Guardian

[RyanCousland]

I can certainly attest to pld having full capacity to be hurtful when played aggressively and also hard to kill, at least from my perspective.

So the elixir/guardian combo wasn't even something I was aware of until recently which is why all these questions, but the most pressing one remaining is, how often does pld have full resources to do this? I have seen it done a few times per match so I wonder how many times can this be expected to happen.

I disagree with the cost to pld, if executed sucessfully on a weakened ally who would otherwise die, it spares pld and their team a lot of incoming trouble. It's even worse if the saved team member is of some sturdy job, melee for example, because once they are done using elixir they can come to their saviour's aid with some big guns available and all that, while their other team members might also help if they know what's going on. Truth is, the mechanic doesn't take long enough to execute. On the other side, team members have to notice what's happening first then loose a second or two to decision making, switching target, moving etc...and of course each team member has their own first thoughts on how to react so even if somebody slaps a marker on someone...it might be too late to take any advantage of the situation...

to answer your question of how often to expect the guard + cover combo while an ally uses elixir, it varies there have been matches where i never had to use it because my team was good at syncing kills whereas in other matches ive pulled it off 4 times but sometimes it didnt help to get a win.

indeed PLD can be somewhat hurtful but can mostly be ignored because its burst will never achieve a solo kill unless the opponent is bad at using recup and other resources

the total time for the guard + cover and ally use elixir is about 10s when including animation and reaction time, so if your hunting your opponent then a PLD rushes to them then wherever the PLD left creates the 3v4 scenario to your advantage which can increase to 3v5 if you disengage, and since PLD has already used Guardian theres nothing to stop your team achieving another kill then refocus to another or on the PLD because again outside of guard it doesnt have the resources to withstand anything more than a 1v2 setup unless theres NIN with LB , i recommend playing PLD to witness the cost before disagreeing completely