They’re some of the most powerful enemies you’ll find running around the massive open world environment, but if you’ve been simply avoiding them, you’re missing a trick, so here’s our run down of how to kill a Guardian in The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. Firstly, you probably need to give yourself a little pep talk, because the reality is that they’re not really as tough as you might think at first, and once you’ve got the knack you can mine them for Ancient Items like they’re walking and laser-blasting gold mines.
AdvertisementHow to kill a stationary BOTW Guardian
When you first start out in The Legend Of Zelda: BOTW, you might be inclined to avoid as many fights as you take on to manage your hearts, but it’s definitely worth learning how to beat the stationary Guardians to start to pick up the Ancient Gear, Screws, Shafts and Springs that you can get from them. Luckily, there’s a sitting duck waiting for you to practice against near to the Ja Baij Shrine in the Great Plateau.
There are two techniques that you can use to defeat a Guardian, but for us it’s all about the genius of the perfectly timed parry, which you can see us demonstrating in the video walkthrough below. Essentially, you just stroll on up to a stationary Guardian and let it lock its laser onto you. When it reaches its peak of charge and it’s just about to fire, simply unleash Link’s parry move and you’ll deflect the beam back at it, blowing it up in one fell swoop.
If you’re struggling with the Parry move, there is an alternative approach. Again, it’s just a case of walking up to one and letting it start to charge it’s laser. As soon as it does so, shoot an arrow into its eye, which incapacitates it temporarily, giving you enough time to run up to it and unleash hell with your strongest weapon. Now, whenever you get close to a stationary Guardian and it locks its laser onto you, you should be able to kill them pretty easily and not run away like Link is wearing a dress. That comes later in the game (honestly, it’s freaky!).
Mastering the perfect parry move video walkthrough
You can check out our video walkthrough above to see us doing the parry move to perfection against the stationary guardian outside the second shrine on the Great Plateau. If you don’t know how to parry, you just need to hold up your shield with the ZL button and when the laser is just about to fire press A to parry it back at the mechanical beast.
Weapons and kit to help you kill Guardians more easily
OK, so there are a few weapons that you can use to make it a little easier to destroy Guardians. The most important of these is the Guardian Shield, which allows you to deflect their laser blasts without the need to parry. You can find a Guardian Shield at the Soh Kofi Shrine, but make sure you save it for taking on Guardians. You really don’t want to waste it on a few Bokoblins.
If you’re more of an arrow shot fighter, then you’ll need a good supply of these, so make sure you pick them up or buy them on your travels. After you’ve shot one in the eye it’s all about using your strongest weapons to defeat the nasties as quickly and painlessly as possible. The Guardian Sword is a good one to use, but as you get further into the Breath Of The Wild, you’ll get much more powerful swords to smash them up with.
There are also Guardian Arrows, which kill Guardians in one shot, but these are fairly rare, especially during the early phases of the game. You get given a few of these when you complete the Robbie’s Research side mission at the Akkala Tech Lab, so again save them up and use them wisely.
How to kill a moving Guardian
Essentially, killing a moving Guardian is pretty much the same as blasting a stationary one. The same moves apply, but the big difference is that they don’t sit still waiting to be mashed, which makes locking onto them face-on a little more tricky. Try to be as brazen as possible and walk straight up to them to make them lock on to you face-on, which will let you do the parry or arrow shot move pretty easily.
However, if you do find yourself locked on, but not facing the Guardian, with a laser trained on the side of your head, then you’ll have a very short window of time to correct yourself. In this situation, you’ll need to cancel the shield lock, turn to face the Guardian, and get your shield back up in time to parry the beam. If you move fast then you should be fine.
If you see a Guardian, but you don’t want to have to fight it – maybe you’re low on health, or just don’t have the time to waste – then your only option is to stealth past it. Find cover in the long grass, or using any other objects like trees and walls, and then it’s just a case of creeping by it, giving it as much of a wide birth as possible. Crouching is a good approach, but if it does notice you then you might have to run like the wind or turn to face it.
Tactics when facing multiple Guardians at the same time
As you start to get further and further into The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, you’ll eventually find yourself in a bind with at least a couple of Guardians on the attack. Activating the Sheikah Tower on the approach to the Palace, for example, puts you in range of a few mobile Guardians, as well as a stationary one. When this happens, and hopefully you’ll have a fair few heart containers by then, try not to panic and give some of our more advance tactics a try.
If you can, it’s a good idea to try to separate them, which will allow you to pick them off more easily on a 1-on-1 basis, so try to approach each one from an angle that won’t engage any of the others. Firing an arrow at one, when you’re too far away from the others is a good way to draw one out. Then it’s just a case of using either the arrow eye shot and attack or the parry move above.
AdvertisementHowever, sometimes it just isn’t possible to separate them, or maybe you’re just looking for a challenge, and in this situation you’ll need to be able to fight multiple guardians at once. The main point is that you need to be able to deal with being locked on to by more than one laser, which means that speed, accuracy and planning are critical.
To start with, you need to face the Guardian that locked onto you quickest and unleash an arrow into its eye. Once that one is out of action temporarily, you need to instantly face the second one and ideally use the parry move to annihilate it. That should just leave you with the one Guardian to take out, which is fairly straightforward.
If you do manage to kill a couple of Guardians in quick succession, you might want to take a screenshot part way through and post it to the Nintendo Twitter page, as they sometimes retweet player stills from BOTW. You can also @ us at our Twitter page and we’ll do the same. Best of luck guys and remember to stay safe when you’re out in the wild!
