Payday 3 has introduced a new character of the “Lead Guard” to make the heist mission even more challenging. This does not come as a standard and is only available for daring players to challenge themselves.
Simply put, if you crank out the game difficulty settings to maximum, this is the only time you will encounter the Lead Guard. Lead Guards in Payday 3 are hard to evade and care for, making the whole heist much more difficult.
What does a Lead Guard do in Payday 3?
While doing the heist missions in Payday 3, you will encounter many “security officers.” Once you increase your difficulty to the “Overkill” level, you will find another type of security officer called a “Lead Guard” during the heist.
The Lead Guard looks like a normal security officer from the outside but has one extra weapon, a “Repeating Pager.” You will hear Pager in Payday 3 mission; therefore, let me give you some context.
A pager is a device given to the Payday 3 guards to raise an alarm in case of an emergency or attack. Every time you come across a guard, you need to disable this device aside from killing him. This is done to prevent him from ever raising the alarm.
But a Repeating Pager is a device you need to disable several times as it will not shut off after disabling once. To disable a pager, you need another pager to initiate a connection with it and make it feel like the signal is coming from their fellow security officers.
Not only that, you have a limited supply of pagers in every Payday 3 mission, but disabling a Repeating Pager a third time is impossible. After that, it will set off an alarm you cannot disable.
This means you have only a limited amount of time before escaping from the Lead Guard. Kill him as early as possible so that you are done with him once you are in the second attempt of disabling a pager. Remember that one small mistake, such as missing a hit or taking damage from Lead Offer, will destroy your whole heist mission.
How to Identify Lead Guard in Payday 3
I have already explained the consequences associated with the Lead Guard. It’s best to have enough knowledge to identify them. The best way to identify a Lead Guard is through their gear and clothing.
For comparison, a normal security guard wears no additional gear other than their standard uniform. On the other hand, The Lead Guard will wear gear such as a “bulletproof vest, cap, and additional equipment” on top of their uniform.
With this, you can easily identify a Lead Guard. Another thing that sets the Lead Guard apart is their “Extensive Patrol” pattern. A normal guard will make a round equal to half a block, but a Lead Guard will make twice or sometimes much bigger rounds than that. Due to this, they are much more difficult to avoid as you cannot predict their patrol pattern.
I will give you an example of the patrol pattern of the Lead Guard in Payday 3. During the “No Rest for the Wicked” heist mission, the Lead Guard patrolled in areas such as the “entire roof, the second floor, and the first-floor stairwell.”
These areas are the entry points to important places players cannot avoid. The encounter with the Lead Guard is inevitable.
