Everything you need to know about choosing the right classes for your main squad
In this post:
- Introduction
- Why Classes Are Important
- Warrior
- Tank
- Assassin
- Ranger
- Mage
- Support
- Formation Building 101
- Conclusion
Introduction
Hi Folks. Welcome back to another GameFi Nexus post.
It’s hard to choose which characters to buy without playing the game first.
The prices of some Founder Guardians have made it over the 400 USD mark, and that’s a big commitment to make when you have no idea how the asset will perform in-game.
In GoG, the combination of Guardians in your squad matters a lot! You need to select ones that work well together to build a strong squad, and understanding how classes work is your starting point.
In this article, I’ll cover how each of GoG’s 6 classes work, and I’ll also share some basic tips to help you figure things out.
Let’s get started!
Why Classes Are Important
Classes in GoG determine three things about your Guardians.
- What type of gear they wear (strength, agility, or intelligence)
- Their base primary stats (attack, defense, hit points)
- Their behavior in battle
To be honest, I don’t find the first two influence things that much.
The three gear types offer the same bonuses, and those affect your Guardian’s performance way more than their base stats.
How they behave in battle is another matter.
GoG is an auto-battler. All you control is when a Guardian uses their ultimate skill, so your squad’s performance depends mostly on their AI.
Having a strong squad at the start will let you progress through the game quickly to get better gear and better rewards.
What Do Guardian Classes Do?
GoG’s class system isn’t all that complicated at the moment. If you’ve played a lot of different RPGs, you’ll be familiar with how a few of these play.
The classes in GoG are:
A quick word about stats
The tables that follow contain stats that I lifted directly from the game. There’s a good chance these don’t match the ones that appear in your game for a variety of reasons.
I included them to show how the classes differ from each other.
Warriors
As you probably guessed, warriors are primarily physical damage dealers. They equip strength gear and will always target the nearest enemy.
Warriors are in a weird spot in the game. They can’t take a hit as well as tanks because of their lower HP and defense, but their base attack stat is the second lowest out of all the classes.
Because of that, you’re almost better off choosing another tank or self-healing Guardian for your front row.
Certain warriors like Corvus, Kriez, and Dorro can dish out a lot of damage with their ultimates. Others, like Tybor, Prielle and Damos have abilities that make them more durable.
All of them can be viable. But overall, I find warriors die too fast in high-difficulty content to be effective. Hopefully, they’ll receive some care and attention from the team before the game launches.
Tanks
Tanks are probably the most well-known character role across the RPG genre. They soak up attacks from enemy formations to give your damage dealers time to dispose of them.
Tanks equip strength gear and have the highest base HP and defense in the game. They tend to stay locked on the enemy’s front row characters, unlike warriors who will turn around and attack enemies behind them.
Tank abilities typically focus on increasing their own survivability with shields, damage reduction, additional HP, and in Grine’s case, resurrection.
Telva and Ikam have abilities that taunt the opponent — redirecting their attacks away from other units.
Ikam’s unique item can roll an ability upgrade that increases the duration of his taunt by 10 seconds, which is perfect for providing your second front row character with some cover.
There are a ton of tanks to choose from, but my favorite Web2 tanks are Tsurgog, Ikam and Grine.
Assassins
Assassins focus on dealing physical melee damage to an enemy’s back row. They have the highest base attack in the game, and surprisingly, aren’t far behind warriors for survivability even though they wear agility gear.
Most assassins have an active skill which makes them teleport to the squishiest enemy to inflict a devastating attack.
That can be a really effective way to deal with ranged enemies and healers, but it comes at cost.
After delivering this strike, your assassin will be targeted by the other two (or potentially three) surviving back-line enemies and any warriors in the front row.
You need a plan to keep them alive through 20 to 50 consecutive fights, and that can take a bit more finessing than with some other classes who can just power their way through a dungeon.
That can involve a mix of things like stacking evade gear and runes, pairing them with Guardians who can taunt, or backing them up with big AoE damage dealers who can reach the back row.
So, don’t let your assassin’s quick demise turn you off from them. They’re quite fun to play with and can speed up combat dramatically once you figure them out.
Some Web2 Assassins to try include Salve, Ashwyn and Fievall. Salve is particularly effective because his ultimate skill can literally mow down the enemy’s back row.
Rangers
Rangers are about one thing only; dealing massive amounts of physical damage from a distance. They wear agility gear, but unlike assassins, they don’t tolerate damage very well.
Rangers have the lowest HP and defense ratings in the game, so you’ll need to keep them out of trouble with strong front-line characters who can keep the enemy busy.
Even if you do, they tend to be highly vulnerable to attacks from enemy assassins and other rangers.
The targeting behavior for rangers can be unpredictable as well. They can be incredibly effective when they decide to target the enemy’s back row, but less so when they choose to target damage resistant tanks.
That’s why I personally prefer rangers who can hit multiple enemies with their abilities, like Atticus or Derisda.
Mages
It goes without saying that mages are the main source of magic damage in the game.
Mages wear intelligence gear, usually have ranged attacks, and are somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to their base stats.
They aren’t as resilient as warriors, but most of them output significantly more damage with their basic attacks and abilities.
The appeal of mages in GoG is based on the versatility of their kits as opposed to their damage output.
For example, Tian Long, one of the Gen 1 Legendary mages, can deal high AoE damage, heal himself, debuff enemies with silence and buff his own attack power. That makes him a great alternative to a warrior in your front row.
Tallah, best known as Sunday daily check-in reward, is beloved by a lot of GoG community members for her ability to stack burn status on the enemy formation.
Mages can provide a lot of different benefits to your formation, so make sure to experiment with them in place of other guardian classes.
Support
Support Guardians focus on buffing your formation, debuffing the enemy formation or healing.
They use intelligence gear and are comparable to mages stats-wise. They’re a bit more resilient however, and I’ve seen some formations use them in their front row.
Support Guardians with healing abilities are almost a necessity in GoG’s Adventure and Endless modes.
You’ll almost certainly want to include one or more of Flix, Aquiris, Aria or Tavros to keep your Guardians alive through harder content.
Outside of healing, support Guardians can contribute in a variety of ways.
Some, like Elohatt, Oxellus and Bahram can contribute to your formation’s damage output directly. Others like Griselle, Thorit, Andronica and Zole can provide your Guardians with big-time buffs.
It can seem counterintuitive to take out a Guardian focused on damage dealing for a support one, but I’ll encourage you not to sleep on them because they can lead to some very powerful outcomes on the battlefield.
Formation Building 101
First, let me start by saying that there are many, many ways to approach this. Discovering new strategies is part of the fun.
My goal in this section is to help get you started with a few basic tips. I plan on doing a post dedicated to formation building soon, so keep an eye out for that if you want to read up on it.
You Don’t Need 10 Guardians
Just because you can take 10 Guardians with you on a dungeon run, doesn’t mean you should.
Progression in the regional test was slow, and I don’t see the team speeding things up any time soon.
The global version will have some features to speed up play, but it’ll still take a really long time to gather all the materials you need to max out your gear, skills and enlightenment/radiance levels.
You’ll find it really hard to keep up with the game’s content if you spread those materials out over 10 separate Guardians at the start. The better play is to stick with a single squad to clear Adventure mode quickly.
Farming will become easier as you unlock harder stages with better rewards, and that’s when you can start expanding your roster.
Build Around Your Primary Targets
Fighting through your enemy’s tanks and warriors to get to their back row isn’t the most effective way to win. That gives high DPS enemies in the back time to hit you several times with their ultimate attacks.
A good starting point for your formation is deciding how to deal with the enemy’s damage dealers hanging out in the back. The best choices for that would be a ranger, an assassin or a mage.
You’ll be in a better position to build your formation once you’ve made this choice.
A Healer Tank Combo Is Almost Mandatory
I don’t want to say it’s impossible to build a viable formation with no tanks and/or healers, but I think they’re mandatory for all GoG beginners.
Your tanks will keep melee enemies away. That gives your other units time to inflict damage and build up their energy meters.
The longer you keep your tank alive the better! And that means having at least one healer on top of the right runes to make sure they are always at full health.
For the most part that means carrying Flix, Tavros or Aquiris.
There are A LOT of tanks to choose from. Cyrus and Freia are the best by default as the only two legendary tanks in the game — but they’re pricey.
Epic Founder and Core 1 tanks are viable too, so consider those if you’re on a budget.
Conclusion
Classes aren’t a new concept in RPGs. If you’ve been playing these games for a long time, you’ll adapt quickly to the Guild of Guardian class system.
Here’s a summary of what we covered:
- Tanks soak up the enemy’s attacks
- Warriors can deal a fair amount of physical damage and take a hit
- Rangers focus on dealing high ranged damage
- Assassins are specialized melee units that attack enemies in the back row
- Mages are the main magic damage dealers
- Supports focus on healing, buffing, and debuffing
Once you understand the system, you can start building a solid formation.
If you focus on upgrading a single squad with the right classes, you’ll be able to advance quickly through the game’s PVE content.
A good early strategy is to choose a tank, a healer and a Guardian who can hit the enemy’s back row. The other two slots will be easier to fill once you’ve made those decisions.
I hope you enjoyed this article and got something from it! If you did, don’t forget to follow me for more and hit the clap button on the bottom right of your screen.
Thank you, I appreciate all your support!
I love talking about game strategy, so please leave a response and let me know about your own formation tips.
