What was your favorite class?

[Willie the Duck]

One of my friends is new to D&D and trying to pick a class. I just figured someone here could toss out some ideas for some fun classes they played (PHBI & PHBII primarily as our DM is limiting us, but open to other classes if he overlooks them) and how they played them (feats, fighting style, etc.)

Is this person new to the ideas within D&D as well, or is he familiar with the tropes of clerics as religious folk in a polytheistic land, and casting "white" magic, wizards casting fireballs and
summoning undead, and thieves skulking down corridors and shivving people (bad guys, hopefully) in the kidneys when they aren't looking?

The one thing I'd warn about 3.5 is that the simplest ideas conceptually (big knightly fighter with weapon and armor, armor less martial artist laying down the crouching tiger, etc.) are not the easiest to play (and certainly not the easiest to make survivable).