At the start of the game, the only Guardians you come across are broken down and you can salvage them for an easy ancient machine part. As you progress you will find some that are partially active, they can shoot you, but can’t move. A single shot from the beam can often kill you which makes them a really tough enemy. They do have a massive weakness though, in fact, one you know, they actually become a fairly easy enemy to handle. Here is how you can easily kill Guardians in Breath of the Wild.
How To Damage Guardians
Like all enemies, the Guardians have a weak spot. Shooting an arrow at the eye of a Guardian will cause massive damage. The eye is small though and you must be precise. A bomb arrow near the eye doesn’t count. It needs to be a direct hit. Using stealth makes this easier. If you can watch the pattern of the Guardian, sneak up behind it. Once you are close, get its attention and it will aim the eye at you. This gives you plenty of time to line up a shot. If you use an Ancient Arrow, it will kill the Guardian in 1 shot.
If you come across a Guardian that is walking, you can attack the legs to cripple it. This won’t stop the eye attacks, but it will stop it from running after you.
Another really useful way for dealing with guardians is to use a shield. People say that its best to use the ancient shield, but this works with any shield. Wait until the Guardian fires the beam at you. Just as it leaves the eye, pull out your shield and use the parry at the right moment using A. This will reflect the beam back at the Guardian causing it some massive damage. It won’t normally kill it, but it takes a nice chunk of health away.
How To Defend Against Guardians
Defending against Guardians seems like an impossible task. Any armor no matter how many times it has been upgraded seems to melt like butter when hit with a Guardian beam attack. The good news is there is a specific set of armor that is designed to defend against Guardians. This also happens to be the best armor set in the game, so obtaining it as early as possible is definitely a good idea. The Ancient armor set offers a nice amount of defense against a guardian beam attack, on top of the other armor benefits it offers. Check out the Ancient armor page on the walkthrough for more on how to obtain it. Once you have this armor, they do a hell of a lot less damage. You will be more worried about bats than the Guardians once you have this armor set.