Guardian Build Guide – Elden Ring: Nightreign
Welcome to our Guardian Build Guide for Elden Ring: Nightreign.
This guide explains how to play as a Guardian in Nightreign, and provides tips and a general direction for building him. Due to the RNG nature of loot and buffs in each run of Nightreign, we won’t provide a precise blueprint. We’ll instead explain the most optimal things to prioritise when choosing your loot.
Please note that this guide is based on pre-release information, much of it from the network test. As such, it is still a work in progress that we aim to update in the run-up to and immediately after the release of Elden Ring: Nightreign. See also: Nightreign Nightfarers List.
Table of Contents:
Guardian Overview – Nightreign
The guardian is a tank who boasts high damage resistance and can punish enemies with heavy, damaging blows.
- Starting Stats:
- HP: 260
- FP: 55
- Stamina: 60
- Starting Gear:
- Guardian’s Halberd
- Guardian’s Greatshield
- Steel Guard – Enter a defensive stance. This greatly reduces your movement speed, but makes blocking much more effective and reduces the Stamina cost of blocking. Use this to help you tank powerful enemies, allowing your allies to focus on DPS.
- Whirlwind – A spinning attack that hits all nearby enemies. You can hold the button down to charge up your Whirlwind, increasing its area of effect.
- Wings of Salvation – Leap into the air and crash to the ground, dealing heavy AoE damage. You can opt to charge up this Ultimate skill, which will also grant a defensive buff to your allies. The standard version consumes half of your Ultimate, while the charged version consumes all of it. This skill is also good for resurrecting fallen allies, since attacking fallen allies is the way to resurrect them in Elden Ring: Nightreign.
Guardian is primarily geared towards tanking, group support and AoE damage, and plays best in a coordinated team that sticks close together rather than kiting enemies around in different directions. His tanky starting point makes him a good choice for new players who are learning to survive in the challenging combat environment of Nightreign. If you’re learning with Guardian, try to use your Steel Guard and Wings of Salvation to help out your team in tricky situations. This is an easy way you can be an asset to your team even if you’re inexperienced.
Guardian Build Guide – Nightreign
In this section, we will outline the best strategy for building the Guardian in Elden Ring: Nightreign. While no two runs are exactly the same, there are strategies you can utilize that tend to result in the most optimal improvements for the Guardian.
Early-Game Loot Strategy
At the start of the game, prioritise farming the following locations, if possible:
- Start by defeating the enemies around your starting location to reach Level 3
- Farm nearby Fire and Blood Loss settlements. Loot every chest and kill every enemy in these areas. The weapon we’re hoping to find is Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear, which allows you to create blood explosions when you stab enemies.
- While travelling, stop by as many churches as possible and grab the healing flask upgrades.
Mid and Late-Game Strategy
As you progress through the game, shift to the following priorities:
- Return to the Fire and Blood Loss settlements and farm them for weapon upgrades.
- Fight world bosses to get Dormant Powers, which are strong passives for your character.
- Before facing the final boss of the run, purchase Smithing Stones and/or Blood Grease from the Merchant to boost your damage output.
Guardian Best Spells
The following spells are generally the strongest options for Guardian in Elden Ring: Nightreign:
- Golden Vow – Increases attack and defence for yourself and nearby allies.
Guardian Best Relics
Look out for the Relics that provide the following effects:
- Improved Fire Attack Power
- Improved Guard Counters
- Improved Guard Breaking
Guardian Best Equipment
Look out for the following items when looting as Guardian in Elden Ring: Nightreign:
- Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear – grants the Bloodborn Ritual Skill.
- Bloodborn Ritual – Stab up to three times, creating explosions of blood with each thrust. This will coat the weapon with bloodflame for a while.
- Fingerprint Stone Shield
- Dragoncrest Shield Talisman – reduces physical damage taken
- Curved Sword Talisman – Increased Guard Counter Damage
- Blood Grease (consumable) – Your weapon will inflict Blood Loss on enemies.
The following weapons are also good to look out for:
- Lance
- Vyke’s War Spear – Grants the Frenzyflame Thrust skill.
- Frenzyflame Thrust – Leap forward, thrusting the spear into the ground and setting off a maddening explosion. Both the enemy and the user are afflicted with Madness, draining up to 10% FP and up to 15% HP.
How to Play Guardian – Nightreign
Guardian is primarily a tanky support build, especially gifted at holding the attention of powerful enemies to grant relative safety to your less durable allies. However, that doesn’t mean you cannot deal good damage yourself when playing as the Guardian.
The bread and butter of a Guardian player is to utilize counter-attacks as much as you can. You can do this by blocking an attack, then immediately using your heavy attack.
Some enemies have rapid and relentless attacks, making counter-attacks too risky. In these cases, you can still stab with your Spear while blocking with your Greatsheild. This does less damage but it allows you to attack from relative safety, as long as you don’t allow yourself to get staggered (for example by running out of stamina). Once sufficiently upgraded, this build utilizes burning and bleeding statuses to deal damage over time. Apply the statuses to enemies and let them do damage for you while you stay behind your shield, stabbing where possible.
Remember to utilize the Guardian’s abilities properly, too. Use Steel Guard to help you block without running out of stamina. Use Wings of Salvation to deal AoE damage, which is also good for resurrecting allies.
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