When it comes to pvp/wvwvw the reality is that guardian is one of the classes with the lowest amount of build variety. You can do decently as a medit dps guardian but that only really works either against bad players, or when you’re lucky in the “paper rock scissor” draw (I found it strong against pw thieves), the truth is, dps guardian is like a subpar pw thief in terms of the role it occupies, it’s almost as glassy (it doesn’t do well in team fights / when surrounded by lots of aoe), but doesn’t have the same mobility on the map nor can it disengage at will from a fight that is perceived as lost. While the thief can flee when things turn sour, guardian has to die. As soon as anything turns into a 1vs2 against equally competent players you will die, you just can’t disengage from a fight the way a thief or warrior would do. The ranged options are also rather lacking.
Guardian is mostly viable as a bunker and not much else. Most classes have access to good condition builds (warrior, engineer, necromancer, mesmer, ranger, all have decent condition builds) but guardian for some god forsaken reason is not supposed to have access to conditions. Guardian as a dps is very glassy but doesn’t have the mobility of a war and thief to justify it.
Giving guardian traits that have to do with either condi damage or burn is ridiculous when the class doesn’t even have a good condi based weapon set and utilities! what are those traits supposed to do without the required framework to stand on.
As good as bunker guardians are in their role, I don’t really feel it fair for a class to be pigeonholed that much into one, singular, and also, the most boring role in this game.
- “No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.”
And hey, I have only thrown the Idea out there like… at least 20 times. I am sure maybe 80 more will finally get something to happen!