Elder Guardian

An elder guardian is a stronger and larger variant of the guardian, and the largest aquatic mob. It attacks the same way as a normal guardian, but also applies Mining Fatigue to players in a large radius around itself. They are only found in ocean monuments; three of them generate in each one.

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. However, they may be squished to death for some reasons, reducing the number available on the monument

Drops[]

Elder guardians drop the following items:

• 0–2 prismarine shards – always. Affected by Looting: 1 more drop per level, for a maximum of 5.
• 1 wet sponge – when killed by the player. Not affected by Looting.
• 20% chance to drop a tide armor trim smithing template, unaffected by Looting.
• One of the following:
  • ¹⁄₂ chance: a raw cod (cooked cod if killed by fire‌^{[JE only]}). Affected by Looting: 0–1 more drops per level, for a maximum of 4.
  • ¹⁄₃ chance: prismarine crystals. 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.
• 10 – 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. ‌^{[Java Edition only]} ‌^{[until JE Combat Tests]}

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 12 × 6 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, if the beam is obstructed by solid blocks, or if the player has a shield, the guardian's beam disengages from the player and deals no damage.^{[more information needed]}

Inflicting Mining Fatigue[]

In Java Edition, 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. In Bedrock Edition 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 /particle minecraft:elder_guardian.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Spikes defense[]

An elder guardian deals 2 (3 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 /summon elder_guardian_ghost ~ ~ ~. 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[]

Java Edition:
Elder guardians use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Elder Guardian moans	Hostile Creatures	Randomly while in water	entity.elder_guardian.ambient	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.ambient	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Elder Guardian flaps	Hostile Creatures	Randomly while out of water	entity.elder_guardian.ambient_land	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.ambient.land	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Elder Guardian curses	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian inflicts Mining Fatigue on a player	entity.elder_guardian.curse	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.curse	1.0	1.0	16
	Guardian shoots	Hostile Creatures	While an elder guardian uses its laser attack	entity.guardian.attack	subtitles.entity.guardian.attack	0.0-1.0 [sound 1]	0.7-1.2 [sound 2]	16 (technical) / ∞ (effective)[1]
	Elder Guardian dies	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian dies while in water	entity.elder_guardian.death	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.death	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Elder Guardian dies	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian dies while out of water	entity.elder_guardian.death_land	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.death	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Elder Guardian hurts	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian is damaged while in water	entity.elder_guardian.hurt	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.hurt	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Elder Guardian hurts	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian is damaged while out of water	entity.elder_guardian.hurt_land	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.hurt	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Elder Guardian flops	Hostile Creatures	While an elder guardian is on land	entity.elder_guardian.flop	subtitles.entity.elder_guardian.flop	1.0	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Hostile Creatures	Randomly while in water	mob.elderguardian.idle	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	Randomly while out of water	mob.guardian.land_idle	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian inflicts Mining Fatigue on a player	mob.elderguardian.curse	1.0	1.0
	Hostile Creatures	While an elder guardian uses its laser attack	mob.guardian.attack_loop	?	?
	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian dies	mob.elderguardian.death	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian is damaged while in water	mob.elderguardian.hit	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When an elder guardian is damaged while out of water	mob.guardian.land_hit	1.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	While an elder guardian is on land‌[upcoming: BE 1.20.40]	mob.guardian.flop	1.0	1.0

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Translation key
Elder Guardian	elder_guardian	entity.minecraft.elder_guardian

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Elder Guardian	elder_guardian	50	entity.elder_guardian.name
Elder Guardian Ghost	elder_guardian_ghost	120	entity.elder_guardian_ghost.name

Entity data[]

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

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements[]

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
PS4	Other
		Monster Hunter	Attack 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.	15G	Bronze
		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.	30G	Bronze
		The Deep End	Defeat an Elder Guardian	—	30G	Silver

Advancements[]

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	How Did We Get Here?	Have every effect applied at the same time	A Furious Cocktail	Have all of these 33 status effects applied to the player at the same time: Absorption Bad Omen Blindness Conduit Power Darkness Dolphin's Grace Fire Resistance Glowing Haste Hero of the Village Hunger Infested Invisibility Jump Boost Levitation Mining Fatigue Nausea Night Vision Oozing Poison Raid Omen Regeneration Resistance Slow Falling Slowness Speed Strength Trial Omen Water Breathing Weakness Weaving Wither Wind Charged The source of the effects is irrelevant for the purposes of this advancement. Other status effects may be applied to the player, but are ignored for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.	nether/all_effects
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creaking Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_a_mob
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Monster Hunter	Kill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Axolotl Bee Blaze Camel Cat Cave Spider Chicken Chicken Jockey Cod Cow Creeper Donkey Dolphin Drowned Elder Guardian Enderman Endermite Evoker Fox Frog Ghast Goat Glow Squid Guardian Hoglin Horse Husk Llama Magma Cube Mooshroom Ocelot Panda Parrot Phantom Pig Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Polar Bear Pufferfish Rabbit Ravager Salmon Sheep Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Skeleton Horse Skeleton Horseman Slime Sniffer Stray Spider Spider Jockey Squid Strider Trader Llama Tropical Fish Turtle Vex Vindicator Warden Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Wolf Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 37 mobs: Blaze Bogged Breeze Cave Spider Creaking Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.	adventure/kill_all_mobs

Video[]

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			The drop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals have been changed for elder guardians. 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 now drop dry sponges (on any kill).
		15w43b			The drop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals have been changed again for guardians. Now, the drop chances are 50% fish, 33% crystals, and 16.7% neither.
		15w43c			The sponge drop of elder guardians has been restored to requiring a player kill, but is still dry rather than wet.
1.10		16w20a			An elder guardian spawn egg has been added.
		pre2			The elder guardian spawn egg has been removed.
1.11		16w32a			The elder guardian spawn egg has been re-added.
					The entity ID has been changed from Guardian to elder_guardian and the Elder tag has been removed.
					The in-game name of elder guardians is now "Elder Guardian" instead of "Guardian".
		16w33a			Elder guardians now drop wet sponges on player kills, rather than dry sponges.[2]
		16w38a			Elder guardian's common drop of raw fish now drop as cooked fish, if killed while on fire.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of elder guardians has been changed.
1.16		20w14a			Elder guardians are now required for the "Monsters Hunted" advancement.
1.17		21w11a			The texture of the elder guardian has been tweaked, so that a floating pixel present in the tailfin no longer exists.
		21w13a			Now drop cooked cod or salmon instead of raw cod or salmon if on fire when killed or killed by a fire source.
1.20 (Experimental)		23w04a			Elder guardians now drop 0–1 tide armor trim smithing templates upon death.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.16.0		build 1			Added elder guardians.
					Elder guardians are considered boss mobs in the blog post for this update,[3] but in-game they behave the same as their Java counterparts.
		build 5			An elder guardian spawn egg has been added.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			The entity ID has been changed from guardian.elder to elder_guardian.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The texture of elder guardians has been changed.
1.13.0		beta 1.13.0.4			Added the elder guardian ghost, currently unused.
1.17.0		beta 1.17.0.50			The texture of the elder guardian has been tweaked, so that a floating pixel present in the tailfin no longer exists.
Legacy Console Edition
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3	1.0.1	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 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.^[4]
  • 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.^[4]
• In Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34, elder guardians drop blue keys.
• In Bedrock Edition, elder guardians make their underwater death sounds if killed on land. They also, like guardians, don't make flopping sounds on Bedrock Edition.
• The elder guardian was once referred to as a “boss” by Mojang. This means depending on how you see it, it could be the third boss as well as the two official bosses.

Gallery[]

Screenshots[]

• 

  A special effect of the elder guardian, which gives Mining Fatigue III for 5 minutes.

• 

  The elder guardian's Mining Fatigue effect.

• 

  An elder guardian spawned inside an ocean monument.

• 

  An elder guardian spreading its spikes.

• 

  An elder guardian's laser.

• 

  An elder guardian in full view.

• 

  The inside of an elder guardian (spikes retracted).

• 

  Size comparison between an elder and a normal guardian.

• 

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

• 

  A group of axolotls attacking an elder guardian.

• 

  A player avoiding an elder guardian by using the Invisibility effect.

• 

  A player avoiding an elder guardian by using the Invisibility effect.

In other media[]

• 

  An elder guardian in promotional artwork for the Boss Update.

• 

  Minecraft Mobestiary's page about elder guardians.

• 

  Lego Minecraft elder guardian.

• 

  Narrator and MARILLA attempting to battle an Elder Guardian.

References[]

External links[]

• Meet the Elder Guardian – Minecraft.net on November 6, 2017