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Marsh Davies Mojang avatar

... You won’t be able to snaffle up the monument’s resources even then - lurking Elder Guardians will cast Mining Fatigue on you, leaving you unable to heave your pickaxe effectively. You’ll have to seek them in the labyrinth and eliminate them one by one to be free of its effects. Alternatively, milk is a useful antidote - just make sure you pack a few buckets of the stuff!

Marsh Davies[1]

The elder guardian is a hostile mob (boss mob in Pocket Edition) that only spawns underwater in ocean monuments. It is a stronger variant of the guardian.

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 will not respawn after their initial spawn, thus there are a limited number of them per world. Elder guardians spawned with monuments do not naturally despawn, although they will be removed along with other hostile mobs in peaceful difficulty.

Drops

Elder guardians drop 0 to 2 prismarine shards. Looting increases the maximum prismarine shard drop by one per level.

Additionally, the elder guardian has a 50% chance of dropping a raw fish (or cooked fish if killed while on fire), a 33% chance of dropping a prismarine crystal instead, and a 16.7% chance of dropping neither. The maximum drop count is increased by one per level of Looting enchantment.

The elder guardian has a 2.5% chance of dropping a fish as a rare drop when killed by the player. The type of fish is the same as when fishing: 60% chance for raw fish, 25% chance for raw salmon, 2% chance for clownfish, and 13% chance for pufferfish. The chance of getting a rare drop is increased by 1 percentage point per level of Looting. When dropped as a rare drop, the fish is not cooked if the elder guardian is killed while on fire.

If killed by the player, it also drops a single wet sponge.

They drop 10 experience when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior

Elder guardians do not swim around as much as normal guardians, but otherwise act the same as regular guardians both in water and on land. Elder guardians will NOT swim away when approached by a player it is targeting, unlike regular guardians. Like normal guardians, elder guardians will 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 and attacks a completely unarmored player under the effects of a potion of invisibility. It seems that their eyes are coded to simply track to closest player, as they also follow players in spectator mode.

Combat

The elder guardian has several methods of attack, including firing its laser, inflicting mining fatigue, and a defensive thorn-like attack.

The laser takes several seconds to charge, doing no damage and allowing the player to move away in the meantime, and changing from purple to bright yellow. Once charged, the beam abruptly ends and deals 8♥♥♥♥ damage on normal difficulty. The elder guardian will swim 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 will disengage from the player, and deal no damage.

Once each minute, the elder guardian will search for players in a 50-block radius who are not afflicted with mining fatigue III for a minute or longer. The players found will be inflicted with mining fatigue III for 5 minutes, and a ghostly image of the elder guardian will appear to the player, accompanied with a ghastly noise. This attack can target players through blocks, even when there is no path to that player (e.g., players who are underground), and target unarmored players under the effects of a potion of invisibility. The image of the elder guardian is a particle effect that can be recreated by issuing the command /particle mobappearance.

Elder guardians deal 2♥ of damage every time it is hit when its spikes are extended. If cornered, the elder guardian will usually extend its spikes and fire at the player, even at point blank range.

Data values

Elder guardians have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is elder_guardian.

  • Entity data
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all mobs

Achievements

Icon Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different) Gamerscore earned Trophy type (PS4)
PS4 Other
Monster HunterAttack and destroy a monster.Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: an enderman, a piglin, a zombified piglin, a spider, or a cave spider.15GBronze
OverkillDeal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.30GBronze
The Deep EndDefeat an Elder Guardian30GSilver

Video

Elder Guardian/video

History

Added Elder Guardian's Curse Attack
release
1.814w25aAdded elder guardians.
14w26aGuardians and elder guardians are no longer immune to lava and fire.
1.915w43aDrop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals changed. Instead of a 33% chance of fish then a 33% chance of crystals only if the fish drop failed with both percentages adjusted by Looting, it's 40% fish, 40% crystals, and 20% neither, with the amount increased by Looting.
Elder guardians drop dry sponges (on any kill).
15w43bDrop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals changed again. Now it's 50% fish, 33% crystals, and 16.7% neither.
15w43cSponge drop restored to requiring a player kill, but is still dry rather than wet.
1.1016w20aAdded elder guardian spawn egg.
1.10-pre2Removed elder guardian spawn egg.
1.1116w32aRe-added elder guardian spawn egg.
Changed Entity ID from Guardian to elder_guardian. Removed Elder tag.
Their in-game name is now "Elder Guardian" instead of entity.Guardian.name.
16w33aElder guardians now drop wet sponges on player kills, rather than dry sponges.[2]
16w38aGuardian's common drop of raw fish will now drop as cooked fish, if killed while on fire.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.16.0build 1Added elder guardians. They are considered boss mobs for this edition.[3]
build 5Added elder guardian spawn egg.
Pocket Edition
1.1build 1The entity ID is changed from guardian.elder to elder_guardian.
Legacy Console Edition
TU31CU19 1.22 Patch 3Added elder guardians.

Issues

Issues relating to "Elder Guardian" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • The elder guardian's eye is actually the "head" part of the mob's model, giving the illusion of a dynamic eye.
  • The elder guardian texture has the word "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, nevertheless, players still have to solve the challenge in a different way.[1]
  • Also according to Jeb, the "jump scare" by elder guardian is unintentional, instead he added it to provide a visual cue as to why players get slowed down by mining fatigue.[1]

Gallery

References

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