My wife and I will be playing almost exclusively together through most of the game except for dungeons. In most MMOs, she tanks, I heal, and we are most comfortable playing those roles . She likes controlling battles and mixing it up close and personal, and I enjoy a support role, healing and cc. We have min/maxed and tanked/healed most epic/HM/ dungeons in MMOs, so we're used to classic tank/heal mechanics. But we also recognize that more DPS and less tanking/healing will be beneficial for most leveling purposes, especially in the early stages.

I am leaning toward Breton/Templar/Resto and she's leaning to Redguard/DK/S&S. We obviously want to play the same Alliance and strongly prefer AD over DC or EP, so we are giving strong consideration to the alternative of High Elf/Templar/Destro and Khajit/DK/S&S.

I realize I could level up my HE/Templar//Destro and then switch to Resto at 15 for dungeon healing, but my Resto skills will be far behind at that point, and I'm going to want to get them going asap. But I will probably use both eventually and she will probably use a 2h as well.

That's our current thinking but it's based only on a couple of weekend betas and we spent most of that time trying out all 3 alliances and crafting so didn't collect a lot of data.

Any recommendations for a good synergistic combo of builds for a husband/wife duo?

Thanks.

A few things:

• I haven't personally tested this, but I have heard that if you level up Resto Staff just enough to learn its first active ability (Grand Healing), put that on your bar, then swap to Destro Staff, you won't be able to use the Resto ability, but you'll still gain XP in the Resto Staff skill line, at the cost of having a wasted skill slot on your bar while you're levelling.
• A change in race isn't what I'd go for in the interest of faster levelling, since you can't change it later. If your wife wants to be a dedicated tank at end-game, probably better for her to go with a tanky race (Imperial seems to be a top choice for this, but Redguard is also good), and use more DPS-y skills while levelling. She could even do the same trick I described above, picking up Puncture to level 1H/S while mostly using 2H or DW while levelling.
• Check out the pre-order bonuses. They allow you to play any race in any alliance. That might affect your race choices; you don't have to pick two from the same alliance if you don't want to.
• Bear in mind that Templar is not the only choice for healing (though it is a good one). Sorcerer healers seem to also be very good (using the Resto Staff skills to heal), making use of the class' excellent resource management skills and great Ultimate abilities.

Good luck!

That is a really good idea. Im gonna have to use that one!

heres an idea, you play as the class and style you love playing the most and you let her play the class and style she loves the most and in the meantime you can learn every weapon skill so you can swap weapons as needed, but only put points into your main weapon

When the game is released, test builds out then, otherwise its all based off of beta, which could change easily and will change. Play what you guys want to play, and quit looking for the best builds. the game isnt even released yet....come release its going to be a big learning process for everybody, and allot of testing. Theorize then, not now with stuff that is innaccurate.

well I was being honest the game is designed so you can use EVERY weapon as needed and still build your character the way you really want to

Not sure where you're getting this info. You can split your levelling time among all the weapon types if you want, but if you do you're going to end up with all of them underlevelled when you hit cap, and then you're going to have to spend forever and a day getting the ones you like caught up. Probably better to pick a melee and a ranged and stick with them, and then grind out additional skill lines later if you decide you want to try a different one.