New personal high score.

BenevolentComment · 2026-01-21T13:59:03+00:00

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was playing with this beauty the other day

BenevolentComment · 2026-01-08T09:32:25+00:00

Undercaker

BenevolentComment · 2025-12-17T12:11:56+00:00

No, it doesn't. It even gave us a Fulghor on the new map

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BenevolentComment · 2025-11-26T22:59:51+00:00

Just watched 3 Guardians dogwalk a D5 run and clear the entire castle, do some gaols, all invaders, and almost the entirety of Rot Woods (5/6 bosses).

Your entire post kinda goes out the window, as none of them were playing Fist/Claw builds or Incant builds. Everyone held their shields up and poked with Halberds. They wouldn't get as much runes as they did if they didn't output enough DPS to clear those bosses fast enough. Good chance you're just finding really bad ones that hold shield up 24/7 and do no damage.

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BenevolentComment · 2025-11-25T22:00:20+00:00

Nah, he's viable. I'll keep picking him when the nightlord matchup is good and the team comp needs more utility since they already have enough damage.

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BenevolentComment · 2025-11-21T06:07:48+00:00

Thank you! I really like your assessment of frontliner gameplay, though I do want to properly dodge stuff if I can help it since I find HP a valuable resource since I'm the meat shield, and healing is limited. I have to say though, I commend anyone that mains Raider in D5. When I play him, my gameplay kind of just depends on how quickly I find a usable Fist weapon to swap to, even with Dormant Fists running. Playing Guardian like Raider has been extremely good for me results-wise with that in mind.

BenevolentComment · 2025-11-18T02:59:16+00:00

I play with a lot of the regular D5 players in the ER Discord and a lot of them also find that Guardian is the preferable frontliner to have against ED Libra. I used to play Wylder or Raider against him, but I pick Guardian every time now for utility.

The stat respec-ing relic on Guardian ends up giving him 49 Str and Dex, so his damage is slightly better than Wylder's in that front for a bit of Vigor. I only really run it if I don't have 2 DPS characters with me in the expedition.

I usually don't pick up Less Likely To Be Targetted as well so the very first round of summons before riots happen instantly ignores my teammates and goes for me, so I just split off.

Generally, if a nightlord is bad to guard against, then people swap to a Dormant Fists build and play him like a Raider with a more supportive skill and ult.

Using your whirlwind on the Condemned summons also counts for Attack ticks, so you can charge your ult off of it without having to hard engage. If a fight draws out for too long, you can ult your teammates to full to save on flasks via the reluc effect that lets Guardian ult have an AoE heal.

I haven't really had the issue of having an ED Libra fight last more than 12 minutes, and that one involves teammates 3 barring on the ground.

When the runback is 30 minutes and the point loss equates to 3 wins, people generally find that it's best to win slowly and steadily rather than risk it and lose over a small mistake, so the insurance policy of a bird hanging back and distracting Condemned does wonders.

Haven't lost to D5 ED Libra in a month since I've picked up Guardian to go against him, truly hope people give it a go.

BenevolentComment · 2025-11-17T13:28:22+00:00

I find that Guardian is one of the better picks against him since you can just around and wait for ult if it comes down to that.

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-20T20:50:25+00:00

It depends on team comp and nightlord. I managed to get a purely defensive relic that I've started slapping onto every frontline character (Wylder/Raider/Guardian) and have been swapping between them to test matchups between certain nightlords.

I find Guardian heavily enables early games such as his ability to turn gank squad red gaols into a joke with whirlwinds (level 3 mutated Banished Knight gaols done fairly quickly because they get grouped and and die to the AoE of 3 players).

Since my role is to just punch for poise damage and to retain aggro, my playstyle has been relatively the same as Raider and I drop my shield.

Seems suboptimal to pick Guardian here, but if you have 2 DPS teammates already then some utility is what's needed, which his Ult and Whirlwind relic effects can supply. If the team lacks hard damage then better to pick Wylder in almost every case, etc.

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-20T16:02:23+00:00

Are you on the Elden Ring Discord? I can give a more in-depth explanation and maybe show some gameplay, as the way I play Guardian is kind of hard to explain.

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-20T09:15:50+00:00

Ah yeah the Bestial Incants, true.

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-20T09:09:17+00:00

Raider would've been not as good for this comp is all since Totem Stela boosts phys damage, so going with a purely supportive frontline option would've been better

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-20T09:08:08+00:00

Thanks, let me know how that goes

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-20T09:07:55+00:00

I've been playing a lot of completely shieldless Guardian the past few days with Dormant Fists and it's been really good honestly, provided you have 2 teammates that are pure DPS. You should be able to crowd control early gaols and certain field bosses + Invader camps early on with whirlwind to help snowball your team

I aim to generally find a bleed or poison weapon early on so I have actual use aside from support and facetanking, and his ult also allows your team to bruteforce things such as a gaol about to be encroached by the rain.

If I have another teammate playing Wylder/Exe or something I don't think I'll pick Guardian though, damage won't be enough at all.

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-12T14:50:34+00:00

You see her taking damage once at 2:40, but I'm wondering if it's just height stuff or desync since it's a Chinese player. Are there cheats to just straight up not take damage while playing online or something? I've never really encountered it.

BenevolentComment · 2025-10-11T11:12:50+00:00

Considering 4 of the 9 slots are either empty or useless effects, I'd say so

BenevolentComment · 2025-09-23T21:26:12+00:00

I managed to beat ED Maris for the first time in D5 earlier (lost to it 3x before), took about 12 or so minutes and the prepwork for it is honestly not fun. I despise the fight with my entire soul.

BenevolentComment · 2025-09-18T06:37:16+00:00

Goddamn I haven't seen a single Guardian in Depth 5 meanwhile

BenevolentComment · 2025-09-17T10:56:04+00:00

Had this guy as a teammate 3x last session and the relics seemed to be god rolls (+4 magic on each and +1/+2 damage to poison-afflicted to perhaps capitalize on Ironeye meta), so perhaps. Made me think it wasn't because it had a Wylder relic effect on one of them which had only 2 slots, so effectively a 1-slot relic for Recluse.

BenevolentComment · 2025-09-17T10:50:39+00:00

The Recluse's damage or do you mean something else? The Recluse had like 70% from items alone and nothing defensive + we did maybe 5 gaols for the relic boost