Thanks for all the advice! I've been playing off and on since release but I do forget stuff and the game changes so much that I sometimes have trouble getting back into it.
Like, I am pretty sure I had no idea about EOFTM and that it was another viable way to level.
I've been playing as a guardian for a few hours now and decided to go into the pvp lobby to check out the specs and stuff.
I know it was never a good idea to go full support build but any chance that it's a bit more viable now?
Pve or pvp? I feel that in pve, guardian provides a lot of support options without really trying, just by nature of how their virtues, utility skills, and even some weapon skills work. That is, a damage oriented build is still going to give the group aegis and still gonna blind enemies. You can always slot a mace for a regen symbol, etc. Slot a few more shouts on the fly and you're giving the group stability, regen, protection, whatever and you don't really need to change your traits much at all. But, you /can/ and make your shouts convert conditions too. Change your gear to have more healing power and suddenly your staff skills will heal notably more. Change a few traits or runes and you can clear conditions on shouts or share your virtues more easily. So basically I feel like guard has a ton of support options but I wouldn't go "pure" support because you still gotta kill the things. Just pick the support options you like best, get a couple and maybe change depending on the fight. The stability on virtue of courage is a cool one, off the top of my head.
For pvp I used to run an old Altruistic Healing support shout build with a cleric amulet, but the lack of damage output just meant I would have a hard time finishing off 1v1s at capture points and often battles only ended once aid arrived on either team. Sometimes it worked okay by forcing the enemy to outnumber me at a certain spot, but hitting people with a feather for a hammer just wasn't very fun. I switched to a more damage based amulet ("crusader", now) and trait ed a few more damage skills and traits (new elite shout seems to help) and while I still provide healing power and some tankiness, I actually have something kinda resembling a burst now.
So, I wouldn't just seek to go absolutely full support in either game mode, but Yea, I encourage looking at the specs and picking some favorites.