The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a difficult game in terms of survival and the strength of your opponents. No enemy is stronger (outside of the bosses) than the numerous Guardians scattered across Hyrule.
At first they may seem unbeatable and that your best strategy is to run away whenever you are engaged in battle with one of them. However, there are points in the game where you’ll be forced to defeat them. The items they drop are rare and get a great price, but can also be forged into some strong armor and weapons.
SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to be spoiled on the events and story of The Breath of the Wild turn back now.
The Guardians are mechanical drones that Hylians created to combat Calamity Ganon, however, Ganon has corrupted them and are now running amok across Hyrule. Link will have to defeat them in Shrines and in the overworld to get some rare items and to progress the story.
But how can you defeat Guardians in Breath of the Wild as easily as possible? There are ways to do so, read on to learn more.
TYPES OF GUARDIANS
There are many different types of Guardians all over Hyrule. The one you’ll come across the most (and quite possibly the most dangerous) are the Guardian Stalkers. These machines walk across Hyrule looking for anyone looking to enter Hyrule Castle. If you are spotted they will lock onto you and prepare to fire a devastating eye laser.
You can stop the laser by striking the Guardian’s eye with any arrow before it fires. This will not only stop the laser but make the Guardian stumble for a few seconds.
However, the best method to defeating Guardians in Breath of the Wild is to using the perfect guard technique. Lock on to the Guardian with your shield up (hold ZL) and just when the laser is about to hit your shield, press A to reflect it back. This will deal more damage than anything else you can throw at it.
The Shock Arrow is another great option to stop eye lasers, as it electrocutes the machine and paralyzes it longer than any other arrow leaving it open to melee attacks. However, we don’t recommend trying to defeat any Guardian with a melee weapon as they will degrade more quickly against its hard shells. Just strike the eye as much as possible with arrows and bombs until they are defeated.
With the Stalkers, you can also strike the legs to incapacitate it and stop it from chasing you.
The Guardian Skywatchers are the giant drones you’ll see in certain mountain ranges in Hyrule. Like the Stalkers, you can hit the eyes before they fire off their lasers but you can also strike the propellers to send them falling to the ground and stop their pursuit of you.
Guardian Turrets are smaller than the Stalkers and don’t move. Instead they are stationary and placed in advantageous spots across dungeons and outposts in Hyrule. Just strike the eye before lasers are fired and you’ll be fine.
Certain Shrines in Breath of the Wild will test Link’s strength in battle against Guardian Scouts. These Guardians are a little larger than Link, and will implement different tactics to take you down including striking with melee weapons, or launching an eye laser that strikes the surrounding area.
You can use melee weapons against them while they are trying to attack with their own melee weapons but once they perform their area laser attack, you can step back out of its range and toss bombs at it.
Also, if they are trying to hit you with a homing laser use an Ice Arrow on its eye to temporarily freeze the Scout. If you quickly go to attack it while it’s frozen, greater damage than usual will be dealt.
If you have the Guardian Shield, you can put up your shield using the ZL button and reflect eye blasts back at the Scouts.
ANCIENT PARTS
Once defeated, Guardians drop Ancient parts that can be sold for a high price or used to forge strong Ancient weapons and armor.
You’ll need to find Robbie in the Akkala Lab to gain access to the forging machine to create Guardian weapons and armor that will help you defeat Guardians more easily. However, they cost a pretty rupee and require all sorts of Ancient Parts.
Besides defeating all sorts of Guardians for the Ancient Parts, there are Guardians that are decommissioned that you can approach and grab Ancient Screws and other parts from without having to go through a battle.
These Guardians are usually covered with grass and don’t glow so just approach one and examine it.
Certain Shrine chests carry rare Ancient Cores too so be sure to find every chest in each Shrine.
Have you had success defeating Guardians in Breath of the Wild? Let us know if you got any part of the Ancient Set in the comments section below. Also, be sure to check out more of our articles and guides about the game.
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