Guard

Like in mainline, guard is one of the 3 main defensive answers in Now, with dodging and getting out of the hitzone. But its workings in game are slightly different than in mainline. This article will explain everything from attacks knockback power to guard thresholds, assuming you’re not familiar with mainline guard secrets.

This article was written in March 2026. Due to Now being a mobile game (and all the values shared here are server side aka not accessible through datamine), keep in mind that these can change whenever the dev decide to nerf or buff something.

Thanks to Hazyd who helped me in the research and testing!

Attack knockback power (KB)

A guard is obviously paired with a monster’s attack. Each monster attack has various parameters in the game files. Two of these parameters are important for guard:

• Guard requirements
• Knockback power (I’ll call it KB)

In mainline, Guard requirements involve guard angle, stamina, Guard Up… In Now it’s easier, there’s only a check on the Guard Up skill. Some attacks such as Garangolm giant steam explosion are defined as ‘impossible to block’. Guarding them will result in you getting hit, unless you have the Guard Up skill who allows you to block them.

KB is a numerical value linked to each attack of a monster. It’s different than the attack damage and should not be impacted by the monster rank (at least on the monsters and attacks we’ve tested we noted no difference but Wilds has some attacks that get increased knockback at higher monster ranks so there’s a precedent of such a thing in mainline).

For this testing, we found a lot of KB values using the Reflection skill, a skill dealing a hit in front of your shield when you block based on your attack and the blocked attack KB value. Here’s an example with Garangolm.

Attack	KB
Tremor from full body slam	0
Arm swing	15
Arm downslam	30
Arm double punch	45
Roar, ground pulling, charge	60
Full body slam, steam explosion	80

KB always augment by increments of 5, the value usually being between 0 and 60 with a few powerful hits jumping straight to 80 (we couldn’t find any 65, 70, 75 KB attacks during our testing on various monsters). 60 KB hits are generally strong hits (Tigrex charge, Banbaro rock throw…) while 80 KB are nukes (Garangolm steam explosion and body slam, Rajang somersault and laser, Glavenus spinning slash, Brute Tigrex sonic blasts…).

KB interacts with your weapon guard thresholds, inducing various knockback when you block an attack. So what are knockbacks and guard thresholds?

Knockback

Knockback is the reaction your hunter is subjected to when blocking an attack. There are 3 tiers of knockback, heavy, medium and weak, each with a different animation and an amount of HP lost. Performing a perfect guard in Now won’t reduce the knockback animation but does reduce the HP lost, even negating it outside of heavy knockback.

Knockback	Guard HP loss	Perfect guard HP loss
Heavy	30% of the original attack	15% of the original attack
Medium	15% of the original attack	0% of the original attack
Weak	5% of the original attack	0% of the original attack

Heavy knockback should be avoided at all cost. Aside from the obvious damage, the animation goes over anything you were doing and will cancel your action (lance guard dash, counter, GS guard tackle style for instance).

Since your HP are pretty important in Now, increasing your defense is even more recommended for guard playstyles than evade ones since it will reduce the original damage taken. And obviously, 30% of 100HP lost is lower than 30% of 50HP lost.

Guard thresholds

Knockback is determined by the game comparing your weapon guard thresholds and the attack KB. Guard thresholds are arbitrary values set for each weapon type, with a medium and a heavy threshold. If the attack KB is over the medium threshold, you take medium knockback instead of weak. And obviously if the attack KB is over the heavy threshold, you take heavy knockback instead of medium.

And using this knowledge, we can figure out weapons guard thresholds by testing them against various KB values.

Weapon	Medium threshold	Heavy threshold
SnS	9	29
Lance	29	49
GL	29	49
CB	19	39
HBG	14	34

These are base values but some weapons have additional mechanics and styles that increases their guard thresholds. Some skills also have some effects on guard.

Weapon mechanics and style changes

GS

Base style GS can’t block but Rage Slash style has access to the Guard Tackle (hold then fling forward). Guard Tackle has huge guard thresholds of 49-69, meaning it can pretty much block everything with medium knockback aside from nukes.

Surge Slash style also allows blocking (hold) but only during the two strikes of the initial 3 attack combo (holding after will result in a charged attack). Its guard thresholds are 19-39.

SnS

I just put it here to avoid people asking: SnS styles have no impact on its guard thresholds.

Lance

Base style lance has two moves increasing its guard thresholds. Counter (hold then fling backwards) will increase guard thresholds by +10, giving you 39-59, while guard dash (hold then fling sideways) will increase them by +20, giving you 49-69.

Style wise, while Shield Tackle style has no inherent guard buff, Insta-block has a huge impact on guard. If you land an Insta-block, any knockback you will receive will be canceled both in animation and damage, allowing for some powerful counters (even a 80KB move will do nothing at all). But as a trade-off, you take double knockback damage on a regular guard (so a heavy knockback regular guard will let you take 60% of the attack damage). Insta-block will also still need Guard Up against the attacks ‘impossible to block’.

GL

In Guard Reload style, the Guard reload move (hold then fling backwards) increase your guard thresholds by +10, giving you 39-59.

CB

Red shield buff and guard points both increase guard thresholds by +10, giving you 29-49. Their buffs also adds up so a guard point with the red shield active will grant you 39-59.

HBG

Skills

Guard

Guard increases your guard thresholds by +10 for each level, meaning you can get up to +50 guard thresholds at max level.

You can see here for instance SnS and lance reaction to all KB values according to Guard levels (green for weak, yellow for medium, red for heavy, values 65, 70, 75 being crossed since they theorically don’t exist ingame).

Guard also seems to decrease the damage taken while guarding but the damage reduction is too hard to figure out. You can basically get 0 to 3 less damage on each level, with the latest levels tending to give more damage reduction.

Assuming you try to block everything with medium knockback (perfect resulting in 0 damage), interesting break points for the skills are:

• Rage slash GS: Guard 2 will allow to power through nukes with medium knockback
• SnS: Guard 5 will result in medium knockback on 60KB hits and heavy on nukes, no way to get lower
• Lance: Guard 4 allows medium knockback on nukes, you can get as low as Guard 2 assuming you use guard dash against nukes; Shield Tackle style need Guard 4 against nukes as it has no access to guard dash; Insta-block style can totally negate knockback thus has no need for Guard (but takes twice as much damage on regular guard and you will be more exposed to heavy knockback; it may also need Guard Up)
• GL: Guard 4 allows medium knockback on nukes; Guard Reload style can run Guard 3 assuming you block nukes using guard reload
• CB: using either red shield or guard point with Guard 4 will allow you to block nukes with medium knockback, pairing them allows you to drop to Guard 3 for the same result
• HBG

If you want to only be able to block 60KB hits and dodge nukes instead, you can lower all the levels described here by 2 (Rage Slash GS can block 60KB at Guard 0, Lance can block 60 KB at Guard 2 on base guard and Guard 0 with guard dash, etc).

Guard Up

As explained in a previous part, Guard Up is required to block certain attacks like Garangolm steam explosion.

Reflection

Reflection deals an explosive hit in front of your shield when blocking. Since it’s explosive, it can’t crit but will ignore the HZV, always acting as if it hits a 130% HZV. The hit MV is based on the skill level and the blocked attack KB and the damage is based on your raw (so raw and status weapon get more strength out of it than elemental weapons who have a lower raw).

The damage formula is as follow:

Weapon raw X (Reflection damage + KB)% X 130%

Skill level	Reflection damage
1	20
2	35
3	55
4	70
5	90