Guardian and fractals
If you really want to use a guardian in fractals just dig up a condition guardian/dragon hunter build since it’s the only set up they have without retaliation. It’s not the highest dps but it’s not crap either and you still have the option to bring some support skills if you want.
As for blast finishers hardly any build uses them anymore so I wouldn’t worry about light fields.
Are Anet going to do anything about guardians hardly ever being used in scale 80+?
That’s more a function of the players rather than the mechanics — guardians can be an asset, if they are good about damage mitigation and the party brings boon stripping.
That said, I remember seeing something in the recent developer AMA in which they said they would be looking at retal specifically.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
While it’s true that the party could bring a boon stripping class like necro or mesmer, you’re forcing someone to change class and run a specific sub optimal build. This is absolutely okay when running with friends and what not. However, in a pug this is unacceptable. It’s selfish to force a party of randoms to work around 1 persons choice class simply because he doesn’t want to bring something else.
I hear there might be changes to guardian, but I’d prefer changes to fractals
While it’s true that the party could bring a boon stripping class like necro or mesmer, you’re forcing someone to change class and run a specific sub optimal build.
That’s a weird definition of “sub-optimal” — a build is only optimal if it’s suited to the task at hand. Mesmer optimal is often little DPS in exchange for support (notably alacrity or quickness) or utilities (stealth, portals, etc). In Tier 4 fractals, where this matters, people already bring particular sets of skills that might not be “optimal” in other situations.
Of course it’s true that “optimal” in most of PvE is the same, most of the time, for most classes. Still, if your guardian’s boons are getting stolen, then “optimal” changes to deal with that.
To be clear: I’m not against ANet changing which boons get stolen in Fractals or generally making the instabilities more interesting. My point is that a good guardian can bring a lot of utility to the right party (or they could be a liability, if people don’t pay attention to the mechanics).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”