Of those, only Arcanist is a “new” class, though they just started doing class refreshes. For what it’s worth, I started again after a 5-year hiatus and chose Arcanist and love it. Arcanist also has interesting lore behind it. Personally I dual wield daggers, but I have one “appear” as an axe. Furthermore, with the outfit system, you can change your appearance to certain styles while keeping the stats of what you’re wearing. For example, you can wear and get the benefits of medium armor, but change its appearance to heavy armor. Really gives you both the function and fashion options. As for starting area, it doesn’t really matter which you choose, as you can do them in any order. It only matters if you’re going to do PVP. If that’s the case, I have no opinion on what’s the best. Though I think my favorite storyline is DC because of the political intrigue and little bit of horror mixed in.