Blue Protocol: Star ResonanceHeavy Guardian Block Spec GuideBest build and how to play the class.

Heavy Guardian - Introduction

Heavy Guardian - Block is one of the classes available in Blue Protocol: Star Resonance. They fulfill the Tank role while wielding a Guardblade as their weapon of choice. Find their best build and how to play them properly in our guide. Difficulty:

Heavy Guardian has also access to a second spec - Earthfort - and if you're looking for a guide to that spec, check here.

Update Tracker

Last guide update

09.10.2025

Overview

Best Skills

Talents

Gear

Rotation & How to Play

Introduction

If you're looking to be the ultimate team shield, the Heavy Guardian - Block Spec is your go-to! Think of it as an absolute fortress: it's incredibly tanky and all about soaking up massive amounts of damage rather than dishing it out. This focus on survivability means you won't get knocked down easily, and can keep the heat off your teammates. In fact, this is the tank with the highest damage mitigation in the game, starting with a base 30% damage reduction from the Block mechanic alone, which you can boost even higher with your talent tree and Mastery stats. It's straightforward to play too; you can easily pull groups of monsters together with Sandgrip and become a stone wall under the effects of Countercrush and Brave Bastion, making this spec a favorite for dungeons and raids.

Ratings

Self-Sustain [2/5]

Tank Damage [2/5]

Utility [5/5]

Mitigation [5/5]

Difficulty [1/5]

Pros & Cons

Pros

High skill flexibility - can run more control or resource generation.
Best raw damage mitigation.
Easy to play.

Cons

Difficult early game due to lack of Luck.
Low self-sustain capabilities.

Best Skills Loadout

Basic ATK

Halberd’s Edge

Skill

Countercrush

Ultimate

Cracking Echo

Slot 1 - Mandatory

Granite Fury

Slot 2 - Mandatory

Brave Bastion

Slot 3 - Flex

Sandshroud

Sandgrip

Star Shatter

Sandward

Slot 4 - Flex

Sandshroud

Sandgrip

Star Shatter

Sandward

Resources

Rage - This is our main resource that is consumed when using our Special skill and some of our Expertise skills. We generate Rage through taking damage, basic attacking, and the use of Star Shatter or Sandshroud. With our endgame talents, we can also gain 2 Rage from blocking enemy attacks or 4 Rage from a Lucky Block.

Sand Crystal - Sand Crystals are our secondary resource that is needed to cast some of our Expertise skills. We can gain shards from Star Shatter or Sandshroud. With our endgame talents, we can also gain 1 Sand Crystal from blocking enemy attacks or 2 from a Lucky Block.

Skills Explained

Fixed Skills

Halberd’s Edge
- Our four-string basic combo that provides 5 Rage for each hit. Based on our Luck chance, this can become enhanced to Rageblow after using
Granite Fury
.
Countercrush - Provides us with 100% block chance and 30% damage reduction when blocking. This is the bread and butter of Block Heavy Guardian, and we should aim to keep this up at all times.
Cracking Echo
- Our ultimate does a lot of things: Instantly generates 5 Sand Crystals, taunts enemies in range, stuns targets for 3s, and deals damage. On top of all of that, it grants the Earth Guard buff, which grants super armor, increases Armor by 100%, increases Max HP by 50% and generates 40 Rage. It is a great offensive or defensive tool for us, depending on the situation.

Mandatory Skills

Granite Fury
- Consumes Sand Crystals to deal damage and reduce damage taken by 10% for 10 seconds. Our goal with this skill is to generate enough Sand Crystals to keep up the damage reduction at all times.

Can evolve into Stone Fist with talents.

Brave Bastion
Provides up to 20% damage reduction when blocking for 13 seconds at max level, with an option to extend the duration for 5 more seconds by spending Sand Crystals. This skill will also taunt nearby enemies and automatically counter red flashing enemies.

Flex Skills (Choose 2)

Star Shatter
- Charges forward and stuns the enemy, granting 25 Rage and 1 Sand Crystal on hit. This skill is used to stun enemies and provide us with our resources to upkeep Countercrush’s 100% block rate all of the time. This skill has two charges and a 12s charge time.
Sandshroud
- We gather sand around ourselves and deal DoT to nearby enemies while also generating a total of 33 Rage and 6 Sand Crystals over a 6-second period. This is a great option for gaining resources when we are low on Luck and unable to get them via lucky procs or when facing 1 single enemy. Our block frequency will be lower against a single enemy than a large group, so we will not get as many Sand Crystals and Rage from blocking.
Sandgrip
- A great skill for gathering enemies in a dungeon, it will pull enemies to you from a good distance away. We also have some nodes in our talent tree that provide us with buffs when we use this skill. An essential option for dungeons and any other content with a high quantity of enemies.

Be mindful that this does not generate any resources for us, so if you are struggling with gaining resources, consider one or both of the skills that generate Rage and Sand Crystals instead.

Sandward
- Allows us to become immune to damage for 5 seconds and taunts nearby enemies. This is a great option if we are ever in a scenario where we can get completely 1 shot through our block, or we need safety from a bunch of hits for the duration. This also provides us with an additional taunt on top of
Brave Bastion
, which can be useful for maintaining aggro or handling multiple quick pulls in a row.

Skill Level Priority

Skill Priority
Brave Bastion
> Countercrush =
Granite Fury
=
Halberd’s Edge
>
Star Shatter
=
Cracking Echo
=
Sandshroud
>
Sandgrip
=
Sandward
Ensure all abilities you’re using are levelled to 30 - only advancement requires consideration.

We recommend focusing on

Brave Bastion

above all other abilities, as it is the only skill that scales our defensive capabilities. After that, you can Advance Countercrush,

Granite Fury

, and

Halberd’s Edge

evenly for some additional damage. Followed by

Star Shatter

Cracking Echo

, and

Sandshroud

, then

Sandgrip

and

Sandward

can be raised, but provide a smaller damage boost.

Best Talents

Important!
Embedded are two different max-level Block talent trees with a couple of minor differences. One tree specializes in Boss DMG mitigation while the other focuses on maximizing Luck, which holds an edge in non-boss content. Choose the one that applies to the content you’re doing; it’s a quick respec to swap back and forth.

Core Talents Explained:

Below is an outline of all the gameplay-altering effects you need to be aware of in the Block spec.

Base Heavy Guardian Tree

Rage Awakening - Enables one of our core mechanics, the Enraged buff, which has a chance of being applied when spending Rage and lasts for 5s.Enraged synergizes with many of our talents but increases our damage by 20%, Move Speed by 10% and grants us super armor baseline.
Suppress - If our HP is higher than the target's, we take 10% less damage and deal 10% more damage. Due to our shielding, this will be active in most cases, making it a potent defensive tool.
Enrage Delay, Valiant Fury,, Fury Shelter, Enraged Suppress - All of these nodes enhance the Enrage state in the following ways:

Extending its duration by 1 second
Adding a 30% armor increase that decays over Enragedduration
Increases HP by 20% while active
Amplifies the mitigation of Suppress from 10% to 15%.

Block Tree

Rage Enhancement - Reduces the cost of
Granite Fury
from 3 Sand Crystals to 2, making maintaining the uptime of its buff smoother.
Heart of Rock - Casting
Granite Fury
10 times grants Heart of Rock. Heart of Rock enhances
Granite Fury
into Stone Fist and attack that summons a giant boulder and guarantees the Enraged status, which triggers some of our best talents and provides great buffs. This talent is one of two ways to obtain Stone Fist.
Sand Block and Block Recovery - Gives us Sand Crystals and Rage, respectively, when blocking. These talents allow us to get our resources back easily in large groups of enemies to upkeep all of our defensive buffs.
Earth Shard and Granite Combo - Earthshard allows us to launch 5 rock projectiles over 10 seconds after using Stone Fist, each shard deals damage and triggers a number of our late-game talents. Granite Combo gives each projectile a chance equal to our luck to be duplicated, which will be useful for later talents.
Granite Fury I & II - There are two talent nodes with this name, but luckily, we take them both. The one that’s higher in the tree summons 1 extra Rock Projectile whenever 50 Rage is generated. The talent node at the bottom of the tree is our second method of upgrading
Granite Fury
into Stone Fist and triggers every time we summon 20 rock projectiles, solidifying the value of the last three talents we discussed.
Enraged Rock Heart - Adds a whopping +10% flat luck chance while we’re enraged to whatever our base luck chance is. This talent makes getting in and staying in Enraged a high priority and something we want to work towards whenever possible.
Sand Block and Block Recovery - Two talents that add extra effects to our blocks. Sand Block grants us Sand Crystals, and Block Recovery grants us Rage, which, when combined, substantially boosts our resource generation for free
Sandstone Rewind and Shattering Rageblow - When
Granite Fury
deals damage, it has a 20%+ chance increased by our luck to enhance our Basic Attack into Rageblow, which grants us 10% Block DMG Reduction for 10s on hit. Sandstorm Rewind also makes it so that when Rageblow deals damage, the cooldown of
Brave Bastion
is reduced by 3s. This allows for higher uptime on
Brave Bastion
, which is our best defensive cooldown.
Intimidation - When Rock Projectiles hit a target, it reduces all damage taken by 10% for 5 seconds. This is one of the main reasons we take the Rock Projectile nodes.

Max Luck Tree

Max Boss Mitigation Tree

Talents

If you want to create your own Talent tree, check our tool:

Talent Planner

Stat Priority

Important!
All gear & talent related info is based on extensive in-game testing, parsing, theory crafting and simulations. If you want to learn more about how damage works to understand our decisions, check out our Damage Formula Guide.

Stat Priority

Crit Rate

Haste

Luck

Mastery

Versatility

Main Stats

Luck - Luck is one of our best stats. It is responsible for triggering many of our best talents, directly influences our chance to Lucky Block, and is a major contributor to any damage we do. Stack as much luck as possible.
Mastery - For Block, Mastery provides 0.2% block damage reduction and 0.2% lucky block damage reduction per 1% Mastery. Since we can achieve a 100% block rate and are investing in Luck, this stat practically translates to damage reduction, making it one of our best stats.
Versatility - This provides us with a multiplier to our damage dealt, healing, and damage reduction, making it an outstanding tank stat all around.
Crit Rate - Crit provides no defensive benefits, meaning it’s not a stat we want to pursue.
Haste - Considering we only obtain the base conversion rate of 1% haste to 0.6% Attack Speed, and have no talents that synergize with it. We gain considerable resources from blocking over basic-attacking. Haste is not a high-priority stat for us.

Bonus Stats

In gear slots you’re not using Set Gear in and which aren’t taken up by your class's signature Class weapon (if you have it), prioritize the following Purple Stats:

Helmet, Armour, Gloves, Boots

HP > Strength % > Ele Resist > Armor

Weapons & Accessories

Resilience Break % > Attack Speed > ATK % > Melee DMG% = DMG% vs. Bosses

Set Gear

Block Heavy Guardian’s 2P and 4P set bonuses are both definitely worth equipping as soon as you’re able to complete Raids and are better than Purple Bonuses. Here is what they do:

2-piece SET

While in Countercrush state, increases Armor by 20%.

4-Piece SET

Granite Fury

has a 30% chance to trigger Weakness Strike.

Class weapon

Our Class weapon is absurdly powerful and definitely worth using over purple stats. Instead of a purple stat it grants

6% Luck.
Increased stats.

Best Modules

Here are the best modules for Heavy Guardian - Block - listed in priority order:

Resistance
- Provides increased Max HP% and a ton of Endurance. Also provides magic damage reduction for further defensive benefit.
Armor
- Provides some flat armor, which is always welcome, but also 6% attack damage reduction, further boosting our tankiness.
Strength Boost
- Provides us with some additional strength and the ability for our damaging skills to contribute a little more with the armor penetration.

Best Battle Imagines

Attention!
The best Block Imagines are incredibly flexible with what’s best depending on the content you’re running and the Imagines your other support party members are using. Below is a guideline of what we recommend for different content types. Also, tank-based Imagines have some of the most unique effects in the game, often meaning they don’t have direct equivalents. Because of this, there is no exact F2P substitution; check out our purple Imagine listing for more info.

ATTENTION!
The list of Imagines below is not a ranking; each listing can be equally useful if the right situation arises. Read the descriptions to understand when to use each.

Trash Clearing

Frost Ogre

Golden Juggernaut

Tempest Ogre

Bosses

Golden Juggernaut

Frost Ogre

Airona

Top Gold Imagines

Airona
- When cast, summons Airona who performs a short prayer before reviving up to 4 downed teammates. Airona is powerful in standard play to resurrect teammates, but also has another use. By equipping our invulnerability, we can survive guaranteed raid wipe mechanics; therefore, the group can forgo completing these, we can invuln them, then use Airona to bring the team back. Incredibly highly valued to have on tanks for raids.
Tempest Ogre
- Upon activation, Tempest Ogre generates a vortex that draws enemies in from a large distance away. Its passive also makes the user take 5% less damage, making this a great option for tanking in dungeons. Tempest Ogres' pull radius is frankly absurd, allowing you to group entire rooms in dungeons, boosting clear times a disgusting amount.
Frost Ogre
- Frost Ogre deals some of the highest resilience break damage in the game on use, allowing us to break enemies far more quickly. Breaking bosses before major mechanics or before they leave the arena can be a huge benefit to the party’s overall damage. Also incredibly effective at controlling large packs of enemies.
Golden Juggernaut
- Passively increases shield strength and grants a 30% HP shield to you and your allies on use at Advancement 0. Allies shielded by this effect also deal additional damage with their hits. Golden Jug offers great offensive and defensive capabilities, serving as a good “oh shit” button while also improving the party's damage somewhat.

The additional hit granted to allies can Crit and Lucky Hit, has a 0.5 second cooldown, and is unique, meaning only one of these buffs can be held at a time.

Tina
- Tina buffs the party with a 50% cooldown reduction for 20 seconds, and once a party member is affected by this effect, they can’t be affected again for 60 seconds (Advancement 0). Tina is considered the best Imagine for support roles due to her buff, allowing classes to go back into their burst window more quickly.

While powerful, Tina is usually best run on sustains. You should only prioritize running it over tank choices if they don’t have it or you’re confident in coordinating up and downtimes.

Top Purple Imagines

Goblin Guard [A5]
- Provides +500 Block passively, and 15% block damage reduction on use. The passive is useless for us as we already have 100% Block chance, but the 15% block damage reduction on use is exceptional at improving our survivability for a short time, making it a solid tank cooldown.
Brigand Guard Captain [A5]
- Grants a passive 12.5% Endurance and an additional 20% on use, massively boosting our HP. Plus, the next 9 times we’re attacked, we instantly recover 20% of our missing HP. This is an incredibly good option when handling groups of enemies to recover HP quickly. Not as uniquely powerful as most of our gold imagine choices, but an outstanding F2P accessible choice to fill in blanks in your build.
Void Arachnocrab [A5]
- After receiving 10 hits, increases Armor by 1125 for 15s. Upon use, it transforms you into Void Arachnocrab and grants invincibility for 5s. This is a great option to gain additional armor and also an invulnerability without changing out one of your skill slots.
Mighty Colossus [A5]
- Transform into Mighty Colossus and charge at the enemy, dealing more resilience damage the longer you charge. Mighty Colossus also passively increases Resilience Break Efficiency and is a good alternative to Frost Ogre if you’re aiming to break enemies often and don’t have him yet.

Best Consumables

Culinary

Buttermelt Roast/ Shroomfish Stew - Grants damage reduction from Elite/Boss monsters and provides us with some Armor as well.
Wanderfruit Juice/ Glazed Meat Relish - Gives us a good option for additional HP to increase our maximum shield threshold.

Alchemy

Elemental Drops - If you know the elemental damage type you’re likely to be up against, you can use Elemental Drops to boost your elemental resistance against it. This is the best approach to boost tankiness.
Earth Serum - When elemental drops aren’t needed or optimal to use, our damage can be boosted with this instead.

Best Gems

Diamond - Strength (Luck) - Luck is the stat we need most, making it our top priority for embedding.
Emerald - Strength (Mastery) - As an alternative to Luck, Mastery can also be embedded.

How To Play

Block is incredibly simple to play. Our goal is to maintain our 100% block rate buff by using Countercrush and damage reduction buff from using

Granite Fury

. The rest of our actions will be spent building resources and aiming to trigger and maintain as many of our talent-based buffs as possible.

Here is a priority system for how and why we use our skills:

Countercrush to activate and maintain guaranteed blocks
Star Shatter
/
Sandshroud
to start gaining Sand Crystals (if using)
Use
Sandgrip
to draw in nearby enemies and group them for your team (if using)
Brave Bastion
to taunt nearby enemies and increase your damage reduction
Granite Fury
to spend Sand Crystals and to further increase your damage reduction
Use enhanced basic attack if it procs and standard basic attacks to fill downtime

Granite Fury

can be enhanced to Stone Fist, which is a high damage guaranteed crit ability that we gain access to after using

Granite Fury

10 times, or after 20 Rock Projectiles have been fired. This is a very valuable ability as it guarantees us the Enrage buff on use, which grants further tankiness and activates our talents. Use it tactically before it expires or is activated again to avoid wastage.

Auto Viability

Can Block be played on auto?
Block is primarily a class that revolves around using the majority of its abilities on cooldown, making auto-play for it fine if you’re ok with the loss of control that comes with it. If you plan to play on auto, however, we recommend removing Sandrip, Sandward, and Imagines from auto at a minimum to prevent wastage.