Good afternoon! I'm a brand new player and patching the game right now. To keep it short, I am fairly interested in playing a Conqueror, but I had a few questions to ask first:

Would this be a wise choice for someone who is completely new to AoC?

What is the Conqueror's main role? Is it just more of a hybrid between tanking and melee DPS (not a guardian, not a barbarian...somewhere in between)?

Would this class, in your opinions, be too much of a transition for someone who has always played casters in other games, games which had no combo system or aiming involved (WoW, DAoC, EQ1/2, etc.)?

Are Conqueror's sought after in both raids and group PvP? They seem like they would be in high demand for all of the buffing and debuffing abilities as well as offtanking or DPSing in PvE. I don't want to be a dime-a-dozen type class that is overlooked for group play (IE, rogues and hunters in WoW).

Since I'll be new, I will expect to die a lot in PvP until I can fully grasp the more complex combat system of AoC. If you had to choose one melee class for a newbie to work off their training wheels, which would it be and why?

Other classes that have interested me: Ranger, Priest of Mitra, Barbarian, Necromancer. If you think the Conq is too complex for a newbie, which of the above would be best for starting out and learning the game (feel free to suggest other classes as well, but those four and the Conq are what I am looking at the most)?

Sorry for the long post, but I'd rather do some research before I play the game (seems like it'll be hours before the patching is done) to avoid getting a class to the mid-levels and still not be any good at it because I didn't know what I was getting into.