As of right now the meditation guardian is in a good position in PvP. They do nice burst damage while having sustainability with blocks, heals and condition removal. However, the meditation build is quite the contrary to the previous guardian meta build, which was the bunker guardian. I wonder what happened to the bunker guard as it is no longer part of the meta and replaced by shoutbow warriors. What exactly makes warriors better at bunkering than guards?
Shoutbow warriors are definitely not bad. They have a high base health pool, condition removal, great regeneration and their shouts support the team to a certain extend. Also warbanner is definitely a lifesaver. But if you look at the defensive support of the guardian it feels like guardian has a lot more to offer in team fights. We have decent support healing with virtue of resolve, empower and hold the line. Not to forget about stability, blinds and blocks. Staff is not that bad damage when you can hit three or more targets at once but I understand it has its limits in 1v1. Is this what kills the build? Right now team support doesn’t feel important in PvP while individual, independent builds have more to offer.
Perhaps once Heart of Thorns comes guardian bunker build will once again shine. Since we will be able to use three full defensive trait lines the guardian meta might shift.
The bunker guard has a difficult time killing things because they give up any form of offence to become nearly immortal. Thats why more offensive bunkers like D/D ele replaced them.
Shoutbow pretty much completely replaced Bunker Guardian. Their overall conditional cleanses exceed that of a Guardian while also maintaining much higher sustainability, mobility and having above-average dmg output.
Just as Vizard stated, offensive bunkers tend to be favored since they have almost as much mitigation while maintaining significant dmg.
Edit: Gotta remember, a Bunker guardian is slow, hits like a wet noodle and requires the assistance of teammates to survive which forces unfavorable numbers on their side in other areas of the map.
The bunker guard has a difficult time killing things because they give up any form of offence to become nearly immortal. Thats why more offensive bunkers like D/D ele replaced them.
This ^.
A bunker guardian did laughably low amount of damage and all it really provided was some regeneration, condition cleansing & dodge heals.
A shoutbow warrior however does just as much if not more healing, same condition cleansing but also provides group fury, might and some CC.
There is also the fact that shout bow does more damage.
Shoutbow isn’t better at bunkering than guardian, shoutbow is not even a bunker build to start with but a cheese build and it’s not hard to kill a shoutbow warrior. The problem is bunkers aren’t needed in this meta anymore, but hybrid builds that have good sustain and damage.
Shoutbow is a support hybrid. Far from its bunker version, it doesn’t even bunker that well in comparision.
The Warrior bunker version is something like banner regen (or healing shouts) with cleric or settler amulet, mace/shield for high block uptime and sword/warhorn. This particular Warrior build just gets outclassed by your tipical bunker Guardian.
Although there’s just very little place for bunkers in this meta. DPS bruisers with a couple cele amulet hybrid professions just dominate.
Like most ppl already said. It’s not that Warrior is a better bunker, it’s not. It’s bunker themselves that fade out of the meta and replaced by brawler.
Brawler are more versatile than Bunker. Brawler include all three celestial build for Ele, Warrior and Engineer. They usually resist a little less than a bunker, but their versatility are the key. A bunker Guardian have good support and resistance, but can’t do much else. The game is all about time and you lose time if you need to wait for the bunker to get back at mid or if the bunker walk by home useless at doing anything if the enemy capped it, he don’t have the mobility to decap far efficiently, you can’t leave him alone to cap a point or someone could get back into the point and nullified all the bunker job that can’t do anything against him. The only way a bunker help is on a point that you already have. Noboby can do that better than a bunker, but a team need a lot more than that to win and that’s why brawler pushed bunker out of the meta.
Guardian Support role got removed out of the Meta , simply because of Celestial comps, wich force a 3points strategy with 2v2/1v1 etc..
Theres is not much of Teamfights to push and yes in that case of scenario Guardian Support Lacks in Output pressure (no damage) compared to Shoutbow..
Arken, kinda said why Shoutbow Overcome Guard in this meta..
Shoutbow pretty much completely replaced Bunker Guardian. Their overall conditional cleanses exceed that of a Guardian while also maintaining much higher sustainability, mobility and having above-average dmg output.
Just as Vizard stated, offensive bunkers tend to be favored since they have almost as much mitigation while maintaining significant dmg.
But if you face a 3 Zerker comps, your support Guardian should shine in that scenario because the Zerker Comps are pushing Team Fights and play on 2 points strategy more often and have more dps than celestial comp..
The guardian will not only be better because theres more team fights, but simply cause The support of ’’Bunker’’ Guard gives Protection,Stab, good peels and condi cleanse.
It has Good CC depending of what build you play..
The only thing that is a pain, is the mobility and fair matchups..
Wich mean you dont want to be stuck in 1v1’s (even if its your point) cause any other class could win the duels and you could be usefull somewhere else.
You need to have a great analyse of Mini Map, Rotation, Positionnement and kiting. The reason why is because you have to force rotation with your Guardian, but good Rotation.. (That means pushing Teamfights or +1 any fight that would need your support)
It’s mostly because of celestial comps. But my personal opinion is people have out thought themselves and you can do just fine with a bunker guardian. The last money tournament winner ran a necro and I don’t care what anyone says that is a mostly lacking class in spvp at the moment. But people get these ideas in there head and you can’t change them. I suspect they will be more popular again with HoT and some of the nerfs to elementalists and celestial amulet.
I would say that the issue with ShoutBow vs Guard comes down to fire field. Backpack had a good video detailing why shoutbow is good and a lot of it is due to multiple blasts plus fire field. In order to get a similar trait structure, you have to run hammer/gs with shouts and purging flames to get the fire field. However the shoutbow has more aoe abilities than the guardian.
The key is that I can provide more area stability than a warrior to secure stomps. I like shield over focus 5 because the meta includes so many projectiles. Also the shield 4 provides more protection up time which is needed vs the burst meta. You can’t blast might like a fiend for area support so you have to trade it off.
