Guild Wars 2

To the OP,

I am an MMO healer by inclination too, but we need to get over that attitude. There’s no such thing as a pure healer in GW2, the abilities are simply not designed to allow a consistent and sustainable stream of healing.

Instead, ANet are emphasising that people need to be responsible for keeping themselves alive; primarily by avoiding damage altogether, as well as by mitigating damage and self-healing.

It is possible to play in a support-centric manner, but you need to rotate through abilities, debuffing, DPSsing and dropping your heals too. If you’re an ele, you must not just sit in water, or you’re wasting most of your power.

It took me a while to get used to this. Of course the flipside is that people can’t stand around expecting you to fix their mistakes. In GW2, you really can’t heal through stupid :)

The downed mechanic is also super-important. Rezzing people is very valuable, and professions with rez-related talents can also make a huge difference, but it’s everybody’s responsibility.

I know it’s a bit odd, and a change of pace, but it makes an odd sort of sense.. Think more Diablo 3 than WoW (oh god, people are going to rage at that :D). Give it a go, the faster-paced style is quite fun :)