very common. This doesn't mean that they aren't playable by any means, but there will be times when you wish you had the options of some of those abilities.