Guild Wars 2

I strongly believe that Bunker Guardian in its prime was one of (if not) the best builds for the game in terms of promoting healthy and skill-based gameplay.

Why?

1. It promoted active gameplay
Nearly everything a bunker guardian did rewarded actively reacting to a situation.
Expecting a heavy power damage spike on an ally? Use your protection shout or your mace block to mitigate damage.
Need to counter heavy CC pressure? Use SYG or your F3 skill to provide AoE stability.
Strong AoE on-demand condition cleanse was available, but it wasn’t enough to constantly cleanse every single condi on yourself, so smart use of these condi cleanses was promoted.
The staff 5 skill could be used both as a strong on-demand offensive and defensive support.
This thread discusses why active gameplay is no longer the case: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Meta-has-too-much-AoE-protection-uptime/first#post5883425

2. It was the best at its role but mediocre at others
During its prime, no other build came close to bunker guardian in team support. In a 4v4/5v5 situation where one team had a bunker guardian and the other team didn’t, the team with a bunker guardian had a significant advantage. While its team support was strong, its personal survivability was not the best and could die to coordinated burst or condi pressure. Certain condition builds were also capable of killing it in 1v1. It also provided strong offensive team support through might and a strong AoE CC (staff 5), but dealt very little damage itself which greatly reduced its contribution in a 1v1 or 2v2. Putting more than one bunker guardian in a team comp was not effective due to the specialisation of the role. This leads us onto the next point:

3. It promoted smart rotations from both teams
A team was greatly rewarded for having their bunker guardian in the team fights and punished heavily for having it stuck in a 1v1, to some extent even a 2v2 where it had reduced effectiveness. The team had to plan ahead in order to have their bunker guardian in as many team fights as possible. On the other hand, the enemy team could juke out their opponent and force their bunker guardian to be the last one standing on a point in a 1v1. Alternatively the enemy team could also abuse the bunker guardian’s lack of mobility by simply moving around the map faster (e.g. with a portal).
Currently we have multiple hybrid bunkers on each team, which can cope in any situation (1v1 – 5v5). This severely dumbs down rotations, since you can simply put a hybrid bunker on every point while your roamers move between the points.

We need builds like this to be back on top if the game is to become a healthy game that promotes smart and active play. Our current support builds can dish out most of their support passively with little thought (except for healing someone who is low), while also severely dumbing down the entire concept of team rotation.

I agree.
Bunkerguard also had to use skills properly and had to manage the cds. If you have wasted your condiremoves randomly you will die against condi pressure and if your stability gets ripped you have some problems against cc combos.

It’s getting ridiculous if you compare this with bunkermesmer nowadays.
When I have a 1v1 against bunkermes, I often just watch them. Allthough I’m not attacking, they’re starting with duable dodge,shield block,shieldblock, invulnerability well, duable dodge again.

dominik.9721:

When I have a 1v1 against bunkermes, I often just watch them. Allthough I’m not attacking, they’re starting with duable dodge,shield block,shieldblock, invulnerability well, duable dodge again.

I call bullkitten if you say they can shield block twice without you attacking lol

Back to the topic, I too agree bunker guard fits bunker role the best, especially on point 2. You don’t see much builds with those virtues nowadays.

My pet attacks.
And it was an example to illustrate that you can spam and waste your cds without paying attention to anything. Bad players won’t get punished for poor cd-management.
It was a simple comparision between bunker guard and bunker mesmer.

By the way,do you also take the bible literally?

You mean close to do it all builds are bad for the game? Who’d have thunk it? Certainly not a-net.