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Crimson Guard
Stats
Abilities
Guard
For 7 seconds, grant nearby allied heroes and buildings a 100% chance to block damage equal to 70 plus 2% of the caster's max health value from each incoming attack. Radius: 1200
Damage Block
Grants a 60% chance to block 75 damage from incoming attacks on melee heroes, and 50 damage on ranged.
Components
Strategy
Why Buy Crimson Guard?
Crimson Guard is the “nope” item against physical lineups.
Not against one right-click carry who crits you once. Against the stuff that actually kills teams in real games: fast hits, many hits, summons, illusions, and five heroes punching at the same time.
Because Crimson doesn’t reduce damage like armor does. It blocks damage. A block is brutal when the enemy’s DPS is coming from lots of smaller attacks. It turns "We're getting shredded” into "They're hitting us and nothing is happening.”
The active is the whole personality: you press Guard, and suddenly your nearby allies—and even buildings—start blocking a chunk of damage from every incoming attack for a short window. That’s why it feels like an aura item. You’re not saving yourself. You’re saving your whole team’s formation from getting melted.
And the passive is the annoying bonus that makes lane and midgame skirmishes miserable for the enemy carry. Random blocks, over and over, while you’re just walking at them like a wall.
When to Buy Crimson Guard?
You buy Crimson when the enemy draft screams one of these
“We’re going to hit a lot.” (attack speed cores)
“We’re going to bring extra units.” (summons / zoo)
“We’re going to overwhelm you with bodies.” (illusions)
“We’re going to take buildings early.” (tower pressure)
Basically, if the enemy’s physical damage is a machine gun, Crimson is the counter.
This is why it shows up on the classic beefy aura cores: Centaur, Underlord, Doom, Bristle, and even Chen sometimes when the game is zoo vs. zoo and you need your team to not die instantly.
And yes, timing matters. Crimson is not a 45-minute “maybe” item. It’s a midgame "We are not losing this tower / this fight” button. The earlier the enemy’s physical pressure comes online, the more value you get from buying it before they start snowballing.
Where you skip it: when the enemy damage isn’t lots of hits—it's a big magic burst, big pure damage, or spells doing the work. Crimson doesn’t solve “Lina deleted my support.” It solves the problem of “we’re getting right-clicked to death, and we can’t stand our ground.”
Tips & common mistakes
- · Don’t press Guard after your support is already dead. This is a pre-fight or fight-start button. You press it when the enemy commits so the first wave of hits gets muted.
- · Crimson is not just “for me.” If you buy it and play away from your team, you’re wasting half the item. This is an aura-style teamfight tool. Be near your carries when the fight starts.
- · It’s also a building defense tool. That matters. A lot of games are decided by one high-ground attempt. Crimson makes those attempts way harder when the enemy’s plan is “hit tower with heroes and units.”
- · Don’t overrate it into late-game crit monsters. Damage block is best vs. lots of small hits. If the enemy is a single hero landing huge, slow attacks, you’ll still get value—but it’s not the same “this item hard-counters their entire draft” moment.
Summary
Crimson Guard is the aura item against physical pressure — the kind that comes from fast hits, multiple units, and teamwide right-click damage.
You buy it to keep your team alive through that first wave, to defend buildings, and to make the enemy’s physical timing feel useless. If the enemy’s plan is “we hit things until they die,” Crimson is the item that says, "Not today."
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Lore
A cuirass originally built to protect against the dreaded Year Beast.