Guardian Palm is a Mystic Skill in Where Winds Meet built around wide, sweeping area damage. The standard version chains two forward palm strikes into a ground-smashing finisher that knocks back everything in front of you, and a separate airborne version drops a massive plunging palm that covers a large radius. It is not the highest single-target damage skill in the game, but for clearing groups of enemies and buying space in PvE, it is one of the strongest early picks.
How to unlock Guardian Palm
Guardian Palm comes directly from completing Where a Thousand Buddhas Wept, a short side quest in the northern part of Qinghe along the top shoreline. The catch is that this stretch of the map is hidden under thick cloud cover when you first arrive, so the quest and the quest-giver are easy to miss entirely.
Step 1: Travel to the northern region of Qinghe (Sundara Land) and find the Wayfarer, marked with a campfire icon on the map. Speak with him to clear the clouds and reveal the full northern map.
Step 2: With the area uncovered, locate the Nightdream Monk in the northern section and start the Where a Thousand Buddhas Wept side story.
Step 3: Follow the procession and do exactly what you are told. Stay inside the formation and do not break away. About halfway through, when you reach the crowd, wait for the praying man to finish kowtowing before continuing.
The quest is short and has no combat puzzles, so it should take only a few minutes. When it ends you receive the tome that teaches Guardian Palm. Equip it in a vacant Mystic Skill slot, and it is ready to use. If the skill icon never appears in combat, confirm it is actually slotted, since simply learning it is not enough.
How Guardian Palm works on the ground
On the ground, Guardian Palm is a three-part combo. The first two hits are push-forward palm strikes, and the third slams enemies in front of you with a wide arc, letting you catch several targets at once. At Tier 4 each cast costs 30 Vitality and has an 8-second cooldown, which is short enough to use repeatedly against both trash mobs and bosses.
How to trigger the aerial Buddha Palm
The plunging palm is the flashy version most players want, and it only fires from a skill-generated airborne state, not a normal jump. A basic space-bar hop is treated as non-combat air time, so the Guardian Palm button greys out, and nothing happens.
The most consistent method is to gain height with another Mystic Skill, then cast Guardian Palm mid-air. The skill recognizes the airborne state at roughly 3–5 meters and upgrades into Lamp Light, a downward palm projection with a 12-second cooldown.
Step 1: Equip both Cloud Steps and Guardian Palm in your Mystic Skill slots.
Step 2: Use Cloud Steps to launch upward into a valid combat air state.
Step 3: While still rising or near the peak, press the Guardian Palm key before you slip into a normal falling animation. If your height and timing are right, the aerial palm drops.
An umbrella weapon's float glide also counts as a valid airborne state, so jumping and holding light attack with an umbrella, then pressing Guardian Palm, works as an alternative.
Breakthrough tier bonuses
Guardian Palm scales through tier promotions, and the aerial forms are gated behind them. Tier 2 unlocks mid-air casting, while Tier 3 introduces the strongest plunging variant. Tier 1 skills upgrade to Rank 9, then promote to Tier 2 Rank 0, and so on up to Tier 4.
| Tier | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 2 | Landing the first two ground strikes increases palm strike damage by 20% and knocks down targets in an area. |
| 3 | Casting at 5 meters or higher evolves the skill into Rite of Transcendence (16s cooldown). It sends a Vajra Mak into the ground, deals damage, knocks back targets, then detonates after a short delay to launch enemies airborne. |
| 4 | Increases the AoE radius of the standard branch palm strikes by 60%. |
Upgrade materials and costs
Promotions use varying levels of Ebon Iron plus the breakthrough material Buddha's Tear Root. Each rank within a tier costs Ebon Iron of the matching level.
| Tier | Rank | Materials required |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0–9 | Lv. 1 Ebon Iron x2 per rank |
| 2 | 0 | Buddha's Tear Root x5, Lv. 1 Ebon Iron x2 |
| 2 | 1–9 | Lv. 2 Ebon Iron x4 per rank |
| 3 | 0 | Buddha's Tear Root x15, Lv. 2 Ebon Iron x4 |
| 3 | 1–9 | Lv. 3 Ebon Iron x10 per rank |
| 4 | 0 | Buddha's Tear Root x18, Lv. 3 Ebon Iron x10 |
| 4 | 1–9 | Lv. 4 Ebon Iron x20 per rank |
Best weapons to pair with Guardian Palm
Guardian Palm fits any build, but it shines with weapons that already specialize in wide, sweeping attacks. Pairing the aerial slam with a long-reach, AoE-focused martial art widens your effective damage zone considerably.
| Weapon / martial art | Why it pairs well |
|---|---|
| Heavenquaker Spear | Long reach and built-in AoE damage, so the aerial slam covers an even larger area. |
| Thundercry Blade | Slow, heavy sweeping strikes that line up naturally with the three-hit ground combo. |
Once the tome is in your inventory and the skill sits in an active slot, you will see Guardian Palm appear on your Mystic Skill bar in combat, confirming the unlock worked. From there, it is mostly a matter of feeding it Ebon Iron and Buddha's Tear Root to climb tiers and open up the airborne forms.