Tutorials/Guardian farming

In snapshot 14w25a, the new mob Guardian was added, which only spawns in the also newly added ocean monuments. It is possible to farm them for their drops of raw fish, prismarine shards, and prismarine crystals, which can be used to craft prismarine variants and sea lanterns.

Spawning
Guardians only spawn in ocean monuments, which themselves only spawn in Deep Ocean biomes, with any aquatic biome (ocean, deep ocean etc.) in a 29-block radius around the centre. Guardians spawn within a 9-block radius of these monuments in any direction. The spawning area covers the top of the monuments (the decorative part on the very top with sea lanterns), to the base of the prismarine brick pillars.

Locating a monument
Before a farm can be set up, a monument must be located. However, monuments are quite rare. Ways to help find a monument include:


 * Using a boat is the easiest way of searching for a monument
 * A potion of night vision helps to see the monument, as does the respiration enchantment.
 * If you have enough, ender pearls can help travel large stretches of water quickly.
 * If you have travelled a long way and still can't see a monument, check there is an aquatic biome extending at least 29 blocks in every direction.

Once you find a monument, make sure to defeat all of the elder guardians first, as they inflict mining fatigue III on you, which makes breaking blocks almost impossible. Water breathing potions, various optional potions, as well as armor and high-damage weapons, are essential.

Farming
As guardians spawn underwater, most farm designs involve a dry room which the guardians fall into and are funnelled to a 'canal' (which may have a drop, lava, iron golem or other method of damage) and a collection point.

Iron Golems
One of them is the Iron Golem method, where Guardians spawn and are funnelled using water currents to a trench filled with Iron Golems. As the Iron Golems attack the Guardians, the drops are collected using hoppers and deposited in chests. This method is fairly iron-heavy, due to all of the Iron Golems, which will need to be periodically replaced due to the Guardian's spike damage, and the large amount of hoppers used.

Super-efficient farm
Another farm is the 'OP', or super-efficient farm. This farm is very expensive to build in Survival mode, due to the amount of materials used, but produces over 100,000 items per hour.

Lava grinder farm
Guardians are damaged by lava, allowing for more efficient lava-based farms. An example farm could use water streams to funnel guardians to a drop with lava held up by signs at the bottom, with hoppers underneath to collect the items. This design is a less iron-heavy alternative to the iron golem method.

Minecarts
Similar to the iron golem-based farm, except there is a drop down to bedrock instead of hoppers, some lava near the bottom to ensure no guardians are still alive, and a hopper minecart to collect the drops. An estimated raw resource count is:


 * 200+ solid blocks
 * 6.5 stacks of wood logs
 * 80 iron ingots
 * 6+ gold ingots
 * 55 redstone
 * 12 diamonds (for pickaxes)
 * 1+ sand (for glass)


 * 1. Build an iron golem-based farm without hoppers or golems (see above).
 * 2. Dig the central canal down to bedrock.
 * 3. Place down rails covering the canal, with powered rails every 20 blocks (recommended, although you could have up to 50 blocks spacing).
 * 4. Place redstone blocks under every powered rail except one (near a wall), then carve out a small room near the rail without power.
 * 5. Place a lever next to the unpowered rail, and a hopper underneath. Place 2 chests next to the hopper, make sure they are connected to the hopper. The lever should connect to the rail.
 * 6. Place some glass overlooking the rails, place down the hopper minecart, and you are done. For more storage, place down more hoppers and chests.