Killing Elder Guardians efficiently for trim?
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GracefulBeauty30 messagesstarted Sep 13, 2026, 11:25 AM
GracefulBeauty30 messagesstarted Sep 13, 2026, 11:25 AMGoal (Mob)Structure
GracefulBeautyOP2 weeks ago(edited)The most reliable way to force Obtain 2 Unique Armor Trims is Coast (shipwreck) + Tide (elder guardian), unless you happen to already have 1 trim from JT / DT / Bastion / Fortress, or you're going to Stronghold. So now killing elder guardians is meta-relevant. Each elder guardian has a 20% chance to drop Tide, so it takes 5 on average. My question is, how do you kill all 3 elder guardians in a monument quickly? Obviously milk and doors are helpful, but there are a few things I'm not sure on:
1. How do you handle the 2 elder guardians in huge rooms where they can swim far away from you and don't get stuck, unlike the elder guardian in the small room up top?
2. Which weapon is fastest? (surely just the best sword you can craft, but how much time does it save? Is it worth investing time/resources?)
3. Can you reliably set up critical hits with a ceiling above your door, and is it worth it?
4. Can you manipulate the elder guardian AI/pathfinding in your favor somehow?
1. How do you handle the 2 elder guardians in huge rooms where they can swim far away from you and don't get stuck, unlike the elder guardian in the small room up top?
2. Which weapon is fastest? (surely just the best sword you can craft, but how much time does it save? Is it worth investing time/resources?)
3. Can you reliably set up critical hits with a ceiling above your door, and is it worth it?
4. Can you manipulate the elder guardian AI/pathfinding in your favor somehow?
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artificialair2 weeks ago
at least from my experience, they don’t tend to want to swim towards me, like ever
so once i get em in a corner i can pretty consistently just poke them with an axe until they’re dead
so once i get em in a corner i can pretty consistently just poke them with an axe until they’re dead
artificialair2 weeks ago
crits sound messy if you want to live, since you wanna attack it when the thorns are down right after charging it more often than not
maskers2 weeks ago
counterpoint to using a sword: i imagine you'd take less damage from thorns with an axe
maskers2 weeks ago
yeah it isn't a % of the damage you deal
artificialair2 weeks ago
i wonder if you could one tap an elder with ds3 dolphin spear
artificialair2 weeks ago
objectively funny situation for that one perfect ship seed and not much else
GracefulBeautyOP2 weeks ago
true, although you kinda want to break its line of sight and hit it while it's swimming instead of tanking the thorns
GracefulBeautyOP2 weeks ago
unless you have good armor / food
GracefulBeautyOP2 weeks ago
if you're hitting it through thorns that is a point in favor of crits too :p
GracefulBeautyOP2 weeks ago
with 80 hp that's 6 axe crits or 9 normal hits
GracefulBeautyOP2 weeks ago
so 12 dmg from thorns and maybe another 5 dmg from laser, that's tankable
ItzJeef2 weeks ago(edited)
i wonder if its worth it to focus on quantity over quality here, and just kill the ones in the top rooms, and spend the time searching for others instead of killing the other 2
artificialair2 weeks ago
i feel like clearing 2 monuments is never slower than finding 6
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ItzJeef2 weeks ago
yeah no thats true, didnt really think about it when phrased like that
ItzJeef2 weeks ago
cause on average you're killing 5 guardians
beniibobs2 weeks ago
I wonder if you’d be able to bait the ones in the big rooms into a smaller area and then engineer a setup where they get stuck like the one at the top room does
luxuryzlast week
a concept ive learned about elder gaurdian ai is after every laser, it seems like it picks a block it swims too before it shoots again, and if Blocked/prevented from hitting that spot, it will just swim indefinitely with NO THORNS UP
not sure how to consistently get it into that state, and if not in the state can be a pain in the ass, LMK if u can find some shit with ts
not sure how to consistently get it into that state, and if not in the state can be a pain in the ass, LMK if u can find some shit with ts
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beniibobslast week
Well yeah that’s the idea behind killing the elder guardian in the top room, and why i said this
beniibobslast week
It's hard to see an optimal way to kill Elder Guardians quickly without them getting stuck trying to swim somewhere. Putting your door here seems to pretty consistently give you sub 1 minute kills without the need for food or a bed.
This isn't a very earlygame goal, but overlapping for other goals could mean it's part of an okay line (Status Ef...
This isn't a very earlygame goal, but overlapping for other goals could mean it's part of an okay line (Status Ef...
luxuryzlast week
oh wow the top room is just terrible for it’s ai LOL i haven’t fought a elder other than in gridlock 
luxuryzlast week
w tech
luxuryzlast week
seems like in general it tries to get close to you but maybe that was just luck in ur video
luxuryzlast week
W VID
beniibobslast week(edited)
yeah these were some good ones (though they happened to be the only few monuments i recorded), if you get unlucky u just have to keep resetting the laser till it swims somewhere you want
luxuryzlast week
not too bad
luxuryzlast week
also that room being so small is better for not getting guardian spawns
beniibobslast week
yeah now that there’s Obtain 2 Unique Trims we have more reason to kill the other ones though, which will be quite a pain if we can’t work out a nice way to deal with them
giantfunguslast week
I couldve sworn you did aa
luxuryzlast week
nah i was tiptoeing around learning it but never did