Are guardians popular because of its theme or because of how good they are?

[aaron.7850]

Guardians are the most popular class by a land slide.. and I wonder if the reason is because of the magical warrior theme which is a fan favorite, or because it also happens to be one of the better designed classes with multiple builds being meta across all game modes.

I myself find.. myself... playing guardian a lot lately because of how good they perform and I also like the magical warrior theme, but I also dont like how everyone else is playing one. I am all for variety and I would love to play my other classes... Mesmer is my favorite class at heart but they have very little build variety, I hate being a mesmer in wvw because I cant damage or heal in zerg fights, while guardians have many builds that are amazing for wvw, both healing and damage.

[Croc.1978]

@aaron.7850 said:... or because it also happens to be one of the better designed classes with multiple builds being meta across all game modes.

^^This.

If it was about theme, Warrior (Conan) or Elementalist (Merlin, Gandalf) would be the most played classes.

Remember Hunters in WoW. Same shit.

[dandamanno.4136]

People probably initially play them for the "Warrior/Paladin" style of class. They probably keep playing them because they are a very strong, well-rounded and valuable team member in all game modes.

They are, in my opinion, the most boring class to play, but you simply won't find a class that is as well adapted to the way this games combat plays.

[Taril.8619]

Guardians seem to mostly be popular due to how good they are in all game modes in multiple roles.

In fact, they're the ONLY profession to be pretty good in literally every single role. Power DPS, Condi DPS, Boonshare, Healing, Tanking. (Though, they're not used as Tanks very often, they can however perform the role to an adequate standard due to being one of the most survivable classes in the game even when in full damage gear when played well)

Not only this, but they have been consistently this good for a long time. Not like other classes that have periods of being really good and then get smacked with the nerf bat and become mediocre at best...

Personally, I can't stand Guardian's theme. I'm not a fan of "Paladins" or that particular theme of "Righteous Warrior" or "Divine Protector"... Seems really lame to me. The whole idea of upholding virtues goes against my Chaotic Neutral instincts, where I like to do what I want because I feel like it rather than be bound by "What the right thing to do" is.

I.e. In a fantasy setting, I'll be just as likely to save someone from bandits as I would be to actually be one of the bandits mugging someone it depends on what I feel at the time and how the situation suits my overall agenda (Of course, I sometimes slip into Chaotic Evil and will both save the person from the bandits... Then mug them myself so I get all the loot from the bandits AND the random stranger...)

So I'm more drawn to the themes of Mesmer (Rogue/Mage hybrid), Thief (Rogue) and Necromancer (Dark Mage). Classes that won't be as surprising to make morally questionable decisions. Who's abilities can border on evil when used inappropriately or good if used altruistically...

[otto.5684]

The theme is popular.

Guardian is the best designed class in PvE, which is also the most popular mode.

Guardian is extremely versatile and can use multiple weapons and multiple setups.

Guardian has the strongest AOE damage. Great for OW PvE.

Guardian had the most consistent PvE performance during the years. I started the game as Mesmer (still my second played class), but Mesmer's performance changed significantly, and went long stenches where the entire class (or portions of it) were not viable. Among all classes, guardian is the class which this happens to the least.

[Khisanth.2948]

It is good in multiple roles in multiple game modes. It would be surprising if it wasn't popular.

[Ototo.3214]

Started playing it for the aesthetic, kept playing it because of how versatile and fun I find it to be.Ranger is also the same way for me though, those are my 2 favorites.

[Terra.9506]

Personally I like playing melee class in MMO, Guardian seem more appeal to me than Warrior due to it's heavy warrior with some magic capacities. that alone sound more interesting than straightforwardly Warrior and seem like my guess is true when I play warrior after several other class and I found Warrior is one of the least "flashy" class in the game (along with Thief), most of their skill is about stat buff and lack of cool looking move/effect compare to Guardian or Reverent.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Are they though?

According to https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics guardians are the most popular class but only by a small amount, around the same as warriors, necros, and rangers.

Of course gw2efficiency isn't a representative of the whole player base, but don't really have stats on that. There is this but it's 3 years old: https://mobile.twitter.com/RandommmUser/status/854297494909579264 I suppose Guardians have fairly simple dps rotations and firebrand has a lot of utility built into the spec itself so it's easy to get a lot of use out of it.

[Rex.3602]

I still haven't played a guardian yet so I can only speak from my observations of why other people have played them. One popular reason seems to be because of their great survivability. Damage may be low compared to some other professions but I guess if you survive long enough you will eventually have enough time to kill the enemy in most cases.

[Josiah.2967]

I play one because they are the best at everything. I know I will be top tier at everything, and Guardian is the only class that has a way of being the best at everything. For raids/fractals, it provides top tier DPS, is easy to pull off, great survivability, and buffs others.

[draxynnic.3719]

A bit of both, really. "Magic knight" and "paladin" are popular archetypes, and the guardian essentially covers both. It's also a well-designed profession where each traitline has synergies with other traitlines and builds to which that specific traitline is essential, while other professions have been plagued with traitlines that are still trying to struggle to find a place (or which had a place in the past and were nerfed out of being viable). Since all of the guardian traitlines are viable, this means that there's a lot of ways that you can build a guardian, creating a lot of variety and different roles that can be filled.

Related to this, guardian has always been fairly stable. You could take a guardian build from pre-HoT and there's a good chance it would still work. Heck, if you found a guardian build that was put together by the first person to get a guardian to level 80, then as long as that build stuck to three traitlines (I think they were called attributes then), there's a good chance it'd still work now, or at least the same basic principles would apply.

Compare that to, say, mesmer, where the profession seems to get a redesign from the ground up every couple of years. Someone who fell in love with mesmer on release might not like where it is now, while someone who loved guardian back then probably still would. It also makes leveling and learning to play guardian a relatively safe time investment, since there's little chance of it being changed on you and having to relearn how to play the profession.

@"ArchonWing.9480" said:Are they though?

According to https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics guardians are the most popular class but only by a small amount, around the same as warriors, necros, and rangers.

Of course gw2efficiency isn't a representative of the whole player base, but don't really have stats on that. There is this but it's 3 years old: https://mobile.twitter.com/RandommmUser/status/854297494909579264 I suppose Guardians have fairly simple dps rotations and firebrand has a lot of utility built into the spec itself so it's easy to get a lot of use out of it.

If anything, I'd probably say that gw2efficiency is weighted towards longer-term players, and the numbers might be more biased among the general player base: newer players are probably more likely to mostly play the relatively newbie-friendly professions of warrior, ranger, necromancer, and guardian.

[Fueki.4753]

Guardians are the most effective profession, being extremely viable in every game mode and/or role.Guardians also are the profession that's most friendly to the players' eyes.I can't remember the last time Guardians had reasonable nerfs (other than Longbow, which hardly anyone used anyway).

Also, may people have an unreasonably bloated love for those big and clunky-looking Greatswords. Guardian has (in my opinion) the best melee Greatsword.But I'm just going to blame Final Fantasy for that love.

[Buran.3796]

Lore and game mechanics. I usually prefer heavy plated classes, because in the real world (contrary to popular media) body armor usually works. Started as a Warrior, but got bored of him after 4 months, and moved to Guardian which mained ~3 years. Then jumped to Rev because hated the eternal need for HP stats in WvW/PvP and the lower moving pace/mandatory Traveller runes in every game mode (Rev has its own sets of handicap, as lack of cleanses and a constant stream of bugs).

Guardian still has better build variety, and beautifully (visually), I mean: see how polished and crafted is the Firebrand weapon and skills compared with most of other classes. Even dumbed down in competitive game modes still looks elegant. But the thing is: what I like from paladins, crusaders and so is the concept of "tankiness" the armored juggernaut thing, and to be honest currently both condi and power Rev do feel more tanky than Guardian (specially in PvE), so albeit is still my second most played class, and one of the most well designed classes, Guardians doesn't lack their own shortfalls.