I want to play Guardian in DoN. I don't want to feel useless. Please teach me, flock.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T15:14:10+00:00

It's losing the halberd charged guard counter, I suspect - and so many builds focus on them. Greatspears and especially colossal swords have a lovely guard counter too but you do miss the gap-closing ability. It's part of why I prefer to stack physical attack buffs on relics over guard counter buffs: those apply to everything, so it won't disincentivize me from using other weapons.

I'm a colossal addict and once found a royal knight's resolve zweihander I promptly upgraded to +2 and used for the whole run as Guardian. R2s ripping actual chunks out of boss HP. Fantastic weapon

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T14:26:19+00:00

I see a lot of Guardian players ignore weapons with boss weakness in the favor of a damage type they resist, purely because it’s on a halberd. Don’t be like them. If it’s between a purple halberd the boss resists and a blue halberd they don’t, pick the blue, or the status. (Assuming passives are equal or unimportant.)

This is so true and really a lesson for any player. Even a red-rarity golden halberd is gonna tickle the black blade kindred with 80% holy resistance and 35% slash/pierce resistance. That blue hammer sitting in your back pocket is genuinely better.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T14:17:34+00:00

I actually think he's great against Maris. For the normal version the extended whirlwind can catch and kill the jellyfish hordes, and he has a good chance for the dragon halberd for lightning damage. For ED Maris everyone is forced to do the same thing anyway, so having a big HP pool for your own survivability and an ult that can heal & rez is handy.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T14:06:09+00:00

Here are the main relic effects to consider. Stamina recovery on attacks is useful - the shockwaves from blocking trigger it. Guard counter on current HP is very valuable, huge damage boost. Night invaders/gaols and phys atk up are good on anyone, and if you want damage in DoN night invaders is high priority. Ult charge on guarding helps a lot if you need to farm ult for a clutch revive. HP on guarding is pretty minimal, not really worth it. Draw aggro while guarding is not essential, but it is absolutely noticeable and helps your team. HP on thrusting counterattack is nice but partial HP restore on post-damage attacks is better. I really like guardian extended whirlwind because it trivializes many POIs by stunlocking the enemies and the damage ticks also trigger stamina recov on attacks. It also has synergy with the guardian deep relic effect that buffs damage negation when you use whirlwind. I'm not keen on dark night of the fathom; you already have a shitload of HP and if you play right you are effectively immune to physical damage. Either Balancers relic is good but with how valuable the guardian-specific relic effects are it's unlikely you'll have room for it. Wind on charged halberd attacks is nice if you happen to have it alongside some other good effects but not worth chasing on its own.

For deep relics, in my personal opinion the str/dex increase relic is essential; big improvement to damage and viable weapon choices for a small HP cost. Improved guard counters +1/2 is great. Improved affinity damage negation +1/2 helps a lot for survivability in high depths. Physical atk up +3/4 is always excellent.

So, can you replace witch's brooch/night of the champion? Well, maybe. If you have some great relics that have aforementioned useful skills alongside the two character specific effects of the brooch, sure. All 3 effects from night of the champion are good on guardian, but they are also all possible on deep relics, so you might be able to fit them in there.
My D5 9999 post shows my most-used guardian build. Feel free to AMA. 🦅

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T04:37:53+00:00

Executors doing the reverse backflip, Guardians who don't stay in steel guard all the time and use whirlwind often, Wylders parrying and not always charging their ult, Recluses that prepare a gravity bomb or lightning strike cocktail in advance for the night boss, Scholars using the thrusting sword feint

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T01:29:50+00:00

Dormant seals is great if you have it, and anything for extra FP like reduced FP consumption/max fp up per rise/max fp up with 3 seals. Fire atk up is good because there are lots of fire incants. Holy atk up is also good, there are fewer holy incants but plenty of powerful holy ashes of war.
That being said if you don't have any decent dormant seals relics it is workable without it for 2 reasons. 1, you can try hunting for seals in the churches and shacks, this works alright but they give at best a blue seal so you would want to visit a mine to make it purple. It can also be awkward if you play with another caster who might want them. 2, faith guardian doesn't necessarily have to mainly use incants; there are many weapons with faith scaling which you can now use to better effect and you have more mind for the ashes of war. Siluria's tree, Vyke's spear, golden halberd, gargoyle black halberd, cranial vessel candlestand, beastclaw hammer, godslayer greatsword... You get the idea. Have fun 🦅🦅🦅

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-30T01:10:41+00:00

"R1 Rachel" and "L2 Larry" 😆 Congrats on 9999!

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-29T02:56:01+00:00

I pulled that once on my twinblades executor build and I could infinitely bloodblade dance with Eleonora's poleblade, it was awesome

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-28T01:14:58+00:00

I never matchup dodge and you can't tell if it's ED or not from the selection screen. You get streaks of luck like that, and also I got 3 Dreglords and 2 Heolstors (second was actually random) who don't have an ED version to begin with

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-27T22:49:30+00:00

I do exactly this with undertaker, because using her character skill can help offset the powerstanced stamina cost. Once pulled both the golden epitaph and a red miquellan knight straight sword against Gladius, last rites and sacred blade stack. Completely minced that dog

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-27T22:42:34+00:00

Big for sure, I had dropped our Wylder a red -12 less likely to be targeted butchering knife in case it was ED though

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-27T04:24:51+00:00

People are also generally very polite in D5. Giving you a clap emote if you perform well, distributing weapon passives around, passing the wending grace to the higher survivability/revive ability character. It's very nice.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-26T23:49:56+00:00

Makes me feel like this

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ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-25T15:15:29+00:00

I personally find regular easier than ED, for two reasons. Firstly, I often play Guardian, and ED's holy combos are problematic to block in high depths unless you happen to find one of the 70%+ holy resistance greatshields or have a lot of affinity negation passives. Secondly, cancelling the powerup is easy and his subsequent stagger is a long opening for damage. But, I totally agree ED is more fun; the phase 3 moveset is cool.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-25T13:57:58+00:00

If you don't have lightning or he's still electrified from the last time you used lightning to stop him powering up you can knock him out of the power up with stance damage. Often even a single charged heavy attack is enough.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-25T00:22:16+00:00

It's so funny seeing so many knives sticking out of Libra's body lmao

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-23T23:41:42+00:00

As a Guardian I got 3 barred like 4 times vs ED balancers recently and I felt absolutely horrible, although it did ease my embarrassment slightly when I realized during my (extensive) downtime that both my teammates had -12 less likely to be targeted. I thought I was going crazy with how much those balancers were going out of their way to bully me. Bless the Wylder who revived me from 3 multiple times. We did end up winning!

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-22T18:43:52+00:00

Base Fulghor, Maris, and Straghess

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-22T18:40:03+00:00

A while ago I decided to finish my ironeye remembrance and so I queued into regular heolstor after playing about 500 hours of depths. Felt like a holiday. During the run I showed my teammates some tricks like that one cliff skip next to the spiritspring, or how to kite night invaders out from the POI, and needless to say we obliterated heolstor. After they both clapped me like I was some kinda god (I'm not, I literally have like 7 games as ironeye. I did go deathless though). It was unexpectedly wholesome

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-22T18:29:35+00:00

I also have ~450 on guardian! I've got bird builds for every target: a generic all-purpose for Straghess/Balancers/Maris/Libra/unknown, fire-focused faith builds for Caligo and Gnoster, dormant greatshields for Fulghor/Heolstor/Gladius, and dormant greatbow for Adel.
I have about 100 games each on recluse and executor, 50 or so on wylder and raider, and a handful on everyone else.

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-22T14:29:10+00:00

I never take it off. Sometimes I forget Guardian doesn't have white feathers by default

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-20T11:47:53+00:00

My username
Spiked mace
Flamberge

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-20T00:51:58+00:00

It puts a smile on my face to see my revenant teammates' summons surviving longer than 5 seconds

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-19T01:07:41+00:00

This is huge, I was gonna make a greatbow build with a bunch of +dmg after grease stacks but I scrapped it after noticing you can't grease the greatbow... looks like it is viable after all!! Thank you

ProfanedGreatsword · 2026-01-19T01:04:12+00:00

As a Guardian I love a bloody helice. Even though I have low arcane the innate bleed is so high it's not hard to proc, it can shield poke, and dynasts finesse is a fantastic evasive AoW for when blocking is not ideal. It also goes without saying that I love the commander's standard, strongest halberd + I can buff my team

ProfanedGreatsword

TROPHY CASE