With the official introduction of the new Guardian nerf/buff (to me it’s 100% a nerf though) this makes it the second time this build has been nerfed since conceptualization.
The first nerf is when they added block penetration to STR. (Thus making the block part of this build less reliable/effective)
The second nerf is when they make guardian give 14% PATK reduction.
But thinking from another angle, the reason they are nerfing these things means they were too overpowered to begin with (which means the original concept of the build is very effective), and IF they are underpowered now then they will be adjusted in the future.
Well to be fair, also buffed a couple of times (even though the buffs are global buffs meaning they apply to almost every swordsman). The restrain buff giving it from 20% to 30% stun chance. The STR scaling patch giving it more PATK per point. The block penetration from STR is a buff vs CON mages. And the concentrate buff is very appreciated.
So I guess in the end, you just play what you want to play. I’m still pretty happy with this build’s overall performance in PvE and PvP so far.
Any adjustments to GungHo will tip the scales though…any buff to GungHo is basically another nerf to Guardian cuz you can only use 1 at a time. Really really interested on how gungho gets adjusted.
The lesson of the story is just to play whatever you like, and not what’s “OP” at the time. Any OP build is subject to rebalance in the future and will basically force you to reroll if you are only interested in being OP.