The sequel MMO has no dedicated healer class. The Guardian has a ”similar support role” as the Necromancer. You ”could probably say” he’s a Paladin.
”In Guild Wars 1 we had a Monk. We know people like to play that profession, we also know we’re not building a dedicated healer in our game, so we couldn’t bring in a character called a Monk into our game and say oh we just totally annulled his healing and took away his connection to the gods,” explained ArenaNet’s Jon Peters.
”What we did is take what we thought people enjoyed about that class and play-style and started from scratch to build something more in-the-front-line, fightery, throwing up walls, shields and doing these other crowd control area block things.”
”So we put him in heavy armour and things evolved from there,” he said.
”One thing to clear up,” chipped in lead designer Eric Flannum. ”A lot of times when you say something like that, people think oh well he’s the healer. That’s not the case.”
”What the Guardian is is… The profession is designed to have a play-style that will appeal to players that typically like that sort of healing role. He feels very magical, he feels very much like the one who comes in and saves the day, but in the reality of it he plays a similar support role as a Necromancer.”
”That’s if you want to spec him for support,” Flannum continued. ”You can clearly take him in a more offensive route. A good way to think of it is he’s slightly more support oriented, more magical version of the Warrior.”
The Guardian can call upon Spirit Weapons, Symbols, Wards and Aegis boons. They also have a special ability called Virtues of which there are three: Justice, Courage and Resolve. These are either passive buffs or can be activated to aid your allies.
So far ArenaNet has unveiled the Necromancer, Ranger, Warrior, Elementalist and Guardian. Guild Wars 2 releases exclusively on PC but has no date yet.