Guild Wars 2

Alright, well, this is the thread where I will be doing a little campaigning for my own class, and I hope you will forgive the self-plug here. I’ve played bunker Guardian for quite a long time, through many patches and different metagames. And I can say for sure that this particular patch and the resulting meta has put more pressure on bunker Guardians than they have ever had before, to the point where I am really beginning to question the viability of the role in high level tournament play – you are likely going to be better off running a 5th DPS, or perhaps a more aggressively built Guardian than you would by running a bunker Guardian. Here are the main reasons I believe this to be the case:

Increased Condition Pressure: Many top level teams are running 2 Condition Necros, or 1 Condition Necro + 1 Condition Engi. After the 6/25 patch, the level of pressure that this amount of condition application puts on your cleanses, even when running 3 shouts, is very high, to the point where you will often be run out of cooldowns in about 15 seconds. If you cannot sustain under a standard amount of condition pressure (and this amount of pressure has become quite standard), then you will be quickly forced out of the middle of the fight, which is the position a bunker must be able to maintain in order to remain effective.

Increased Burst and Body Cleave: Due to the recent buffs to certain Elementalist and Engineer builds (scepter/dagger burst and new 100nades), teammates or enemies may be downed very quickly, which is normally the point in the fight where a bunker Guardian truly excels — performing that key stomp or res which can swing a fight. However, the increased AoE cleave due to the larger number of scepter/dagger Eles and condition Necros makes performing that stomp or res before being cleaved down or off the body very difficult or impossible in high level play. It is typically better off if you were another ranged DPS so that you could add to the cleave pressure yourself instead of trying to get near the body.

In conclusion, I believe that, in the past, bunker Guardians had been strong in comparison to other classes and builds; perhaps a bit on the too strong side. However, with the large number of simultaneous changes in the last patch and its resulting metagame, the viability of the role has been brought into question, and I believe it is something that should be looked at seriously by the developers and the PvP community. Thanks for reading my rant! :P

I’m having trouble imagining what the meta would look like if there wasn’t a guard on every team. The whole concept is kind of alien.

No, not really. There were teams that I played against that ran 5 DPS and no Guardian before the patch and were quite successful with it.

Yeah I always hear about it but never run into it. What I’m saying though is that I can’t quite figure out what kind of comps would be good if you didn’t already know that they were going to have a guard on mid or lose. I’ve never had to before I guess.

Basically, all burst works. Just have a few of your burst players running some way to stomp out a kill if you need to, and run a few res utilities like Illusion of Life, otherwise just outburst them and then cleave the bodies.

The theory here, in general, is that if there is little use in trying to stomp or res, then you are actually gimping yourself if you run 4 burst and 1 bunker as compared to 5 burst, because the 5 burst team should be able to outdamage the 4 burst team and get the first down, and then cleave the downed body to death and win the fight. This won’t always happen in practice, but in theory, the 5 burst team has the advantage if the bunker had little to no chance of stomping/ressing downed bodies before forced off or being downed himself.

Yeah, definitely haven’t run into it yet. How often do you see them? Would you call it a strong meta choice?

I would try it out in the current meta, and I see it more often lately than before the patch. Make sure you’re running a comp with either strong area power cleave (scepter eles, power grenade engis, shatter mesmer, etc), or strong area condi cleave (condi necro with epidemic and/or wells, condi nade engi, trap ranger, etc). One or the other type is fine, no need for both. One or two res utilities and one or two stomp utilities should be enough.

So like, no guard on the other team in most of your games? Half? A quarter? One in ten? Do you usually beat them or lose to them?

I haven’t kept track of ratios and win/loss records (a good suggestion for sure), but there will still more often be a Guardian than not. However, I am beginning to believe that this may be a mistake in not adjusting quickly enough to the meta. It’s still not too long since the patch, so time will tell if I’m right or not, but it’s my belief that bunker Guardians are either close to being too pressured to exist, or already are, in high level play. Perhaps all that’s needed is some adjustment in the meta, such as additional condition removal on the team to support the Guardian’s, and some CC support to interrupt the cleave AoE. I more made the thread as something to comment on and think about, rather than being a statement of conclusive fact, and as I continue to play after the patch I’ll see if my opinion changes any. I hope other Guardians will as well.

Right now a bunker guard can be a liability to a team. Especially if the opposition is running two necros. What I normally see happen is the guard will use SYS to get rid of one Sig of spite and but the other necro will use theirs and then they use Epidemic and its just GG after that. In all honesty though the amount of AOE condition damage happening right now is ruining the game play.

TP won one of post patch tournaments with no guardian. I think they had a bunker ranger in the first match. Was entertaining though.

I think it’s relatively balanced honestly. I can win as a bunker guardian or as a DPS guardian, they both have their uses.