Total noob here - cant decide between Soulbeast or Deadeye

In 2012 i played a thief to level 50 and haven’t played since. I’m done with BFA and looking for a replacement I decided to give this another go and got the xpacks on sale :)

In most MMOs I play either a “Ranger” or “Assassin” (bow or daggers), and I’m really torn between ranger and thief. Or Soulbeast and Deadeye (and daredevil).

I created two new characters and spent the past 6 hours in the PvP lobby on training dummies just testing out both characters and trying different builds to see what clicks and honestly I like both lol

I’ll eventually level both to 80 but which would be better to start off with? Which is the better jack of all trades as I plan to do PvE (dungeons/fractals?), PvP and WvW. (Probably more pvp/wvw though)

EDIT: forgot to mention I was testing Soulbeast with LB/GS and Deadeye with Rifle D/P. The Deadeye seemed to down things a lot quicker once I got the hang of it. But I see vids of Soulbeasts wrecking face so I was for sure missing something since my bow felt like it was slinging plastic arrows

I'd go with Soulbeast to start. It's more tolerant to mistakes and generally more widely accepted in group PvE content than Deadeye. Even when Deadeye has one of the most powerful DPS builds atm, people still frown on thieves in PvE. A good thief player will wreck face but a bad thief is usually a dead thief.

Here's a handy site to use: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/Also you can find builds for all purposes from Metabattle.

I would go SB, just because its more noob friendly. But DD for me is more fun if you actualy good at it

Rangers are much more newbie friendly.

You can't really bring longbow Soulbeast into high-end PVE content. You can, however, bring shortbow. Shortbow Soulbeast is a condition spec, which roughly translates to DoT damage rather than direct damage. The reason you'd want to bring Shortbow is simply because it does much more damage than Longbow Soulbeast.

Rifle Deadeye is a viable spec in high-end PVE content (moreso raids; for dungeons or "fractal" dungeons you'd want more AOE capability). It's a more difficult spec to level and do open-world content with, relative to Soulbeast.

HOWEVER, for PvP and WvW, Longbow Soulbeast is perfectly fine in many respects. Keep in mind that pvp is completely level-independent; you can take a lvl 2 character into pvp and be just as effective, and have access to just as many skills/gear, as a lvl 80 (though that is not true for WvW, just PvP).

I've have 300 hours on ranger and only about 70 on thief and I much prefer the thief's play style, it's quick and reactionary. Plus running staff Daredevil in PvE is about the easiest and most fun I've had with a profession in PvE for a while. That being said, staff does get boring pretty fast as there isn't a lot to it. I also feel quite useless on thief compared to my ranger. I have to put in a lot more effort to get the same results and I don't bring any kind of team support except damage and stealth, neither of which is unique to thief or does it do it particularly well. Thief is the kind of thing you really need to enjoy, and it takes a lot of practice to be good at it. Ranger has a more generic play style but it's super strong and one of the most versatile professions in the game. From what you've described I would say go ranger.