Minecraft Dungeons:Ancient Guardian

The Ancient Guardian is the final boss of the Hidden Depths DLC. It spawns in the Abyssal Monument.

Appearance
The Ancient Guardian is an oversized Elder Guardian with a predominantly dark purple body as well as three pink stripes. All of its spikes are a light purple to white gradient, and its eye is pink in color with a white iris. On its back are a few patches of algae, coral and seaweed, with some on its tail. A shard of the Orb of Dominance is lodged in front of the algae. Its face is full of cracks and a long scratch is seen across its eye.

Story
The Ancient Guardian was previously an Elder Guardian who lived in the ocean monument where the story of the Hidden Depths DLC unfolds. After the shattering of the Orb of Dominance, one of it’s shards landed within the hidden depths of a deep ocean. Sometime after, an Elder Guardian discovered the shard and unwillingly become corrupted by it. The shard rapidly transformed the Elder Guardian and began to spread it’s corruption to a nearby ravine, enraging the ocean currents. At the time that the heroes begin to descend the ocean depths, the corruption of the Ancient Guardian begins spreading throughout a coral reef, wreaking havoc on the nearby small islands. Upon reaching the end of the lower monument, the Ancient Guardian is seen destroying it’s own lair to challenge the heroes. After an intense battle, the heroes manage to defeat the Ancient Guardian, calming the ocean currents.

Behavior
Unlike the other DLC bosses, the Ancient Guardian makes multiple appearances before the boss fight.

When the player reaches the arena, the Ancient Guardian enters by bursting through a wall. After taking notable damage, it can swim away from the arena to avoid further damage. In addition, it has four attacks:

While in the arena, it also tries to attack the nearby player by piercing them with its spikes, or crushing them with its body, which produces a shockwave.
 * Ancient Spines

It is capable of firing a yellow beam at the player, which behaves the same way as its weaker counterparts.
 * Ancient Beam

The Ancient Guardian can summon guardians to assist itself during battle. It usually summons about 3 guardians near the player, but this attack sometimes spawns an elder guardian instead. It cannot spawn anymore elder guardians if there is already one alive.
 * Monumental Gathering

Ancient Biomine
Every so often, the ancient guardian comes into the arena and summons a number of guardian-shaped blocks that explode shortly afterward, though it cancels this attack after becoming sufficiently damaged.

Drops

 * and its unique variant,
 * and its unique variant,
 * and its unique variant,
 * and its unique variants, and the
 * and its unique variants, the and
 * and its unique variant,
 * and its unique variants, the and
 * and its unique variant, the
 * Artifacts such as, , and  can also be dropped by the Ancient Guardian

Tips

 * As always with bosses, bows like or  with enchantments such as  and  are always helpful, as with artifacts such as  and
 * Note: Lightning Rod requires souls, so save souls up before the fight
 * You will want to bring a to the battle, as the attack 'Ancient Beam' can drain health very quickly and the only way to deal damage during this phase is to tank or avoid the lasers while wielding a weapon.
 * Note: Deflect does NOT work on the lasers, so don't bother.
 * Attacking during the A'Ancient Spikes' phase is quite hard, but saving an d bow can help to do a lot of damage in not a lot of time/space.
 * As the boss summons enemies (but not a lot), focus on the enemies first. They can be really annoying if you leave them alone, lest the Ancient Guardian spawning even more; you can get easily overwhelmed by the lasers the guardians emit.
 * Even though the attack is used quite sparingly, when the boss spawns an Elder Guardian, It cannot be stressed enough that you FOCUS 100% ON THE ELDER GUARDIAN! It can shred health extremely easily and can make you lose a few avoidable deaths
 * As always, have fun, and remember, for a higher chance for a unique drop, use

Trivia

 * In a Twitter post, the developers referred to the Ancient Guardian as being the “corrupted master” of the other Guardians and Elder Guardians.
 * It has a unique cinematic cutscene before the fight, where it is seen destroying a part of the monument in order to challenge the player.
 * There is a glitch where the Ancient Guardian's mines can be killed with OHKO techniques. Doing so results in massive XP gain and is useful for grinding enchantment points. This glitch has yet to be fixed.