Playing a "pure healer" class is almost impossible in GW2. Honestly, they've focused on damage mitigation moreso than pure healing.
For example, there are Earth Spells which provide 66% less damage reduction and 4 seconds of invulernability.
The Guardian would probably be the closest to damage reduction / healer type class. One of their elite skills has a spell that heals 5 people to 100%. They also have a lot of aura types to mitigate damage.
Thevies are meant to be played as assassins. Get in, Kill, get out. They also have one of the best Crowd Control skills in Scorpion Wire (yes, just like Scorpion) as it pulls a foe to you and can pull people off walls. Repositioning is power, which enables your group to kill them. Thevies are probably the one class above all else that will benefit from having a full build with items, enabling you to spec high burst damage and your elite. Most other classes won't be stacking burst potential.
Elementalists are your utility casters - they have very long range, have a couple decent damage AoEs and lots of CC.
For example, when chasing a fleeing group, you want an Ele with you. Basically you get a rotation going of your Water spells (Frozen Ground - 66% slow), Air Spells (Swiftness boost and 1.5 second stun), Earth Spells (Cripple - 50% slow, and and Immobilize).
Just keep in mind that the PvP is different from your normal MMO - a good, organized group can take on a PUG group 2-3x its size. Our guild did it a couple times where 30 people took over 80.
There is a point where numbers can overwhelm, but with the right compositions, you can stand your ground.
A couple things they need to fix is load times. One of the things we've used to our advantage is mesmer portaling into the middle of a group and wrecking them. Partly because the load times aren't that good and sometimes, a person can be right up on you before they appear on your screen. It works both ways though, as when you portal in, you need to blindly drop AoEs because you can't see anyone.
I think they'll fix this eventually. I know the WvW wait times were crazy last night too - they should be working at fixing that I hope, considering this is the prepurchase portion. I can't imagine how crazy it will be once it goes live to retail.
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