I have always felt that the Guardian class was more of an affliction/support class than a PK machine. I am more than fine trucking along with whoever's entourage to assist in a kill rather than actually get one. I just think that the same way that a Caco sucks in combat but is 'teh bashing bard', is the way that the Celestine/Nihilist comes off as an awesome support for their fighting squad. Group judge, healer with aurawarp (which sadly wasn't fixed), or healing auras are just awesome and not appropriately used with a proper healer, you should never be sacrificed given that epilepsy scabies won't tick. I would die for an active healer (incurable afflictions) or astrologer on my team (longer writhe times on cross, imagine that)

What you said that was alarmist and exaggerated is this:

"I mean, you know, since Paladins struggle with Sacraments, let's make it so Celestines suck too. Good strategy."

Which is both alarmist and exaggerated. Sacraments being purely defensive for Paladins, while toting ridiculous power costs with no rewards outside of 10p trueheal (sacrifice your knight power attacks or use refresh), has no bearing on saying the whole class will suck if guaranteed kill inquisition/soulless gets nerfed.

It was sarcastic, more than anything else. Something you're good at, so keep up. All I'm saying is that your idea would hurt Celestines more than help and it isn't the way to go about things. The perceived problem is within sacraments and not in the way most people think.

Of course it would hurt more than help... that's why it's a nerf, not a buff? Certain things have to be lowered in order for others to be raised. The revisions to Sacraments were blanket rejected on the basis that none of the strong skills in the skillset were reduced. Things like this provide that, but just like you see here, people who rely heavily on inescapable things or "unstoppable" tactics cry bloody murder when reduced to the level that others play at. You still stun them and strip all their defs, it still delays them for a piece of death tarot's activation channeling, and you still can get two sets of angel afflictions inside the stun with proper timing.

cough
DespairWeb in necroscream increases writhe time by 50%.
cough

Not to mention that once you do get sacrifice you're expected to use it whenever somebody's corpse gets stolen/destroyed. Why the 10p cost? Isn't it bad enough that you kill yourself?

Anyways, back to inquisition talk.

You're quite mistaken. Healing auras tick every 5 seconds or such and there is a good chance for those afflictions to tick within that time when given just before or after being crucified. It's happened to me.
You can also only transfer one aura (respectively) to other people.

The thing that bothers me about guardians being degraded to support characters in pk is that they already suck as bashers. So they should have some edge in pk (explicitly excluding healers who are obviously designed for other things mostly). I don't have the feeling that is the case, though. They take absurd amounts of power to get somewhere and lack the easy means of damage killing small people that warriors and monks (and to a lesser extent bards) have.

I'm not sure how you can say guardians are a support archetype. IMO they're one of the weakest archetypes in a group; all they contribute (if they're tarot, anyway) is their angel/demon passively hitting with kneel/paralysis or shackles/stupidity. Actively, the only unique thing they can do is judge if Celestine and ectoplasm if Nihilist (and warriors can do both of those if needed! Really, I'm not sure why you would ever take a guardian over a warrior in group combat.)