As many of you know, the guardian is probably one of the weapons with the lowest usage in valorant. This makes sense because it has a relatively high time to kill if you don't hit the headshot. Although its ability to one-tap at all ranges is nice, the vandal and the marshal can do the same thing. On top of that, the vandal has the option of spraying and the marshal costing way less. Even the sheriff, an 800 dollar pistol, can also three-tap kill in the body and one-tap at short to medium ranges.

HOWEVER, one of the hidden reasons for the guardian to exist in valorant is concurrent with the fact that it never gets bought. During most gun rounds, most teams opt for FULL armor with rifles. However, imagine a scenario where one team buys HALF armor with vandals and another team buys FULL armor with vandals. Looking at the numbers, 3 vandal body shots do 120 damage while half armor gives you 125 HP. This means that for both teams the vandals would need to either hit a headshot or hit 4 body shots even though one team only bought HALF armor. Why would you ever buy full armor if this is the case? You might say it is because of the phantom, which is only part of the story. THE OTHER REASON IS THAT THE GUARDIAN EXIST AS A WEAPON TO STOP THIS. If a team decides only to buy HALF armor and vandal to save 600 dollars, then the other team can counter by buying guardian + Half armor to save 1000 dollars instead. Moreover, in this scenario, the guardian only needs TWO BODY SHOTS (130 dmg) to beat HALF armored players (125 HP) while the vandal still needs the four body shots like mentioned earlier.

This effectiveness against HALF armored players extends to another scenario where I believe the weapon could prove effective. It is not uncommon for teams to force stingers with HALF armor in the current meta after losing the pistol round. This is when the winning team can take advantage of the situation and buy a guardian to two body shots those players with HALF armor. Additionally, the guardian can also serve as an effective weapon for the subsequent bonus rounds, in which you don't necessarily have to upgrade to a vandal.