Good question. I've been playing primarily as Archer during Phase 3. I also went a decent way as Pugilist, which I found more visceral and fun, although I think the "Greased Lightning" combo might get tedious after a while.

The downside of being an Archer in party play is that it's considered a "DPS" class, but if you do more damage than the tank, you're going to become the mobs' target. I died a bunch of times in my first dungeon. So it's kind of ironic that you have to measure your damage as a DPS. (I'm assuming tanks have some kind of aggro-drawing skill, but they didn't use it too much in the parties I was in.)

I'm interested in trying the Arcanist/Scholar path, even though I'm not a spellcaster kind of player. But Phase 4 is probably going to have a ton of them, so it might be a good opportunity to try out a Gladiator or Conjurer.

Picking a race and name is an even tougher call, since it can't be changed. I like that you get to make a character on each of 8 servers for the cheapest subscription, but I'm probably only going to stick with one character for the duration of my involvement with the game, so I want to come up with something good.