In thisElden Ring: Nightreignguide, we’re going to take a look atGuardianand how he plays in the game. We’ll go over his stats, HP, FP, and stamina growth, his skills, suggested weapons and weapon passives, recommended relics, party compositions, and how to build him effectively, including his strengths and weaknesses.
General Description
The Guardianis a pure tank class that plays like a classic sword-and-board build from Elden Ring, focused entirely on defense, durability, and protecting the team. Unlike the Raider, who charges in to smash everything, the Guardian is all about blocking, guard countering, and holding the line with massive shields and high stamina.
If you enjoyed builds likethe Greatshield paladin or high-poise tanks in Elden Ring, this class will feel right at home.
In group play, Itsyour frontline anchor. He draws aggro, soaks up damage, and controls enemy movement so your ranged and melee allies can safely do their job. With the highest HP in the game and excellent stamina scaling, he’s hard to take down—and in a game likeNightreign,that’s a huge advantage. You don’t have to worry about burst deaths like the Recluse or Revenant, and with a good shield and proper relics, you can stand toe-to-toe with almost anything.
Stats & What that means
Guardian hasS in Health,C in FP, andA in Stamina. This gives him the highest HP pool of any character in the game, making him extremely tanky. His high stamina complements his blocking and melee-heavy playstyle.
Primary defense isblocking, and we’ll dive into the mechanics behind that shortly.
With high HP and stamina, Guardian excels in tanking roles, absorbing damage and holding aggro while your ranged or melee DPS teammates do the damage. That said, he can be played offensively as well.
In terms of scaling:
Intelligence
This means he will mostly rely onStrength-based weapons, likeGreatswordsandGreathammers. He can also make use of some faster weapons thanks to his moderateDexterity.
Because of his decentFaith,he may be able to useholy-infused weaponsor those that scale with bothStrength and Faith. Use the visual codex to look through weapons and check forFaith/Strength scalingto guide your weapon selection.
His lowIntelligenceandArcane,andlimited FP pool, mean he’s not suited for spellcasting. However, he can use low-cost buffs likeGolden Vowon a seal to increase protection and damage, which is a good use of his FP.
Shields and Mechanics
The Guardian starts with aShield, and you’ll likely want to upgrade it throughout the game.
Here’s what you should know:
Guard Boost
This stat controls how much stamina is consumed when blocking. Ahigher guard boost= less stamina lost per block. All attacks cause some stamina damage, but heavier attacks take more. The higher your guard boost, the less of your stamina is eaten up.
Always prioritize shields withhigher guard boost—they’ll make blocking more efficient and let you continue attacking or countering after.
Guard Counter
This is a key mechanic. Hold block, let an attack hit, then press heavy attack (R2 / RT). This delivers a powerful counter that can break stance or stagger basic enemies, allowing for critical hits. While some bosses require more hits, it’s an essential habit to develop as Guardian.
Damage Negation
InNightReign,every shield blocks 100% physical damage, regardless of size. That includes blunt, slash, pierce—all of it. However,non-physical damage types(magic, holy, fire, lightning) have varying negation percentages.
For example, a shield with 56 fire negation will block 56% of fire damage. If an attack deals 50% physical and 50% holy, and your shield has 100% physical and 50% holy negation, you’ll block the physical entirely and take half the holy damage.
Important: You can’t see these values out in the field. You’ll need to check thevisual codexin town or in your chest to study them. Spend time learning which shields are best.
Typically,larger shields = better negation. If a shield has “fire” or “lightning” in its name, it likely offers good resistance to that element. For example, theSmoldering Shieldhas 56 fire resistance compared to much lower values for other elements.
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This stat determines whether enemies rebound off your shield when they hit it.Greatshieldshave the highest hardness, causing many enemies tostop their comboafter the first hit, giving you room to counterattack.
Regular or small shields don’t have this effect—enemies will often complete full combos and drain more stamina.
Since Nightreign hasno equip load or weight penalties, there’s no reason not to use a greatshield. They also have better negation, so always prioritize them.
Shield Weapon Skills
Many shields come with their ownweapon skills. If you have a shield equipped in the left hand and a weapon in the right, using your skill will activate theshield’s skill, not the weapon’s.
If you want to use yourweapon’s skill, you musttwo-hand your weaponto bypass the shield skill. Some shields haveno skill, which allows you to use your weapon skill without switching grips.
Others havepowerful skills—like theJellyfish Shield, which grantsContagious Fury, boosting all damage for a short time.
It’s worth taking time to learn what skills your shields have so you don’t unintentionally block your weapon’s ability.
Skills and How to Use Them
Shields out of the way, let’s talk about the abilities of Guardian.
Steel Guard: Passive Ability
Plant feet and brace with shields for a more powerful guard
This is why understandingshield mechanics is so important.
This passive allows Guardian tobrace with his shield, greatly improving guard boost and reducing stamina loss while blocking, but at the cost ofmobility.
To activate it, hold block and press yourdodge button(Circle on PlayStation, B on Xbox, etc.).
This puts you intoSteel Guard mode, letting you tank big incoming attacks with minimal stamina loss—especially powerful if you’ve found a better shield during your run.
However, while in this stance,you cannot run. Your movement is severely limited, and you’re essentially committing to face-tanking. It works best when you know a boss is about to unleash a combo and you need to hold your ground.
Also note:Guardian does not have a traditional dodge rolllike other classes. He has a sidestep that’s not very effective for escaping AoEs, which makes blocking a necessity in many cases.
Another key point: while holding Steel Guard,your stamina drains gradually, even if you’re not being hit. So it’s not a stance you’re able to maintain forever. A bigger stamina pool helps you hold it longer and gives you more buffer before being guard broken.
WhirlWind: Character Skill
Beat wing to whip up a wind-churning cyclone.
Guardian’scharacter skill,Whirlwind,has about a15-second cooldown, slightly longer than most class skills, but it’s great for handling groups. It dealsAoE damagein a circle around Guardian,launches enemies into the air, andcan pull smaller foes toward him.
If youhold the skill, the AoE expands and hits more enemies. It’s excellent for clearing out camps, fortifications, or waves of mobs. It’s also effective in boss fights, especially against humanoid bosses like fire monks, since you may knock them down and create a huge opening for your team to strike.
Wing of Salvation: Ultimate Art
Leap up and dive back down to raise protective area.
Guardian’sultimate abilitylaunches him into the air before hecrashes down, dealing massive AoE damage. More importantly, this skill canresurrect all downed allies, even those who are nearly lost from full down meters.
This makes it incredibly valuable during boss fights. If you’re the Guardian, you’ll often want tohold your ultin case things go sideways and teammates go down.
Additionally,if you hold R2 while you do this ability, it will consume more of the gauge and it will raise a protective area around you in a large AoE for as long as you continue to hold it. That will make you and your allies immune to damage forup to about 5 seconds—I think that’s about the longest you may hold it.
Alternatively, the AoE damage is useful in places like mob camps or multi-boss fights, but generally you want tosave the ult for its defensive utilityunless you can hit several targets at once. It also offers a last-ditchmobility tool, allowing Guardian to escape lethal attacks with brief i-frames.
Suggested Weapons & Ideal Run
Now, when you’re talking about what weapons to use when you’re playingGuardian
He has predominantlyStrength scalingfor his stat, but alsoDexterity.
If you usethrusting weaponslikeSpearsorThrusting Swordsor Larger Thrusting Swords, you can actuallypoke and block at the same time, which can keep you protected.
So you might want to consider one of those weapons if you’re playing Guardian or you’re just going to simply want to pick a weapon that isvery effective for you—one you’re good at and that you know very well.
But typically these are going to be likeGreatswordsor aGreathammeror something like that. I even use aStraightswordsometimes when playing Guardian just to be able to attack more reliably.
But you’re going to want to be able to use something that you’re predominantly planning onblocking with and then counterattacking with, or doingguard counterswith.
Some weapons have longer guard counter animations than others. Typically,the larger the weapon, the longer the animation; and thesmaller the weapon, the faster it is.
So you probably want something in themiddle in terms of sizein order to have good reach on the weapon when you do a guard counter, and to make sure that you can do it fast enough that you’re not interrupted.
Bonuses you want to look for on your weaponsare anything that boosts you while you’re guarding—like giving youmore protection or more attack power. Anythingoff-guardingis good, because you’re going to be guarding a lot.
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You also want to be looking for anything that’s going toincrease your staminaor yourprotection, or maybehealth back on attacks, orhealth on critical strikes. Anything that’s going toimprove your survivabilityas Guardian.
Damage is kind of secondaryfor you—you can still deal fantastic damage—butstaying alive is more important, because if you stay alive and your teammates go down, you can res them. But if you go down and your teammates are alive, it’s much more difficult. Sostaying alive is what you should prioritize. Anything that’s going to make your survivability higher.
You can also look for things that improveblock counteringorguard counters, increase the damage of those—that can be very good too.
Suggested Relics
About relics for Guardian, again—besides the class-specific ones that, obviously, if you find, you’ll probably use—you want to look for things that improve hishealthor hisstamina, likeEnduranceorVigor.
Both of those are good or anything that gives himthreat while guardingis good, because it’s very difficult sometimes as Guardian to hold aggro against the constant, relentless DPS of ranged characters and other melee characters.
So if he has a way of increasing his threat by holding block, that can make it easier for him to hold the attention of enemies. That’s definitely the kind of relic I would look out for as well.
Anything else that canapply status effects—like if you can getpoisonon your weapon orbleed, or any relics that apply this—can be good. That allows you to dealdamage over timeon a target while you continue to block and hold aggro. You’re not so worried about going crazy on the target; you’re doing just enough hits to trigger the status effect, then prioritizing defense while it does its work, and then trying to trigger it again. Alternating like that can be a great way to help out with damage without compromising your tank role.
There are alsobuffs that replenish your healthwhile you have poison or scarlet rot on a nearby target, andtalismans that improve your damageunder those conditions. So if you have a poison weapon and apply poison on a boss while continuously gaining HP, that just makes you even harder to kill—and that’s a nice synergy.
Party Composition
When it comes to party composition with Guardian, he fits well into just aboutany group. I think the biggest issue he might run into is if he’s in a group withother Guardians, because they might all be vying for aggro to play their defensive roles.
It doesn’t make much sense to have multiple players all trying to shield, block counter, and hold threat simultaneously.
He might also struggle a bit if there’s anExecutorin the group, since it also wants aggro to parry and deflect attacks—that’s what charges up his sword and enables his special. If you do have an Executor in your party, that player may need to shy away from the parry-focused playstyle and go more aggressive, or you’ll end upcompeting for aggro, which isn’t ideal.
Ideal team comps:
Otherwise, just about any other party composition works great. Havingother melee charactersis fine, as long as you’re the one taking the aggro on bosses and controlling the fight. And of course, havingranged charactersis excellent too—because you may hold the boss in place while they unload damage from a safe distance.
He is anexceptionally good character for first-time players. Almost every group I’ve played with that had a Guardian ended up succeeding. So I definitely recommend him to a lot of people—and he’sreally fun to play.
So that wraps up my guide for the Guardian. Do you guys have any more tips or playstyles you’ve found with the Guardian? Let me know in the comments below!
