Guard features heavily into my build. I use it to build might stacks for myself and my pet to prepare for a burst. To cover for an ally thats being ganked or yolo’d on.
I also use it on myself in order to bait classes like thieves and warriors into being overconfident (Most players only see that there doing damage so they keep attacking. They don’t realize that all there doing is 50% of htere normal damage and that suddenly the people there hitting are hitting them back twice as hard now)
Guard is in my opinion currently the strongest shout. The sheer potential of this skill is awesome. A beast master rangers damage is very reliant on his ability to buff non only himself but also his pet. Before guard we needed to take marksmanship over druid if we wanted to get the missing might stacks we need. Guard gives us an additional might source while also acting as a defensive cooldown.
The 50% damage transfer is all you need as long as you are positioning yourself correctly. Its more than enough to turn the tides on any power build that chooses to come after you. And if your positioned right theyl only be able to come at you one at a time. This is espcially true in WvW where you have a very large kiting radius you can make use of. Its fairly often that I can kite and kill one opponent and use guard near the end of that fight to remight myself and my pet in order to start burning down his ally.
Quite frankly. Its a very VERY good skill. Just most people only see it for it 50% damage reduction and convince themselves its inferior to signet of stone.
Making full use of this utility (NM and BM combined allows for this skill to generate FIFTY stacks of might 25 for you and 25 for your pet as long as you know what attacks to let yourself take damage from and what you have to dodge anyway.)
I view this skill as a “Toeing the line” ability where you allow yourself to take the damage of low dmg per hit multi hit abilities in order to retaliate. For example ill stand in a tempests air overload with this skill then turn around and maul him for 9k with all the might stacks he gave me for the pitiful damage he dealt. Combine that with a smoke assault from a fully buffed smokescale and it is usually enough to force them off me or even enable me to kill them if they didn’t have obsidian flesh up.
What some people don’t realize is that this skill even generates might on the hits the pet takes directly. So you can even use this skill even if its just the pet standing getting clipped by aoes as long as you know you have another defensive backup ready.
Guard is in my opinion one of the best utilities we have. Because while it has an obvious support based purpose it also allows for retaliation through offensive measures. But the sacrifical nature of the skill forces the ranger to be aware of when and how hes using it in order to make the best of it.
Sorry wen’t on a bit of a rant there I just REALLY like this skill
Tl:DR. Guard is a VERY good skill with a wide range of uses due to its duel nature allowing it to be useful for damage,defensive, and support based builds effectively based entirely on the situational awareness and mechanical understanding of the player using it. With trait investment this skill gains yet a third purpose further enabling its use in pretty much every mode of content.
