Minecraft Elder Guardian

Minecraft Elder Guardian

Elder Guardian

Health points	80 × 40
Behavior	Hostile
Attack strength	Laser: Easy: 5 Normal: 8 Hard: 12 × 6 Spikes: 2
Size	Height: 1.9975 Blocks Width: 1.9975 Blocks

Spawning

Three elder guardians spawn naturally during the generation of each 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. Elder guardians spawned with monuments do not naturally despawn, although they are removed along with other hostile mobs in peaceful difficulty.

Drops

Elder guardians always drop 0-2 prismarine shards. Looting increases the maximum prismarine shard drop by one per level, for a maximum of 5. When killed by the player, they also drop 1 wet sponge.

They also drop one of the following:

• ¹⁄₂ chance of dropping a raw cod (cooked cod if killed by fire‌^[JE only]). An additional 0-1 drops are added per level of Looting for a maximum of 4 cod with Looting III.^[verify]
• ¹⁄₃ chance of dropping prismarine crystals. An additional 0-1 drops are added per level of Looting for a maximum of 4 prismarine crystals with Looting III.^[verify]
• ¹⁄₆ chance of dropping neither.

Elder guardians also have a 2.5% chance of dropping a random fish as an extra drop in addition to the normal fish drop. This chance is increased by 1% per Looting 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.

They drop 10 experience 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, but unlike guardians themselves, the elder variant is unable to attack cod, tropical fish, pufferfish, and salmon.

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 a potion of invisibility, but doesn't attack. It seems that their eyes are coded to simply track the closest player, as they also follow players in spectator mode.

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

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 like a warning indicator). Once charged, the beam abruptly ends and deals 8 damage on normal 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

Once each minute, the elder guardian searches for any player within 50 blocks to afflict with Mining Fatigue III. When afflicted, the player sees a ghostly image of the elder guardian and hears a ghastly 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.

The image of the elder guardian is a particle effect that can be recreated by issuing the command /particle minecraft:elder_guardian.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Spines attack

An elder guardian deals 2 of damage every time it is hit while its spikes are extended. If cornered, the elder guardian usually extends its spikes and fires 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.

•  Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities [show]
  • Tags common to all mobs [show]

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
				Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo
	Monster Hunter	Attack and destroy a monster	Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: enderman, zombie pigman, spider, cave spider.	Xbox One	Yes	Yes	Yes	15G	Bronze
				Xbox 360		Alt		20G
	Overkill	Deal 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.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	30G	Bronze
	The Deep End	Defeat an Elder Guardian.		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	30G	Silver

History

Java Edition
1.8		14w25a			Added elder guardians.
		14w26a			Guardians and elder guardians are no longer immune to lava and fire.
1.9		15w43a			Drop 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).
		15w43b			Drop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals changed again. Now it's 50% fish, 33% crystals, and 16.7% neither.
		15w43c			Sponge drop restored to requiring a player kill, but is still dry rather than wet.
1.10		16w20a			Added elder guardian spawn egg.
		1.10-pre2			Removed elder guardian spawn egg.
1.11		16w32a			Re-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 "Guardian".
		16w33a			Elder guardians now drop wet sponges on player kills, rather than dry sponges.[2]
		16w38a			Guardian's common drop of raw fish now drop as cooked fish, if killed while on fire.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.16.0		build 1			Added elder guardians. They are considered boss mobs in the blog post for this update[3], but in-game they behave the same as their Java Edition counterparts.
		build 5			Added elder guardian spawn egg.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			The entity ID is changed from guardian.elder to elder_guardian.
Legacy Console Edition
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Added elder guardians.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.3.12					Added 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 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, nevertheless, players still have to solve the challenge in a different way.^[1]
• 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.^[1]
• In Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34, elder guardians drop blue keys.

Gallery

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  A special effect of the elder guardian, gives mining fatigue III for 5 minutes
 
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  An Elder guardian spawned inside a ocean monument
 
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  Elder guardian's laser
 
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  Elder guardian in full view
 
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  The inside of an elder guardian (spikes retracted).
 
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  Size comparison between an elder and a normal guardian.
 
• 

  The elder guardian curse ghastly image actually shows the elder guardian's full model.
 
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