I'd advocate the use of pre-gen characters for newbies if the statistics and range of choice is overwhelming to them. It gives them a chance to try out a class to get a "feel" for it and will help them decide on what sort of long-term character they'd want.

Pre-gen characters do not have to be used in game. They can also be used as example characters to explain how different classes perform, how stats can affects things etc.

One-shots will help them get used to the combat and not worry too much about the character. A friend of mine has run several olympics-style one shots that allowed us to try builds or home brew classes that we were unsure about.