I wasn't crazy and the new offhand pistol 5 for guardian hasn't been working properly, the secondary skill to assplode it wasn't appearing. It works now, so that's good!
I will say that as much as I miss having a new trait line and passives/heal/ult to go along with it, the new weapons are nice on my guardian. Actually feels worth swapping from torch to use and has some nice utility in it with its surprisingly strong built-in AoE with the pierce. I decided to try working them into my open world support/healing build and ended up realizing that my proper condi build was fucked in the process, which was annoying. Fixed that, fixed my open world support build (Virtues/Honor/Firebrand, PP/Staff with Solace/Potence/Flame/Liberation mantra, Signet of Wrath and Ritualist gear). Figure it makes a bit more sense to use pistols as a permanent ranged option since it's not a DPS focused build, and their damage seems quite good either way.