How much health does an Elder Guardian have?

An Elder Guardian has 80 health points, which is 40 hearts on its health bar. Its 80 health is 6th of 80, just under the 100 of the iron golem.

What does an Elder Guardian drop?

When killed, an Elder Guardian drops 0 to 2 Prismarine Shards, 1 Raw Cod every time, 1 Prismarine Crystals every time, 1 Wet Sponge every time, and 1 Tide Armor Trim Smithing Template every time, along with 10 experience.

How do you defeat an Elder Guardian?

To defeat an Elder Guardian, target its weaknesses, it is vulnerable to Impaling enchantment and Milk (removes Mining Fatigue), while dealing with its 80 health (40 hearts).

How much damage does an Elder Guardian deal?

An Elder Guardian deals 5 damage on Easy, 8 on Normal and 12 on Hard difficulty.

How much XP does an Elder Guardian drop?

An Elder Guardian drops 10 experience points when killed.

How do you summon an Elder Guardian in Minecraft?

With cheats on, /summon minecraft:elder_guardian puts an Elder Guardian on the block you are standing on. /give @p minecraft:elder_guardian_spawn_egg hands you the elder guardian spawn egg instead, so you can place elder guardians where you want them.

What sound does an Elder Guardian make in Minecraft?

Switch subtitles on and the game names every elder guardian sound itself: "Elder Guardian moans", "Elder Guardian hurts", and "Elder Guardian dies", and 3 more. The first of those plays with /playsound minecraft:entity.elder_guardian.ambient master @p.

Which advancements need an Elder Guardian?

Monster Hunter and Monsters Hunted ask for an elder guardian. Monster Hunter wants you to kill any hostile monster.

Can you farm elder guardians in Minecraft?

Not from a spawning platform. Exactly 3 spawn per Ocean Monument during world generation. Do not respawn. Every elder guardian is worth up to 2 prismarine shards, or 5 with Looting III, so the size follows the number you need.

Elder Guardian

boss

Read 5 drop rows the game rolls on death, attributes from the game's own entry for it against Java 26.2.

Ours, not the game's own: where it turns up, how an elder guardian behaves. Same on Bedrock v1.26.40.05 for health. Checked 2026-08-22, and here is how we check.

Health

40 hearts

Damage

normal difficulty

XP Drop

experience

Added In

1.8

version

Overview

In Minecraft, the Elder Guardian is classified as a boss: a rare, high-health encounter with its own boss health bar and unique mechanics.

Look for the Elder Guardian across the Overworld; it is tied to Ocean Monument.

Its defining trait is simple: larger guardian variant.

With 80 HP (40 hearts) on its bar, killing one rewards 10 experience.

It was first added in 1.8 and has been a fixture of Minecraft ever since.

A useful detail many players miss: Does not respawn.

Beating the Elder Guardian is a milestone: it gatekeeps progression and the reward it leaves behind is worth the effort of preparing for the fight.

Damage by Difficulty

Easy

Normal

Hard

Spawning

Elder Guardians spawn in Ocean Monument.

Exactly 3 spawn per Ocean Monument during world generation. Do not respawn.

Height matters too: these spawns are tied to around Y=3, so the vertical slice you build or explore at directly affects how many you encounter.

Because it does not respawn the way ordinary mobs do, every Elder Guardian encounter is effectively a one-off event you should prepare for in advance.

Spawn Biomes

Ocean Monument

Drops

The Elder Guardian drop table breaks down like this:

Every kill yields 1 Raw Cod, 1 Prismarine Crystals, 1 Wet Sponge, and 1 Tide Armor Trim Smithing Template.

On top of that, you may come away with 0 to 2 Prismarine Shards.

Experience is where this mob really pays out: defeating it grants 10 XP, an enormous amount compared with ordinary enemies.

These are well worth keeping. Drops Wet Sponge on death.

The Looting enchantment on your sword raises the quantity and, for many of these items, the drop chance of the rarer rolls, so it is well worth using when you grind this mob.

Because the kill is so rare, plan to be standing where the loot lands so none of it is lost to lava, the void, or a long fall.

Item	Count	Chance	Conditions
Prismarine Shard	0 to 2	not every kill	Looting III up to 5
Raw Cod	1	always	Looting III up to 4, cooked when burnt
Prismarine Crystals	1	always	Looting III up to 4
Wet Sponge	1	always	player kill
Tide Armor Trim Smithing Template	1	always

That Prismarine Crystals row is not its own: the guardian drops 1.

Elder Guardian attributes

Attribute	Value
Size	1.998 x 1.998 blocks
Eye height	0.999 blocks
Tracking range	10 chunks
Experience	10
Health	80 points
Attack damage attribute	8
Movement speed	0.3
Follow range	16 blocks

Where the Elder Guardian lands, it has company: the iron golem at 100 health, the nearest we list to its 80, the blaze on the same 10 experience and the evoker too.

Elder Guardian: 4 items per kill over 4 drop rows

The ranges Minecraft Java 26.2 rolls for an elder guardian give 1 Prismarine Crystals per kill, so 64 Prismarine Crystals costs 64 kills before Looting. Next down is Prismarine Shard at 1 a kill, which is 64 elder guardian kills to 64. 3 further rows sit under those, down to 1 Wet Sponge per elder guardian and 64 kills a stack. 1 of those 5 rows (Wet Sponge) only roll when a player lands the killing blow, so an elder guardian killed by a fall or another mob averages 4 items instead of 5.

Item	Average per kill
Prismarine Shard	1
Raw Cod	1
Prismarine Crystals	1
Tide Armor Trim Smithing Template	1

1 situational row left out. How this average is worked out

Full swings to kill an elder guardian, at 80 health.
Weapon	Attack damage	Full swings	Swings per 64 Prismarine Crystals
golden sword,wooden sword	4	20	1280
stone sword	5	16	1024
iron sword	6	14	896
diamond sword,golden axe,wooden axe	7	12	768
netherite sword	8	10	640
diamond axe,iron axe,stone axe	9	9	576
netherite axe	10	8	512

Attack damage per weapon, read from the Java 26.2 tool data

Turned around, 3 unblocked elder guardian hits empty a player's 20 health, 40% of the bar at a time, which is what the elder guardian's 8 damage on Normal buys it. On Easy the same elder guardian hit is 25%, on Hard 60%, so 4 hits against 2.

Behavior & Combat

In the field, larger guardian variant. Inflicts Mining Fatigue III on nearby players every 60 seconds. Powerful laser attack.

Its 80 health is 6th of 80, just under the 100 of the iron golem.

Expect a long battle: with 80 health (40 hearts) and attacks dealing 5 on Easy, 8 on Normal and 12 on Hard, the Elder Guardian punishes underprepared players hard.

The fastest way to win is to lean on what it fears: Impaling enchantment and Milk (removes Mining Fatigue).

A sword enchanted with Impaling shortens the fight considerably against this mob.

Since it can attack from range, closing the distance quickly or breaking line of sight with cover is often safer than trading hits at a distance.

In short, do not wander into an Elder Guardian fight casually: plan the encounter, bring the right gear, and the rewards make it worthwhile.

Weaknesses

Impaling enchantmentMilk (removes Mining Fatigue)

Elder Guardian commands

Cheats have to be on in that world before the elder guardian appears. It needs 1.998 by 1.998 blocks of space to stand in.
Command	What it does
/summon minecraft:elder_guardian	Puts an elder guardian on the block you are standing on.
/give @p minecraft:elder_guardian_spawn_egg	Hands you the elder guardian spawn egg, so you can place elder guardians where you want them.
/kill @e[type=minecraft:elder_guardian]	Removes every elder guardian that is loaded around you.

Entity id minecraft:elder_guardian, spawn egg minecraft:elder_guardian_spawn_egg.

Elder Guardian farm

There is no platform that produces elder guardians. Exactly 3 spawn per Ocean Monument during world generation. Do not respawn. Anything you build has to feed that source instead of a dark floor.

Each kill is worth 10 experience and up to 2 prismarine shards, or 5 with Looting III, so the size of the elder guardian farm follows the number you need of that one item.

10 experience per kill

Prismarine Shard up to 2, 5 with Looting III

Elder Guardian version history

Minecraft 1.8 brought the elder guardian in on 2 September 2014, 11 years of elder guardian by now.

3 other mobs here came with it: the rabbit, the guardian and the endermite. 34 of our 88 mobs are older than the elder guardian, 50 are younger.

All of the elder guardian data above is taken from Java 26.2, so it describes the elder guardian as it is today.

What Elder Guardian sounds like

Turn subtitles on and every elder guardian sound names itself in the corner of the screen. These are the 6 lines a elder guardian can put there, and you can play any of them yourself with /playsound minecraft:entity.elder_guardian.ambient master @p.

Subtitle lines for the elder guardian, as the game writes them.
Sound	What you hear
entity.elder_guardian.ambient	Elder Guardian moans
entity.elder_guardian.hurt	Elder Guardian hurts
entity.elder_guardian.death	Elder Guardian dies
entity.elder_guardian.ambient_land	Elder Guardian flaps
entity.elder_guardian.curse	Elder Guardian curses
entity.elder_guardian.flop	Elder Guardian flops

Advancements that need Elder Guardian

2 advancements ask for elder guardian by name, and each of them counts other mobs too.

Monster HunterKill any hostile monster
Monsters HuntedKill one of every hostile monster

All Mobs boss Mobs