Elder guardians now clear mining fatigue when you kill them. They also give it constantly while you’re in the monument to prevent cheesing.

They also drop 12-16 wet sponge when killed, which turns into dry sponge when killed with fire aspect.

Guardians struck by lightning turn into elder guardians, giving you a viable option for renewing sponge.

History

1.6.1*

Elder guardians no longer drop nautilus shells, instead dropping 12-16 wet sponge

  • This wet sponge is smelted into normal sponge if killed by fire aspect
1.2.0+

Guardians struck by lightning now turn into elder guardians

1.1.0Beta 6+

Elder guardians now drop 1-2 nautilus shells

The design intent behind this is to alleviate the annoyance from obtaining nautilus shells via usual means

The usual means are fishing and hunting drowned, which can become tedious very fast, thus 3-6 shells are provided via elder guardian, making you only need to raid three monuments, or simply obtain the other 2-5 shells via other methods

This drop replaces the existing wet sponge drop, as wet sponge are already guaranteed elsewhere in every monument

Beta 1+

To go with the new ocean monument rework (described below), the elder guardians now give the mining fatigue effect much faster, and will clear the effect once you kill all three