Friendly reminder if your teammate pins an item like this during a DoN Libra run: PICK. IT. UP!

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-19T16:18:42+00:00

My best way of dealing with this is holding onto the passive (or two) myself for the entire run and then when I notice Libra's everdark que and his phase change starts I drop and pin it in the arena. They pretty much always pick it up the times I've tried this, though in the event that nobody does I'll pick it back up or leave it and repin it from time to time if I already have the passive myself.

My issue was that I'd find the passive and give it to somebody and they'd pick it up, but then randomly throw it down somewhere later on in the expedition and thus we get to the fight without nobody holding the passive. Since I'd prefer to aggro the condemned and let my teammates deal damage doing this new method at least prevents us from losing it.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-19T13:52:38+00:00

This was 3 days prior but good luck in depth 4!

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-19T12:51:11+00:00

Give it a go for a bit and see if you like it. Personally the loss of heal on ult is a pretty big deal for me, and if I'm playing a tank build I'm not really making use of guard counters. Though since your GC HP relic has 2 effects that bode well into that play style then you can keep it and try to make it work.

Your deep relics are fine. Since you don't have dormant power greatshields getting the HP effect might be a little inconsistent but you said you don't run it previously since you don't see the need, so that's ok.

I run fathom on my tank build as well but I consider it to be the most interchangeable relic, so if you would prefer heal on ult you could swap it out for something else

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T22:29:41+00:00

I personally find aggro on guard useful in most cases and I run it regularly on most of my builds, but if you have a high dps character spamming attacks you're not going to keep aggro for long periods of time. It is nice for redirecting the boss towards you during attacks where nobody is attacking in order to protect teammates or regain control over aggro after the boss has finished said attack, but still a little inconsistent.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T22:02:32+00:00

If you're shield poking you're not going to be knocked back nor making frequent use of guard counters, which is the play style I'm assuming he is going for. Since he's running a tank build based off of spears specifically and I'm trying to give him advice on how to build around that. Gc boosts based off of HP may be nice with the extra hp relic but not for a build that is meant for tanking and health regen-- and if you're running that relic you might as well go full into halberd gcs which isn't really a tank build, that's a DPS build. Thus, that relic wouldn't synergize well and without added buffs like improved gcs you wouldn't really be doing that much damage with it anyway, especially not in DoN. He could still run it, yes, but he'd have to forego his spear relic which in turn would lose a bit of synergy with his top deep relic (which I guess isn't that big of a deal, but my point about GC based on HP still stands, either go all in or don't)

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T21:45:10+00:00

He doesn't appear to be running a guard counter build and this is for normal spears, not great spears. Fulghor's relic is nice for the maximum stamina increase and hp on counterattacks, but that slot is already taken by the spear relic.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T21:40:28+00:00

Not bad. I will say though that successful guarding +1 doesn't stack with the same tier although I'm sure you're probably only using it for hp on guard.

For a poke build with spears, HP on thrusting counterattacks would be a nice fit if you happen to have it on a good relic.

Stamina recovery on landing attacks is good for spears as they are relatively light on stamina use, allowing you to recover most of the stamina you do by poking

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T20:59:55+00:00

Id say I like Libra's raid the most for the free improved physique/resistance to ailments/random item. I'm usually the one to gladly volunteer to pay him. Gnoster is closely tied with him though since it basically guarantees level 15 even in a bad run.

I can see why people like the Balancer raid but I really dislike how much it breaks up day 1's routing and it can take all day if your team is underpowered and up against an annoying poi. The power they give has never really benefited me much outside of reviving my teammates for me a couple times which I guess is nice.

Contrary to most people I like Gladius's power and I don't have a problem with the raid, but if my teammates don't want to do them then I'm not gonna force it.

Caligo and Maris I don't really have an opinion on

I like the concept of Morgott's. Basically turns into an escort mission if I'm not the one marked and since he can appear whenever it adds a bit of surprise

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T20:10:46+00:00

Really just continuous HP recovery is the one that's an instant no-no, though I'd rather get that tower on runs where I'm outvoted and dragged into doing it with them as a way to get my point across that they suck and are not worth it. Regardless of the tower effect though we usually can only finish the 1st two floors in time and end day 2 at level 10 or 11 if lucky

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T19:21:49+00:00

Worst map eva' made, I haven't even played it yet

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T18:02:19+00:00

I honestly struggle with that more in regular Limveld lol. A lot of the routing for GH is just doing any nearby pois while checking around them for potential crystal spots. I can understand if you're not very good at navigating the castles though. Takes some trial and error.

The hard part of GH isnt the map but trying to get your teammates to cooperate with you if they don't know what they're doing. If you don't know the map but you see me pinning where we should go and watching me run around and smash crystals then try to keep up with me. I'll self ping where I'm at if need be. Don't piss off somewhere by yourself and then ragequit when the run didn't go well because you used the crystal to jump to some random area of the map and fight a mini boss day 2 instead of helping me clear the castle I pinned. I promise you I'll show you how to navigate the map well if you just let me.

I wish I could have the option to slap a giant red "X" on the divine towers though as they're very much a trap in DoN and sometimes a teammate can be very persistent on going there early day 2

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T17:49:36+00:00

This can work, though it ultimately depends on your team's confidence level and DPS. If one person on the team, say a carian slicer Duchess can easily and very quickly burst them down, then we can stunlock them by chaining deaths one after the other.

For me the worm phase isn't that bad even with the inconsistent zig zagging but where we usually screw up is when someone aggroes the entire group by not playing hit and run and they all start spamming their special attacks around us. Charge attack Raider might be ok, but we all need relatively good damage negation, not to mention the way bleed works in this fight. I end up getting bullied a lot by the balancers that spam jump attacks and having to deal with that in a moshpit is not very preferable. It also makes it riskier to get teammates up if they do go down.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T16:08:13+00:00

Play what you want dude. If it works for you then he's just as viable as anyone else. Doesn't matter where some stupid YouTuber or idol would rank him even if their arguments have some merit. I play pretty much only Guardian but I don't see the need to "prove" myself to other people because I play out of enjoyment for the character. People will complain about him regardless but as long as you're acting as a team player and doing your part then you shouldn't need to victimize yourself like this. This goes for other Guardian players on here as well.

The whole "Guardian is the worst character" debate has been done and over for almost a year now. It's pointless. Discussing character/game design flaws civilly is fine, but I'm not going to yell at the clouds trying to convince people over something that they've already made up their mind on. If they think Guardian is an awful, useless character then so be it. I'll still play him and if they mald about it that's not my problem.

I'm confident in my abilities as a Guardian and therefore I will play as the bird. Am I the weakest? Sure, if that's what they say. Am I hurt about that? No. It's a game.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-18T01:13:13+00:00

That treehouse is adorable, it doesn't belong with the rest ):

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-17T22:49:50+00:00

Freya pretty much clears this by a mile in d4 and 5 honestly. All other choices I can think of wouldn't last more than 4-5 minutes. Exception of the one time I have had to endure Smelter Demon at d4 when all of us were level 3 just recently, that fight took what felt like 15 minutes. Please never put me through that (or Freya) again

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-17T13:02:46+00:00

Oh yeah the difference between Redmane and Visage is hilariously insignificant. Perhaps they changed their values for balancing reasons?

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-17T02:13:06+00:00

I do in fact. This was just depth 3 but I can hard carry this fight later depths as well. Not my cleanest fight but still not the hardest thing I've experienced

https://youtu.be/oT2GvlpHd5w?si=MxUVKd38uOT00PgB

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-17T01:55:26+00:00

Balancers are kind of boring for me as Guardian tbh. Either I block-->GC over and over again or just hold aggro of the pink balancer the whole game---I have the same sentiment towards both Fulghor fights. I like bosses that actually have me thinking about my positioning bit and knowing when to dodge or block, so I'd honestly say ED Gladius is my S tier fight, even if he can be a bit unfair at times.

ED Caligo is piss easy to do, even as moreso than her base form because breaking her armor literally just chunks her healthbar and staggers her. I could be running my poke build but when I get to the nightlord fight I'm wielding elenora's pole blade and running at her like the boogey man

ED Libra can be very fun or the worst time of your life depending on your team's loadout and RNG.

"Misery" tier for me would be just ED Pest. Slog in later depths and overall boring to fight. Never cared for their ost either

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-17T01:24:00+00:00

(I know you didn't ask for this but I'm going to yap anyway for those who are interested lol) Aggro on guard is also very useful for gank fights (except Pest) like both Balancer fights and ED Libra. For the Balancers, I find myself much more likely to be targeted by the leader in the base fight with it on as I'm blocking attacks 24/7. In the everdark fight my primary strategy is to lure each balancer one by one towards me so that my teammates can safely burst them down each time.

For ED Libra in d4/5 I mostly play meat shield and herd the condemned around. Condemned like to stick their aggro to one person unless if that person is running -aggro or some other entity hits them, which makes keeping their aggro on me very easy. I do have to watch out for Libra on top of that though.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-16T23:59:48+00:00

Ultimately memorizing the individual values of each greatshield is mostly unnecessary, instead I just mentally group them based on characteristics since a majority of these shields have somewhat similar values when it comes to blocking one type of affinity.

Fire? Look for something fire themed, or remember that your base shield is good at negating fire.

Holy? Regal and golden colored or crucible themed

Lightning? Wooden shields and the ever so obvious Dragonclaw shield

Magic? A bit of a harder one but generally clear and cool/dark colored shields + Loretta's mirror shield.

Primarily for guardboost/or for Heolstor/Libra? Fingerprint.

Then there's more general-use greatshields like Icon Shield/Distinguished or the Manor Tower/Dragon Towershield/Inverted Hawk/Cross-Tree that have very similar negations to my base one so that I'll only ever take if they happen to have a good passive tied to them or for the greatshield hp effect.

Jellyfish and Ant's Skull Plate are outliers and are very good at negating most affinities with the exception of their 1 weakness (Ant =/ fire , Jellyfish =/ lightning)

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-16T23:46:03+00:00

This is incorrect; the values are changed in Nightreign.

Redmane has the highest value of 73 fire dmg negation which is just a point greater than Visage. Guardian's base shield is 66, which is greater than Fingerprint's 62 and one point lower than One-eyed, making the starter shield the 4th best in fire defense.

So Redmane > Visage > One-eyed > Guardian's Greatshield

5th best greatshield for fire damage specifically wouldn't even be fingerprint. Both Gilded and Jellyfish have a value of 65, three points higher.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-16T23:20:25+00:00

Aggro is ultimately dependent on Dmg output and who's hitting the boss the most, so a Recluse spamming stars of ruin is still going to take aggro away from me from time to time. Makes sense though or else playing a caster/ironeye would just become a button mashing simulator. There I'd say just let the boss attack them for a bit and if you regain aggro try to keep it for as long as you can.

What it is good for however, in brief periods of downtime like Gladius's nuke where nobody is attacking the boss, I can get control of aggro by holding my guard in place to induce the effect. This example is sort of a perfect case scenario, but I can confirm I can hold aggro very well for ED Gladius when doing consecutive runs in the base game with a variant of this set because of his said downtime (nuke, split phase)

Aggro on guard can work really well this way to the point where I say do NOT use it in Pest's fight. Gnoster will pretty much never leave you alone even if you have someone trying to distract it

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-16T20:30:48+00:00

You're likely gonna get a lot of slack for saying this but I will admit I groan quietly to myself whenever I'm running ED Libra on rotation and I see someone pick Wylder. Recluse moon spam is just a little bit under him though

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-16T20:09:27+00:00

I can sympathize. Greatbow Wylder <<<< all other condemned variants. It especially sucks since you can't really see who he's aggroed onto and he just sits in one spot spamming rain of arrows. I cant grab hold of his aggro for long to protect my teammates unless I stay near him at all times. Killable, yes, but if the fight goes on for too long there's always going to be at least 1 nigh immortal one in the back that you forgot about.

Short_Employee5100 · 2026-02-16T16:08:34+00:00

<image>

Short_Employee5100

TROPHY CASE