This got pretty wordy, so sorry about that. I’ve read some other posts about this sort of thing, but most of them are trying to refine builds, whereas I’m really more concerned with the overall play style of the class.
I’ve just finished leveling my Guardian to 80 and after getting my final armor and traits set up, I’m kind of disappointed with how poorly the class fits into the current meta. Traditionally I’ve always played tanks, and while I understand that GW2 is designed to do away with the holy trinity, I have to say that I’m really at a loss. Up until now I discarded my low HP and ineffective toughness as simply not having all the trait points, or using low level armor. But now that I’m here, I’m discovering that the high defense/support class of the game really has to be built as a DPS to be any help at all in a group PVE scenario. I’ve tried out building for healing, for vitality, for toughness, and a combination and the fact is that none of these has the potential to change the flow of a fight.
The whole point of playing support is to be able to change the flow of a battle in a way that isn’t damage oriented. But realistically, even a maxed out healing stat will only give allies a few hundred HP each tick, and only if they stand still and wait for it—which is never going to happen in a game where every player has to dodge constantly or take a burst to the face.
Again, I understand that this game isn’t meant to be a standard MMO where you sit around hiding behind a tank and being healed by a full support class, but I was at least expecting to be able to heal someone back to full and give them a real chance at survival, rather than just stalling their inevitable demise with a slow regen and a completely impractical AoE heal. The class has some great options as a buffer, but when it comes to damage output vs. healing there’s really no way to justify choosing healing in the current meta. If you heal someone for 1k health they will still die on the next hit, if you burst 5k you might manage to steal agro and save them. If you choose healing, you are throwing away a lot of game changing potential in the tanky DPS build, trading it in for toughness (worthless against PVE mobs) and healing (weak, slow, and impossible to direct at the specific allies who need it).
Guardian needs a viable support build in order to justify its place in the profession line-up. After all, why would you choose guardian when you could get better DPS, better movement, and equally good buffs from a Warrior? The difference in armor between the classes hardly matters in a dungeon scenario, as the mobs in dungeons will down you in 2-4 hits regardless of your armor. Check any of the most effective builds, after ~1500, toughness is wasted potential.
From what I’ve read in the forums, a lot of players seem okay with this, but I really feel like the game is missing out on a lot of potential for group strategy by ruling out a true cleric class in favor of yet another DPS buffer. Sure, they get there in different ways, but aren’t the high level PVE builds for a lot of classes essentially the same? Whether it’s power or conditions, we’re all basically slaves to damage output.
Besides my confusion about the role of guardian in the class line-up, I’m really troubled by the fact that the way I play my guardian is indistinguishable from the way I play my other, squishier characters. Despite my toughness and vitality, I still spend most of my time dodging and running for my life. If I wanted to run around on the razor’s edge, I’d play my Thief or my Mesmer. I go to a tanky character because I’m in the mood to jump on a giant monster and take the damage like a boss. I choose a guardian because I want to guard, to get between my team and the bad guys. I choose to play my tanky character because I want to stop running around like mad and just be an unshakable force, and it’s kind of hard to feel that way when you are dodge rolling every chance you get.
Am I preaching to the choir here? Missing the point of the class? Because as it stands Guardian is a total dead weight to the team if you build for its strongest stats—toughness, vitality, healing—which makes no sense. And if you build for other stats, then what’s the point of playing the Guardian in the first place?