Garden Guardian

Garden Guardian =

Blood Fount =

Stone Shield =

"The very grounds themselves are animated by a deep-rooted evil, a cosmic hatred for all that thrive beyond its tainted grasp. Narration_cc_statue_start.wav"

- The Ancestor.

Behavior
The Garden Guardian is a Boss found within the Courtyard. It is a giant statue made up of three enemies; The Garden Guardian, The Blood Fount, and the Stone Shield.

It can only be accessible after having defeated the Countess, he will then become the objective of a renewable quest named, "Defeat the Fallen Guardian". This quest allow the player to earn one's trinket from a Trinket Sets. Moreover, the boss himself will loot one of them (and also a Blueprint), which guarantess two unique trinkets for the player.

Strategy
The Garden Guardian, his shield, and his spear, are all separate with their own actions and life bars, but the Guardian himself will not take any actions unless his shield is destroyed (if this occurs, he will use Hatred Beyond Time and Annihilating Gaze). For this reason, it is strongly recommended to not destroy it.

The shield will guard the Guardian every other turn. It will alternate between guarding him and charging its attack. Once the Shield uses "Skyward Shield", you may attack the Guardian. The Shield will come back down with another attack that strikes one or two heroes with heavy damage, stun, and move.

The Spear will also attack. It will strike with a move that induces bleed and high damage on two of your heroes (Feed the Soil). It does not have much HP, so when the shield is down, focus it, it's easy to quickly collapse it, and this would depreciate the damage suffered during the rest of the fight.

If the shield is destroyed, the Guardian will use two moves every turn: Hatred Beyond Time, a permanent damage buff that gets higher and higher every turn, and Annihilating Gaze, an AoE damage nuke that hits every party member. This will continue for the rest of the fight, and is extremely hard to counter. Once again, it is recommended you do not destroy his shield.

To sum up: When his shield is raised, focus on DPS. When it is lowered, focus on heals and buffs (or strike down the spear).

A marking party made up of an Arbalest, Houndmaster and Bounty Hunter equipped with Sculptor's Tools, along with an Occultist or Vestal in the back for additional healing should do well. While you won't benefit from marking debuffs, you'll still get the damage bonuses which are important to counter his high PROT.

He is immune to any debuffs and DoTs, so they are not recommended.

He can't dodge, so it's useless to bring trinkets which buff the accuracy. Besides, the Shield have a very high accuracy (130%~), and it's not a good idea to buff up the dodge, it's better to focus on protection, stress protection, critical, pure dmg, or Bleed resist.

Abilities
Garden Guardian =

Blood Fount =

Stone Shield =

* Uses this ability at the end of the round

** Use this ability at the start of the round

Trivia
The Garden Guardian is the only enemy that have a dual type where one of the types is unique. Stonework is also the only unique enemy type that the player can receive bonus damage against, namely through the Trinket Sculptor's Tools.