It's been a little over 24 hours since the Battlecry playtest dropped, and while opinions on Commander are overwhelmingly positive (seriously, I think people might be disappointed when it goes to print; the class is borderline OP, and this level of excitement's going to invite a closer look by the designers), peoples thoughts on Guardian are...
Well, let's just call them extremely polarized. Like, many people are reacting to the class like it shot their spouse or something, and I'm more than a little bit surprised.
Personally, I see a lot to like in the Guardian. Even some things to love. Like the Commander, it's a class built for managing and controlling a battle field. The Commander is all about empowering the PCs to do more in a round, while the Guardian is focused on restraining enemy options. They're both classes designed for facing larger groups of creatures, and leveraging pre-firearms infantry tactics and maneuvers.
Without actually playing it yet, I suspect the Guardian could use a little bit of a survivability buff, while also being concerned that Taunt doesn't provide enough of an incentive shift to pull a mob off of a squishy ally. But it seems very well suited for forming and maintaining a proper front line (as opposed to a martial morass).
It makes me wonder what else is coming with Battlecry. Coming off of the War of the Immortals, are we getting proper troop combat or something?
That does seem to be the majority opinion on the class, and on Taunt in general. I really, really think it's misnamed, and I kind of think it should be a feat, rather than a class feature. Swap it with Hampering Sweeps, name it something more aggressive, and maybe give failure and critical failure a rider off-guard circumstance penalty and I think people will warm up to it.