After playing more of the mode I'd say these are my key points about the current state of Guard/Purify (I'm going to ignore job balance for now as it's already been repeated plenty in multiple threads).

Most of my ideas/changes are to compensate for server ping as if ping and delays weren't an issue these would not be as necessary. On paper these may look "OP" but given how much time I've watched things fail in PVP at this point I feel they're some of the only solutions given the current framework.

Any combination of the following would be ideal to me:

1. Guard cleanses debuff on cast. As it's supposed to defend you from them/defend you from damage the worst is not only it being delayed on cast so you're basically dead when it finally goes off anyways, but then on top of that being silenced and/or heavied is silly.

2. Purify has 2 charges. In a 5v5 environment this doesn't make anyone able to "ignore" cc but gives the player a second chance to un-screw themselves if the ping screwed them out of their first immunity. Highly skilled players would be able to avoid cc more often, which would help push the absolute onslaught of CC a little lower in the priorities list but not by a lot. And if you get cc'd right after using it gives someone a second chance to actually give themselves the buff they were supposed to gain.

3. Put Guard on a gauge. Have it be a skill that can be tracked by opposing players while managed by yourself/your team. You can guard for the entirety of a gauge or in short bursts of damage, allowing for more frequent use but more skillful play. This combined with Recuperate would allow a player to manage when they need to get out of a scenario instead of spamming both. Thanks to sprint being a toggle it would be using an existing system to allow for damage control. A dps using guard sparingly throughout an encounter would be different from a squishier class using the whole gauge in one burst for example. It allows you to manage the scenario/more effectively stall in matches where the enemy team has wiped most of yours. This would obviously fill back over time/based on skill execution and/or be refilled on elixir use.

4. Allow potions on field or new item on field to also cleanse debuffs/cc so that positioning is also relevant to the players. Potions right now are kind of dumb in the sense that you can be standing on top of one but the enemy dps can run through you to it and get healed for a huge portion of their health in your own territory/spawn. Adding a cleanse debuff could assist in proc'ing the potion and allowing the teams to control points better without watching someone just ignore them to heal themselves back to practically full (since some classes have no CC).
If CC was only limited to squishier jobs, I'd understand leaving it as is, but right now several of the most powerful classes have not only CC but crazy burst/survival kits. So at this point unless they rebalance that aspect this is all I could come up with that doesn't just break the game.