How to Defeat Ruin Guards in Genshin Impact

Ruin Guards are large robot-like monsters that appear in various locations in Genshin Impact. You'll often find them sitting or patrolling near ruins, staying true to their name. As a new player, killing a Ruin Guard may seem like a frightening challenge; but once you understand their moves and the strategies to use, they'll be quite easy to take care of.

You can find Ruin Guards all over the map. To quickly search for one, find it in your Adventurer's Handbook and click on "Navigate." You'll be directed to a Ruin Guard in your vicinity.

When you approach a Ruin Guard, it may be either active or inactive. Active Ruin Guards will be standing and moving around. Inactive ones will be sitting, and will activate once you get close to them. You can check if an inactive Ruin Guard is alive or not by using your Elemental Sight. If they glow white, they are alive and will activate. If not, you can ignore it.

How to Defeat Ruin Guards in Genshin Impact

Ruin Guards have a total of five moves they can use against you:

• Stomp: The Ruin Guard raises its foot and stomps the ground in front of it.
• Clap: The Ruin Guard leans down, extends both arms, and then brings them together in front in a forceful clap.
• Punch and jump combo: The Ruin Guard punches the air in front of it twice before jumping into the air, and landing at your location. You'll see a red circle indicating where it'll land.
• Spin attack: The Ruin Guard starts spinning and generating a dangerous whirlwind around it, chasing you as it spins.
• Missiles: If you are far away from the Ruin Guard, it will kneel down, become stationary, and start aiming a volley of six missiles at your character. You'll see a red crosshair appear on your character when it does this. The missiles are heat-seeking and do lots of damage.

The first three attacks are rather easy to dodge as long as you watch the Ruin Guard's movements. The spin attack is a dangerous one, as it deals high damage if you become trapped in the whirlwind. Make sure you are not close to a wall or corner, and keep a safe distance away from the Ruin Guard when it spins. The missile attack can be dodged, but the best way to deal with it is to take the chance to knock the Ruin Guard down, as explained below.

Knocking down a Ruin Guard involves hitting one of its weak spots - the eye at the center of its head, or a small socket on its back, opposite from the eye. It's highly recommended to use an archer to hit these spots. Once you land a hit, the Ruin Guard will be briefly staggered. If you follow up quickly with a second hit, the Ruin Guard will become incapacitated and sit down for a short period of time, allowing you to attack it as much as you wish.

If you land your first hit and fail to follow up, protective runes will appear on the Ruin Guard's weak spots, preventing you from knocking it down for a while. If this happens, try to avoid the Ruin Guard's attacks until you can try again.

Once defeated, Ruin Guards can drop Chaos Devices, Chaos Circuits, and Chaos Cores, which are needed to ascend certain characters and weapons. Higher-level Ruin Guards may even drop artifacts from the Traveling Doctor, Berserker, Instructor, or The Exile sets.