Well, I disagree that we are terribly designed. I agree in some respects to what you guys are feeling, but I think the majority of the greatsword population wishes they were not predictable any longer. I never picked it up myself and strived to use hammer and sword shield. I’ve picked up a lot of mechanics that can easily break barriers for anyone’s skill level including sheath interrupting your attacks to save them from people who dodge, kiting, skill rotations (the optimal ones), and fast hand swapping/weapon swapping on the 5 second margin. The warrior is best when played aggressively, yet it lacks the abilities to really retreat from a fight or even prolong it. Anyone who watches heroic medieval movies, knows that the heros are usually masters with a shield. I feel that warrior needs better sustainability through different stances and perhaps a better shield update. Maybe even give us a burst skill FOR the shield? A guardian utilizes boons very well, but warriors should be MASTER of a shield, not a jack of all traits. Our stances severely lack sustainability because there is nothing in the stances themselves that really help us negate damage. Sure there’s that new berserker’s stance but tbh, it’s such a long cooldown it’s useless. In GW1 we had a wide range of protective stances we could use to help us negate damage. It seems like you gave those to the guardian? skills like watch yourselves.
Take a look at how many defensive skills we had in gw1 http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Block
Most of those skills are given to the warrior and it fits his role well. He utilizes combat, not magic. In GW2, we don’t really have anything that makes us unique aside from an adrenaline bar…. Our stances are garbage, though useful at times lack universal interest. Our banners were a unique idea, but again… they are cunky, horrible weapons when used, and are only good for the buff-which we need to be chained to like a tamed dog. Sad but true. I’ll show you guardian, just let me throw down my banner, no wait come back, I can’t receive my buff when you go that far.
Now take what I just said and take a look at this.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Block
You can see, that guardian easily has more sustain just through blocking, not even including the damage immunes/invuln’s.
Warriors have 3. Who the hell fights underwater anyway.
Not to mention, guardians have a profession skill (f1-4 keys) that applies block on passive AND active. Warriors only have one profession skill, and that is a burst ability. While the abilities themselves are on a short cooldown, it forces us to stick with certain weapon sets to utilize defense. Guardian can utilize defense no matter what weapon they use and thus have more freedom. I am surprised that burst was not better layed out. Perhaps you could add 2 skills to the burst menu, an f1 AND f2? I know this would be very different from the current menu, but it would make more sense. This would also strengthen us without having to change traits a whole lot.
So, Arenanet, balance team, john, joe, doe, or whoever implements class changes, please consider my ideas as I have outlined because I am sure many warriors will agree with these observations. If anything, I am more interested in seeing stance and combat oriented changes, instead of traits. I feel the under powered element comes from this.