which is more important?

[Kevin Winter]

For injury protection. If you're going to dive around then you need paintball knee pads, elbow pads and possibly wrist protection

If you are going to crawl a lot then protect your elbows and knees from this:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olecranon_bursitis

I've had this and it's a right pain!
I wouldn't play without knee pads these days, especially on an astroturf pitch... defo these before elbow pads (I wear both though, along with heavily padded slide shorts and a bounce vest)

 

[777]

I've had this and it's a right pain!
I wouldn't play without knee pads these days, especially on an astroturf pitch... defo these before elbow pads (I wear both though, along with heavily padded slide shorts and a bounce vest)

Same here, played once with no padding and killed my knees.
Depending on where you play on the field, if your on your knees alot buy the knee pads first, if like me your at the back centre and on your feet most of the time maybe worth getting the arm padding, helps bounce some of them hits .
Can recommend Dye padding, got their slide shorts, knee pads and elbow pads.
As for a vest i got an Empire BT padded vest, lots of nice thick padding front and back.

 

[Tom17]

I got elbow pads first, but only because my pants had some decent padding in around the knees.
I guess it really depends on your position or type of paintball you play.

 

[Thorpe]

I couldn't play now without knee pads. I would say knee pads over arm pads. Arm pads are only really essential if you spend a lot of time diving and crawling, at which point you're going to be wanting to be wearing knee pads already.

 

[Tom17]

Just try and get both at the same time