Just started the game yesterday, and I've noticed that I tend to lose all of the Guard that I've accumulated whenever I'm struck from behind. Does a flanking attack automatically remove all Guard, or does the damage bonus just so happen to be enough to knock it off every time?

In either case, would Bears Maul the Wolves eliminate this problem for me?

Yeh when you take damage you first loose your barrier then you loose your guard and then you start to loose hp.

getting hit from the sides / back gets heavier damage...archers are typically the warriors plague because of the flanking / distance and rogue damage boost on flanking... (hence the fact I still believe the elves are the best race for warriors but this is a different question). So taking Bear mauls wolves will indeed cut off the flanking bonus on the damage you take and therefore probably prolongate the duration of your guard.

Main thing to remember is physical attacks tend to do good against guard, magic attacks do well against barrier, magic does poorly against guard, and physical does not do well against barrier. So if you keep that in mind it should be a little easier to manage. Once you get some tank talents it will also help, immunity to flanking is a biggy.

@sidoran: Guard is just a flat value so it won't fall off unless you get hit really damn hard, which if you're being flanked and are on a harder difficulty is entirely possible.

Flanking could be one culprit. Depending on what's hitting you, the enemy might be using an ability that does extra damage against guard too. If you aren't losing all that much HP on the hit, I'd suspect the later. As far as I understand it, the bonus vs. guard abilities give the extra damage only to the guard, there is no carryover to your health. If you got hit by a straight up attack strong enough to pierce your guard entirely, the excess damage would carry through to your health.

For example, you have 50 guard. The enemy uses an attack with a base damage of 25, which does 300% bonus damage vs. guard. This means there is a total of 100 points of incoming guard damage. This will destroy your guard, but the extra 50 damage will not carry through to your health, only the 25 base damage. On the other hand, if say, a rogue hit you for the same 100 points of damage straight up, this would also destroy your guard, but there would be 50 points of carryover damage to your health.

There's a static location in the Hinterlands that has fade touched obsidian, I believe. Craft something with Guard on Hit and your guard problems will disappear pretty fast