Elder Guardian

An elder guardian is a stronger and larger variant of the guardian. It attacks by firing beams at the player, while retaliating at melee attacks with its spikes and applying Mining Fatigue to all in their monument. It is the largest aquatic mob in Minecraft, as well as the strongest. Three of them spawn inside an ocean monument; one in the top room and one in each wing.

Spawning
Three elder guardians spawn naturally during the generation of each ocean monument: one in the top room of the monument and the other two in each wing section of the monument. They do not respawn after their initial spawn, thus there are a limited number of them per world.

Drops
Elder guardians drop the following items:
 * 0–2 s – always. Affected by Looting: 1 more drop per level, for a maximum of 5.
 * 1 – when killed by the player. Not affected by Looting.
 * 0–1 tide armor trim smithing templates
 * One of the following:
 * $1/2$ chance: a ( if killed by fire). Affected by Looting: 0–1 more drops per level, for a maximum of 4.
 * $1/3$ chance: . Affected by Looting: 0–1 more drops per level, for a maximum of 4.
 * $1/6$ chance: no drop.
 * 2.5% chance: a random fish. Affected by Looting: 1% more chance per level, for a maximum of 5.5% with Looting III. This drop uses the same chances that fishing uses, resulting in a 60% chance for raw cod, a 25% chance for raw salmon, a 13% chance for pufferfish, and a 2% chance for tropical fish.
 * – when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior
Elder guardians do not swim around as much as normal guardians. Elder guardians do not swim away when approached by a player it is targeting, unlike regular guardians. Like normal guardians, elder guardians attempt to attack both the player and squid.

The elder guardian's eye follows and stares at any nearby players, and always looks directly at its target. The eye still follows a player under the effects of Invisibility or in Spectator mode, but doesn't attack.

Elder guardian are considered aquatic mobs, and thus are affected by the Impaling enchantment.

The elder guardian has three methods of attacking, including firing its laser, inflicting Mining Fatigue, and a defensive thorn-like attack.

The elder guardian pathfinds toward an ocean monument if it is not within one.

An elder guardian attacks axolotls that are not playing dead. Otherwise, an elder guardian does not attack mobs (such as iron golems) that attack it, although the attacking mob takes damage from the elder guardian's natural spikes defense.

Laser
The laser takes several seconds to charge, doing no damage and allowing the player to move away in the meantime. As it charges it turns from purple to bright yellow (thus acting as a warning indicator). Once charged, the beam flashes green, abruptly ends, and deals damage on hard difficulty. The elder guardian swims around for a few seconds before firing again. The beam cannot be dodged and has a maximum range of approximately 14 blocks. Once the player is out of range, or if the beam is obstructed by solid blocks, the guardian's beam disengages from the player and deals no damage.

Inflicting Mining Fatigue
$$, immediately after spawning and once each minute thereafter, the elder guardian searches for any player within a spherical radius of 50 blocks to afflict with Mining Fatigue III. $$ the elder guardian inflicts any unafflicted player within range immediately.

When afflicted, the player sees a ghostly image of the elder guardian and hears a ghostly noise. The effect decreases a player's attack speed by 30% and decreases mining speed even more for 5 minutes. The attack targets players through blocks, even underground, and a potion of Invisibility offers no defense. This is not considered an attack in regards to the Thorns enchantment.

The image of the elder guardian is a particle effect that can be recreated by issuing the command.

Spikes defense
An elder guardian deals ( on hard mode) of damage every time it is hit while its spikes are extended, similar to the Thorns enchantment on armor. If cornered by a player or axolotl, the elder guardian usually extends its spikes and fires at point-blank range.

Elder guardian ghost
The elder guardian ghost is an unused mob added in beta 1.13.0.4. Its file isn't included in the behavior pack, and it can be spawned only by using the command. The elder guardian ghost has defensive spikes.

The elder guardian ghost has the same model and texture as the elder guardian, but uses the player hurt sound, has less health, and is missing the back tail model. When spawned outside of water, it floats upward until it despawns, similar to a mob tied to a balloon, or under a high level of levitation effect, but it passes through blocks.

The elder guardian ghost itself isn't immune to suffocation damage, and drops only experience. It behaves similar to custom mobs added in behavior packs with broken AI; the mobs float upward and pass through blocks when hit.

If an elder guardian ghost is spawned underwater, it slowly sinks downward, passing through all blocks (including bedrock), until it eventually it falls into the void and dies. When underwater, the elder guardian ghost can rotate its body, look at players, and swim while slowly sinking downward.

Sounds
Elder guardians use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.



ID




Entity data
Elder guardians have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Advancements
to  and the   tag has been removed.
 * The in-game name of elder guardians is now "Elder Guardian" instead of "Guardian".}}

Trivia

 * The elder guardian's eye is the "head" part of the mob's model, giving the illusion of a dynamic eye.
 * The elder guardian texture has the name "jeb" on it.
 * According to Jeb, elder guardians were introduced to encourage players to solve the temple maze rather than dig through it easily. He acknowledges there are ways around it, but players still have to solve the challenge in a different way.
 * Also according to Jeb, the "jump scare" by an elder guardian is unintentional, instead, he added it to provide a visual cue as to why players get slowed down by Mining Fatigue.
 * In Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34, elder guardians drop blue keys.
 * $$, elder guardians make their underwater death sounds if killed on land. They also, like guardians, don't make flopping sounds on Bedrock Edition.