I have both a guard and a thief. In pve both can be extremely essential, guardian more so. In fractals especially the higher levels, for pug groups, you almost need to have a guardian to finish. The amount of reflects blocks, and the ability to produce fairly good dps make guardian essential. However at the same time guardian can be a bit boring. Its nice to get really good reflects and to save your team, but the rotations are very simple in terms of damage and it can get stale for many. I dont really enjoy being on my guard because even zerker is a bit easy mode and i feel like all the gameplay which is fast and exciting on ele and thief for me is slower and boring on guard. But some ppl really love it and its definitely a good class to have in case your group needs support.
Thief on the other hand is really fun in pve. You can offer fair amounts of support with reflects, and of course stealth. You’re always trying to position yourself behind bosses when fighting and although the rotations are as simple as guardian you hit higher numbers and the animations and the constant moving to get the best position makes it more entertaining. Also since you have no health and no real blocks you also really have to understand encounters, know how to dodge, and strive to stay alive. Which imo may be harder, but is also more fun
In terms of armor i get bored of heavy armor fast, besides what i currently have on, but i really like my thieves armor. Altho i am the meta, human female with t3, and underboob OP!
PVP both are really good, but i feel like Thief takes more skill and understanding of pvp and of other classes. I use a burst guard in pvp and in one or two days i had almost everything under control. Im not a great pvp player, but i could hold my own and against players at my skill level or a little lower i would do really well, and i had high survivability. Guardian in pvp is really fun and you feel godlike sometimes.
Thief took me a lot longer to get a hang of and im still not that great. I use sword/ dagger shortbow so maybe dagger/pistol is easier, but theres a lot of positioning as well, using skills to teleport to targets and understanding when to stealth. I find it more fun than guard because i like having a hard time (lol) and thief is a real challenge. If you’re really good at it, its also extremely godlike as ive seen.
Funny thing is on metabattle i think they put the counter to thieves being a burst guardian, basically my two builds counteract one another heh heh
Anyways id say you should definitely get both classes as they teach you important things about pve and pvp. I would suggest you pvp with both before 80 as it helps you understand classes better and assuming youre rabbit rank it shouldnt be too hard.
I think you should go with thief first because itll teach you about dodging and staying alive a bit more, as some guards can just faceroll through stuff without really being that good. But go with what feels right to you and check them both out
