Guardian is the main tank of the game in Aura Kingdom. To be a good tank, you will have to understand several key mechanics of the game. In this complete guide, we will discuss all of the main point that makes you a strong and wanted tank in the game.

Before we start discussing the points. We will first . Guardian is the most gear intensive class in the game. This is simply because as a weakly geared or badly built DPS, you will just kill mobs slower. However, as a badly played or weakly geared Guardian, your entire team can die.

If tanking is your thing and you love the class, we would recommend you to start with other classes first (such as main bard), or have your wallet ready to purchase some of the gears outright. We are not saying that you cannot play Guardian well without the money and gears, we are simply saying that you will have a much easier and happier time playing when you are decently geared.

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Guardian Stats Build
Guardian Gears
Guardian Secret Stone Selections
Guardian Skills
Guardian ’s Skill Mastery
Guardian Envoy’s Path
Secondary Class Choices

Guardian Stats Build

Offensive Stats

As a guardian, you want to continuously casting skills that generate malice which pull the mobs towards you. Thus your primary focus in stats is SPD which keeps your cooldown timer low. Below are two of the builds that are geared towards SPD.

In general, we do not recommend ticking any critical stats in your stats build simply because your primary goal as a tank is not to dish out DPS. Even if you place points into critical attack, you will not have a decent amount of base damage or Crit damage to make your crits count. However, if you are willing to give up those extra defenses and opt for crit damage sources, critical can work for you as a sub DPS.

Cap Speed, Rest in Damage:
When you have a build that caps the speed, take into consideration of various food and team buffs that your teammates can offer you. You will typically do fine with roughly 40% speed and rely on the other sources to reach the speed cap.

10~30% Speed, rest in Damage:
These build variation asks for a more even split between your speed and damage. You really have to try them out to see which speed number still lets you hold aggro. However, again, the higher speed that you have, the faster speed at which you can generate malice.

Speed Setup with Crit Variation
For this variation, use the same speed stats step as above two builds. Place points into crit instead of damage. This variation can work only if you use Crit damage secret stones along with gears that boost your crit damage. When you go this route, you can function like a sub DPS as well. However, in return you would be giving up some additional defenses coming from secret stones as well as defensive trophies or accessory equipment slots.

Defensive Stats

The key to be a successful Tank is the ability to take damage. The ability for your Guardian to take damage determines whether your are a success or failure. We will discuss each of the stats in detail and give general directions to help you determine the best way to place your defensive stats.

The most important defense stat as a Guardian is Defense. There are mainly two ways to play it.

Capped Defense or 65% Defense
You will need to have 65%~75% capped defense throughout your game play. You should NEVER have excess HP or EVA without the back up of your defense. Without proper def, you will be taking damage and dying left and right.

Note: As you obtain stronger gears and fortify them, you can effectively have less and less def points dedicated as stats. This is when you can start having HP or EVA variations.

HP or EVA
With proper defense. HP > EVA. At end game with good HP and DEF, EVA becomes more important.

After you have obtained the proper Def mentioned in the previous section. You can start spec for your secondary defensive stats. In short, HP > EVA in majority of the cases, but EVA starts being more important at the highest levels. Do not even bother using EVA at all at earlier levels before you start to hit the content caps.

At mid-end game: HP is better than EVA at this point because you will need the HP to have more buffers to tank the damage. You must have enough HP to tank the hits from the bosses while taking potential critical attacks into consideration.

Final End game: Once you reach high enough level of 65+ with the level cap crafted gears plus fortification. You will have a decent HP pool that most of the bosses should not one shot you. This is when adding in EVA can start being helpful. At highest dungeons (Sky Tower or Otherworld Hell at the time of writing) where bosses can hit for 50~60k crit damage, getting hit twice in a row may kill you. However, with EVA added to the mix, you can stay alive if EVA procs and one of the hit misses.

At this point in game, we would recommend you to experiment with your HP and EVA mix. If you find yourself able to tank the bosses easily with pure HP and Def, respec and change some of those HP points into EVA and see if it gets even easier.

Another reason that opting EVA instead of full HP pool, is that healer’s ballad may not be strong enough to fully recover your HP to take on the hits.

PvP Consideration: For PvP purposes, pure HP is the best as a Guardian because of your reflect damage skill. The more HP that you have, the more damage being reflected against the attackers. In this situation, you actually do not want any EVA in your build. With pure hp, you can tank the DoT attacks quite well too.

Guardian Gears

Gears are what makes or breaks a guardian. Without proper gears, the Guardian will lose aggro often and even die when they do get the aggro. A guardian without proper defense gears is like a DPS using a wooden stick to deal damage. Learn more about Aura Kingdom gears.

Guardian is actually one of the classes that should definitely fortify their gears all the way to +20 if they can. Doing so can boost their malice which can hold aggro even better. You should always craft gears a couple of times until you can get a decent % for the gears.

Weapon
At the time of writing this guide, the level 60 orange crafted weapon is the best for a guardian as it offsets additional boss damage and creates a shield that negates damage. In general, you should fortify your weapons just like your other gears.

Top Set
You should always wear the defensive crafted orange sets for your Guardian. The additional set bonus that offset damage from mobs and bosses are too much to be ignored. Always go for the set that you can afford.

Bottom Set
The bottom set is less important than the top, you can either use the crafted defense set that you can afford, or use the green set at the content’s level cap. Now, take into consideration of the HP or EVA argument, you can potentially use EVA gears at end game given that you have the proper defense and HP pool. However, it is usually a much surer bet to simply go for the HP sets.

Rings, Back and Accessory
Either use accessory sets that boost HP or EVA, in general you will get the most out of ones that boost your HP.

Guardian Secret Stone Selections

Below are the list of secret stones offered by the Master Trainer in Navea. You want to have secret stones that have either Damage Taken -% or +HP to increase your HP pool. (It’s best if you can end up with stones that have both stats). However, following our recommendation for EVA from the stats section, EVA works as well when you are at end game when you have maxed out your defenses with decent HP pool. Learn more about secret stones.

In terms of the actual stone, go for the ones that offer critical rate or critical damage. Those will offer better DPS compared to a straight out damage secret stone.

Weapon – Sword Slash

Crimson: +Dmg
Sunrise: +4% critical rate
Golden: +15% critical damage
Azure: -10% cooldown

Glove – Shield Bash

Crimson: +Dmg
Golden: +15% critical damage

Armor – Windfury

Crimson: +Dmg
Sunrise: +4% critical rate

Boots – Thundercut

Crimson: +Dmg
Azure: -10% cooldown

Guardian Skills

Below are a list of skills and how to use them. In summary:

Malice generating moves such as Shield Bash and Thundercut to keep aggro.
Use defense enhancing moves such Phalanx and Sword Slash to improve your defense.
Mirror Shield for little extra reflective damage DPS.
Wind Fury as an escape move.
Terrifying Roar as a Malice reset tool for when you lose aggro.

Skill List

Sword Slash: A basic attack skill that decrease your damage received. Use this as a part of your rotation to lower damage. However, prioritize skills that generate malice before Sword Slash to make sure you have a better hold of Aggro on the mobs.

Shield Bash: A single stun attack that generates a good amount of Malice. Use this move as a boss opening attack is great to get that initial aggro pull, the stun also lets your team members deal damage reduction debuffs against the boss.

Windfury: The skill is an AoE while moving. This skill is mainly useful for solo situations. You typically do not use this skill as it can pull the bosses and other mobs which lowers the efficiency of the melee DPS in your party. However, use this skill as an escape method to dodge Boss attacks when you need to.

Mirrored Shield: This skill lets you reflect damage back at the attacker. Since the buff lasts pretty long and not 100% necessary, only refresh it when it goes out.

Thundercut: The malice generation skill that helps you keep aggro. Keep on spamming it throughout your fights.

Phalanx: This skill is what makes Guardian a true tank in the game. It lowers the damage taken by a huge amount and Guardian main job gets an additional 30% reduction. You should keep this buff on at all times especially when fighting bosses.

Terrifying Roar: This skill resets the malice counter of the mobs and cause them to temporarily focus on you. The best time to use this skill is when mobs spawn additional minions, and those minions are killing your team members. For example, the bomb boss in Gydaie Glen and the final boss in Alabasten Temple.

You should also use this skill when you realize that your party’s DPS’s have OT (Overthreat) which causes you to lose aggro completely. You will have to immediately use Shield Bash and Thundercut right after casting to ensure that you continue holding the aggro after the Roar wears off.

Note that if the DPS still overthreat during those roar effective time interval, you will continue to lose aggro.

Defensive Posture: This is the party buff skill of Guardian. Casting it costs 1 whistle of defense and raise your party member’s defense. This is one of the reasons that you may not want to fully cap your defenses from stats only. There are a few other sources that you can potentially cap your defense value.

Guardian’s Skill Mastery

General Skills

Use either the enemy damage or defense debuff. Usually you want to use damage debuff for high end dungeons where bosses are likely to one shot your teammates. For easier dungeons use the defense debuff for your teammates to clear out the mobs faster. You will have to make your own judgement call.

Splitting Air Cut: Fortify Sword Slash Target -DEF by 8%
Burning Air Cut: Fortify Sword Slash Target -DMG by 8%
Booming Shield Bash: Fortify Shield Bash into small AoE attack.

Attack Spec

For Attack mastery, use either Focus when you are in a party setting to boost your Speed further, or go for Callousness if you are soloing to boost your individual DPS.

Divine Power: DMG +5%
Divine Power (Green): DMG +7%. Obtained via level 30 dungeon.

Focus: SPD +5%
Focus (Green): SPD +7%, obtained via Ultimate Skill Lucky Pack: Attack Spec or level 30 dungeon at 3rd boss drop.

Murderous Intent: CRIT +5%
Murderous Intent (Green): CRIT +7%. Obtained via level 45 dungeon or attack chest box.

Zeal: 10% chance to deal 50% more damage
Zeal (Green): 10% chance to deal 70% more damage. Obtained via level 50 dungeon or attack chest box.

Boost: SPD +3%, DMG +2%
Boost (Green): SPD +5%, DMG +2%55555555

Callosness: Crit +3%, Crit DMG +4%

Advanced Skills

The best choice is lightning slash since it boost your DEF. The DoT effect is pretty weak and the HP recovered through revitalizing wall is almost negligible if you have a bard in your party.

Thunder Cut: Fortify Thundercut with DoT effect
Lightning Slash: Fortify Thundercut to get an additional DEF +5% buff
Revitalizing Wall: Fortify Phalanx to recover HP when attacked.

Defense Spec

The best mastery to use is HP or DEF depending on where you are in the game. You can also opt for courage for the additional damage taken reduction effect.

Vigor: Max HP +5%
Vigor (Green): Max HP +7%

Iron Wall: DEF +5%
Iron Wall (Green): Def +7%

Agility: EVA +5%
Agility (Green): EVA +7%

Unyieldness: Recover 1% HP while being attacked. This effect can be triggered once every 30 seconds.

Courage: Max HP +3%, damage taken -2%

Extreme Speed: EVA +3%, Move SPD +5%

Tactical Spec

Go for either decrease target DMG or DEF. In general, you may want to decrease target’s DMG in hell mode to lower boss’s attack power, and DEF in party mode so that your party can kill the monsters faster.

Organized Sabotage: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s DMG by 10%

Break Defense: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s DEF by 10%

Preemptive Strike: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s CRIT +5% and CRIT DMG by 10%.

Ambush: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s SPD by 10%

Expose Weakness: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s Received Healing by 20%

Ars Noxia: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s Move Speed by 10%

Special Skills

Similar to where you are in the game. The best choices are either The Best Defense for the DEF buff or Capoeira for the EVA buff. If you are able to achieve high enough of a DEF through armor fortification, you may find that the EVA boost is more useful here. You typically will not use the Omniscience here because the SPD boost offered by this mastery is pretty small.

The Best Defense: 1% of DMG added to DEF.
The Best Defense (Green): 2% of DMG added to DEF.

Capoeira: 1% of DMG added to EVA

Deep Blue: DMG +2%, Malice -5%.

Omniscience: 1% of DEF added to SPD.

Guardian Envoy’s Path

In this section, we will discuss the various envoy’s path for you to make your decision on how to build your character.

PvP and PvE note
Aside from the essential envoy path’s, for PvP purposes you simply switch out any of the malice related and defense related into damage related offensive path.

Survival Enhancement

The Will to Live (Damage taken -50% for 8 seconds when your hp drops below 25%). You must tick this skill as the damage -50% is simply too good to let go.

Intimidating shout (Damage -10% for 10 seconds to nearby enemies) – Used to reduce the damage of monsters attacking you. You should get this skill to help the survival ability of your party members.

Reflective shield mastery (Reflective shield skill level +5 and duration increased by 3 seconds) – Increases damage dealt to mobs and boss attacking you and helps hold aggro.

Damage Reflection

These skills are great in PvP settings and can deal additional damage to the bosses.

Prickliness (Reflect 10% of damage received when attacked)

Additional Malice Generating Envoy Path

You should get these envoy path only if you find yourself having trouble holding your aggro against the party members. However, in most cases they may not be necessary if you are decent leveled with good gears. You usually lose your aggro when DPS in your party overthreat by dealing way higher damage because of higher level gap and much stronger gears.

However, generally if your party’s DPS can OT by dealing damage way over your threshold, chances are that they have decent gears to be able to take a hit or two. When this happens, you can usually reset the malice counter by using roar to get aggro of the boss back.

Malicious Stance (Malice +50%)
Taunt (Every attack generates a huge amount of malice)

Secondary Class Choices

There are numerous ways for you to pick and play the secondary classes. Some offers more utility than the others. Below we will go over these choices and their synergy effects with a tank to help you make you decision.

Sub-Bard: One of the more popular choices for a sub bard tank. This tank sub offers relatively easier initial dungeon luring runs and can function better with party that have weak bards that either do not heal or die easily. However, the downfall is that weakly geared sub bard tanks have much easier time to lose aggro if their main skill sets are weak due to the lack of secondary class DPS skills.

Warbow: Warbow is a decent and flexible choice for tank simply because Warbow has elements of single DPS and AoE DPS mixed. It has a stackable defense reduction attack and a decent DoT that will not be overlapped with another Warbow in your party. If you are going full capped speed build, that makes Warbow even more attractive in laying additional charged effects.

Single DPS Choices: Some valid choices that help you hold aggro while tanking are the ones that have decent DoT attacks such as Duelist, Katar, and Gunslinger. We personally like Duelist and Katar because they are melee with stackable DoT’s that do not overlap with other players in your party. You may pick Duelist over Katar because Duelist offers combo skills that you can unlock.

AoE DPS choices: These subs work only if you are going sub DPS build with Crit + Crit damage as your secondary stats. These sub classes may work for you to handle dungeon mobs better. The only place these subs can work is that you solo quite a bit for yourself. In general, your AoE attacks will never be as strong as other full time main class DPS’s. The AoE sub class choices for tanks including Ravager, Wizard, Grenadier.