Guard is a status effect that a character or monster can inflict upon an ally. It is signalled by a big light blue shield icon under the target.
Effects and interactions
A guarded target will automatically redirect any direct attack to the guarding entity, avoiding all damage and effects from it. Any subsequent effects of the redirected attack, such as debuffs, stuns or any other effects will also be redirected to the guarding character. The guarding character which will effectively count as being targeted by the attack, triggering effects like Riposte or dodge, and reducing the damage by any Protection value, if any. However, any pre-existing damage over time effects (such as blight or bleed) present on the guarded entity will continue to run its course as usual.
The guard effect generally lasts three turns, during which an additional use of the guarding ability will override the previous.
Area of effect attacks will hit a guarded character without redirection if the guarding character would also be hit by the attack, meaning that carefully placed area attacks are effective at affecting guarded characters.
A stun effect on the guarding character will also end the guard effect.
Guarding and countering a guard
The Man-at-Arms can guard an ally in order to redirect all damage from it to himself, while also fortifying himself to better receive the damage; a similar ability is available to the Hound Master, who can improve his own Dodge value for the duration of the guard. This is an effective technique to prevent damage to weakened or fragile allies and allows a team with a healer such as Occultist or Vestal to focus their healing abilities on one target. In addition, the Antiquarian has an ability that forces an ally to guard her, giving a protection buff to them in return.
Some enemies, such as the Pelagic Guardian, are able to guard another enemy, preventing direct damage dealt to them and potentially rendering dangerous but frail monsters much harder to bring down. Several methods of countering this exist, such as area of effect attacks that hit both the guarded and guarding unit simultaneously (thus damaging both), or stunning the guarding unit to end the guard. Keep in mind that attacking the guarded target with a stunning ability will cause the attack to be redirected to the guardian, thus stunning it and ending the guard, even if the guardian is normally out of range of the stunning ability.
Alternatively, if you have a hero who can activate a Riposte and make guarded enemies attack them, hits from Riposte are not redirected by guard, and go straight to the guarded enemy. Be aware that the same is true of enemies that have Riposte as well.
Shieldbreaker's Puncture ability bypasses and removes a guard from the target, and applies a debuff that prevents this enemy from being guarded for 2 rounds. Jester's Dirk Stab also bypasses but does not remove guard.