Shadow Lords Guardians Tier List

Shadow Lords
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Here’s my personal Tier List on the Shadow Lords Guardians. Take note that this list barely takes into account MP and all Guardians are at Killer or Crimson Status.

S Tier:

Snake: Poison Bite is just too much of a useful ability to not put on S and allows you to quickly rack up damage and complete fights quickly. The stats boost is great too.

Exemplar: With the Biggest Stat boost of all, the ability to Parry, The rewards for parrying and the amount of parries you get even with a Common version, this Guardian rewards good players with a potential god mode and makes it an easy S Tier.

A+ Tier:

Fractured Ward: Having free Super Armor makes any character get the upsides of Aganos’ Chunks and allows for hyper offensive playstyles. Easily a A+ Tier in my book since it is significantly better than the Vampire Bat but is outclassed by the Top 2.

A Tier:

Vampire Bat: A mix of the 2 S Tiers but more focused on the healing aspect. The amount of Health, Shadow and Instinct you can steal is amazing and can cripple any character relying on the latter 2 and boost them up greatly if these characters use it.

B Tier:

Ram: Free Combo Breakers are great and all but you eventually run out and the effect becomes obsolete if you know the combos of your opponent.

Owl: The best at baiting and punishing, the Feral Dash allows you to bait attacks and punish whiffs for free. Although it regens all dashes at the same time, it only regens them when you run out, which is a minor inconvenience.

C Tier:

Tiger: Guard Crushes are only useful if you keep getting blocked out which is a bad thing. The fact that the meter drains (Unless Crimson) cripples it to the point that it’s good use may not even come-in while fighting.

Astral Tiki: Situational, underwhelming, and the Snake does the damage thing way better than the Tiki.

Watcher: Only comes to use to Zoners like Glacius and has the same minor downside of the Owl.
Barely gives an avantage when it’s effect is used too.

F Tier:

Lion: Unlike the C Tiers, the Lion has no redeeming qualities. It’s initial stat boost is extremely weak, the effect only takes off it you are bad and even at max potential if you are in Danger, it has a smaller stat boost than the Exemplar and the effect is of no use if you don’t lose your Green Health Bar.

Do you agree with my list? Anything you would change?

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Fractured Ward is S-Tier, and easily the best Guardian.

‘What if every move for my character was safe on block and also had priority over anything my opponent might throw out?’

Its even better in practice against the AI than it should be, because it completely turns the tables on their input reading nonsense. The AI will always think it can stuff a low priority gap closing special, so it will try and then get punished by the armor. High level AI also always tries to punish jump openers with anti-air, which Fractured Ward turns into free damage for you.

Its such nonsense that I don’t see how either the Snake or Exemplar can remotely compete for the #1 spot.

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  • Snake allows you to do high levels of damage and guarenteed Level 4 Enders.
  • The rewards for parrying, the ability itself and the amount of parries you get with the Exemplar essentially gives you infinite Shadow and Instinct with a massive Health Regen.

Don’t get me wrong, Ward is powerful but it’s relatively low amount, the fact that whiffing something can cost you alot of Armor and the long regen time makes it lower than the S Tiers but can arguably be bumbed up to A+.

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The AI will never jump a meaty Influence from Hisako, and you can get to level 4 with her without the AI ever breaking. Once you get a single hard knockdown, their life bar is over. Fractured Ward lets you easily get that first knockdown, so it’s pretty OP with Hisako.