Executor is a character who shares many traits with Guardian; In a way they actually are just an offensively-capable version of Guardian.

Your dodge is normally the standard DS3 roll, but becomes a bloodborne/sekiro-esque step when wielding suncatcher, so keep that in mind as you play.

Receive boost after recovering from status ailments.

Notably, this passive only cares that your buildup of a status is reset. This means that other than curing it with a bolus or letting it drop to 0, you can just let it trigger. Permitting a lingering affliction such as frostbite or poison to trigger does also grant you effective immunity to its buildup from a time, which in the case of frostbite means you are trading reduced stamina regeneration and damage output reduction for not taking the activation damage from frostbite. Allowing bleed to trigger is dangerous due to the forced stagger... and similarly don't even think about letting madness rip.

This passive, then, compensates you outright for specifically frostbite. The bonus it grants is to your AR and stamina recovery, both about 20%. It also lasts about as long as frostbite does, about 20s.

Draw a cursed sword that can deflect enemy attacks.

Suncatcher is (not) a katana with a middling reach. Its 'weapon art' is a strike-and-dash which has invulnerability on startup (when charged?) similar to Ironeye's marking skill. Charging the sword does not empower the sword in any way other than increasing the damage of the 'weapon art'. To charge the sword, deflect attacks. Deflecting more-dangerous attacks does not charge the sword faster.

To deflect an attack, block with the cursed sword right as the attack is about to hit you. The act of drawing your sword also grants you auto-deflect windows. The timing is slightly different to a parry due to it effectively not having startup frames. Doing this does cause 'stagger damage' to them, so deflecting enough times can open a Nightlord to a critical attack. Unlike Guardian's damage-on-block, this has no further requirements. The quality of the attack does not appear to matter, so roll and chicken out if you're afraid - nobody will judge.

Because this is/Despite this being coded as having 'blocked' an attack, you will take status buildup per normal, yet not take actual damage. This is why you have Tenacity. Also due to it being considered blocking, you could choose to guard counter if your sword is not charged, or to activate other effects.

Dissimilar to Guardian having attacks they can not block, you can deflect everything which does damage, with the exception of true unblockables. Yes, with a flick of your wrist you can avoid the pain from being bathed in dragonfire. Deflecting one tick of a lingering hazard does not grant you auto-parry, auto-deflect, or any such lasting invulnerability, so you will have to waggle your sword a bit.

A sufficiently-weighty attack however will still fling you. You are not immune to that.

Stamina management is your key to success, and you have a lot less of it than Guardian. While your sword is drawn, you are also reduced to a walking speed, and your dodge becomes as short-and-fast as Guardian's. You move faster dodging, actually. Attempting to sprint will begin a lengthy animation of sheathing your sword, so you will have to time that carefully as well. Unlike unsheathing it, this has no defensive properties. Similar to unsheathing it however, this does have defensive properties.

Two relic modifiers are notable for suncatcher: heal on empowering, and lose hp when attacking. The heal is just alright, and does well compensate for a frostbite proc. The latter however appears to be a 5% bonus for taxing about 10 hp per attack.

Activating this ultimate art grants you invulnerability as with every other ult, but this one also doubles your max HP and grants you a full heal.

Immediately after entering beast form, you will roar. The start of the roar is when your invulnerability ends, so be cautious of timing this ability. The roar is similar to the grafted scion's, in that is does damage in an area around yourself and staggers low-mid weight enemies. in this state, your light attacks are sweeps of your claws; heavy attacks a delayed slam with both; blocking causes you to roar again; and your weapon art is a very-delayed strike which ends this state. None of that has invulnerability. You can also input the ultimate art again to manually and quickly leave this state, which does have invulnerability.

You becomes similar to a boss, in that taking a large amount of damage (even over some time) will cause you to stagger and interrupt whatever you were doing.

Taking lethal damage in this state will kill you. Damage taken during this state transfers to your regular state, but of course only damage below your regular HP (half your beast HP) matters.

In any manner of exiting this state, you lose all remaining ultimate charge.

Relics for Executor don't affect his ult, other than the one which causes a heal on roaring. The heal is actually rather substantial, allowing him similar output to Guardian.

+ 'Ultimate Art on successful guard' has an internal cooldown of 3 seconds. Deflecting counts for its activation.

+ 'HP recovery on successful guard' has an internal cooldown of 3 seconds, and heals about 20. Deflecting counts for its activation.

+ 'Summon skeletons on activation guard counter' can be used after deflecting. This is similar to Rosus' Summons, except the skeletons are larger and can spawn at a greater distance from yourself at the targeted enemy's position. You can target enemies you did not deflect. Rather helpful if you'd rather maintain use of the empowered state as an evasive option.

+ 'Holy explosion on guard counter' can also be used after deflecting. Because the explosion radius is rather small and you do step backwards a tad after deflecting, this is available but perhaps not too desirable. However, it can be timed to detonate as you are passing through a target during your empowered dash-slash.

+ 'Increased threat while blocking' is a relic effect you will want. You after all want to be the one being targeted - arguably more than Guardian.

? 'Character skill cooldown +X' appears to increase the rate you charge your sword... but this can also simply be placebo.

? While you will want to consume every madness or bleed bolus you come across, frostbite is to your preference and you actually might want to be poisoned; due to your passive.

? Again, Suncatcher is not a katana

- 'Increased AR when two-handing armament' does not apply to Suncatcher

- '- when switching weapons' does not apply to drawing or sheathing Suncatcher

- 'Less likely to be targeted X' modifies the weird target-priority system enemies have in Fromsoft games. No details, just know that Executor wants to get hit and will never want this.

- Suncatcher does not count as a katana for the sake of relic effects such as 'FP/HP recovery from katana attacks'.

Executor is alright! Fun character who looks a lot more risky than they really are. To compare to Guardian, you trade your consistency for damage output. And you're only a beast for about 20s at a time unlike Guardian, so who can really say?