Guardian Class Guide (Black Desert Online)

Guardian is a melee class in BDO, introduced to NA on January 22, 2020. She is sometimes called a “female Berserker” because of her high defense and attack.

Guardian

Guardian Highlights:

• high Crit potential: ability to obtain +11.5% Crit rate via ranks in one passive skill and +50% Crit rate via a 30 second buff
• satisfying and large AOE skills
• 1 Iframe (invulnerability to CC, grabs, and damage)
• active Q block (Guardian hold’s her shield up and block isn’t released until canceled.)
• some slow animations (certain skills, combos, and cancels can help)

I am enjoying the Guardian more than I thought I would. I heard, “she’s slow” from some in Global Lab and Discord. Also, I don’t usually like melee characters very well. I had deleted my Berserker almost immediately.

Guardian is surprisingly fun, once you spend some time learning her moves. She does have a few speedy skills that help offset some of the slowness. Her skills are fun to discover. Many skills cause her to leap in the air, which makes her more enjoyable. Her animations include earthy eruptions and stone shatters. I love her kick stomping style as well.

Character Creation Key: Class Tier Stats Explained:

• Control: This is a measure of the difficulty in controlling the Guardian. The Guardian has 2/4 for Control difficulty by the developers. I agree with this assessment so far. She is fairly easy to play, but does take some mastering, with a few of the more tricky skills.
• Defense: Defense measures the Guardian’s ability to take damage that hits her. This score is 3/4. Expect the Guardian to be tanky, and only slightly more squishy than a 4 star Valk. Guardian has many defensive blocking capabilities.
• Combo: A Combo is a combination of key presses in a set order to perform a series of powerful moves. This ranking is a measure of the complexity of key combos available to the class. Guardian is one of the easier classes, with the same ranking as the Berserker for Combo complexity.
• Evasion: Evasion measures the class ability to evade attacks. Evasion is the Guardian’s lowest stat. She will be easier to hit than many other classes, but with a high Defense rating, and blocking ability, you can counter this.
• Attack: Attack measures how much damage this class can dish out. This is the Guardian’s highest stat with 4/4 ranks. She is a powerful, heavy hitter, although some skills feel slow.

Fierce Disdain is a skill that gives Invincibility, meaning it will protect you from everything, even from grabs.

The downside is that the duration of Invincibility is only 1 second long, with a 1 second long Superarmor. This means there is a two second window, where you can be grabbed. The good news is you have a 2 second window in which traditional CC will not work against you.

Guardian Skill Highlight:

• 1 second Invincibility from grabs, CC, and damage
• 1 second Superarmor from CC, but not damage or grabs
• 3 second Cooldown
• ending with Merciless Kick does 3x damage and also gives Superarmor

Avalanche Strike: (Shift + LMB)

Avalanche Strike is one of 4 pre-awakening skills with Forward Guard. This is a good example of a heavy hitting Guardian skill that has a charge.

This skill will crit every time, giving another 100% damage. If the skill grounds the target, you can add another 50% damage.

Guardian Skill Notes:

• Critical Hit Rate +100% (x2 damage)
• Down Attack (gives 50% extra damge)
• 3 Different CC’s: Knockdown, Down Smash, Air Smash
• long 9 second cooldown

Juggernaut: (W + F)

Juggernaut is one of my favorite skills and helps the Guardian feel less slow. But this skill has several draw backs. The main disadvantage is it’s a bit hard to control. She dashes forward and it feels like you have little control over which enemy you want to focus any damage on. She shoots past mobs you would have liked to keep running against and damaging.

Guardian Skill Highlight:

• Foreward Guard throughout the length of the animation
• Long Cooldown of 12 seconds 🙁
• Damage can be powerful, if you manage all 25 hits
• Tricky trying to focus damage on one mob.
• Quickly replenishes WP