Grand Theft Auto V

The Elite Challenges are challenges relating to the Heist Finales for each Act, which are time-constrained, require you to avoid dying, and have other Act-specific requirements.

I highly advise practising each Finale once you are able to start them to familiarise yourself with them as you will need to complete each Finale quickly and without dying. An Act's Finale is made available once you have completed all of that Act's Prep and Setup Missions.

Once you have unlocked a Finale, play through it but purposefully fail by having a player leave GTA Online through the Pause Menu or by dying/committing suicide. After this, you are taken to a screen where you can choose to Quick Restart or Continue - choose to Continue by pressing . Then restart the Finale so that you can restart it from the beginning and continue practising.

Once your team is comfortable with the Finale, attempt a timed run using a stopwatch/smartphone: start the timer when you gain control of your character and stop the timer once you lose control at the end. If you feel you will not complete the Finale in the required time for the Elite Challenge, or have failed to meet any other requirements for that Act's Elite Challenge, ensure you purposefully fail to avoid completing the Finale, since if you do complete it, you will have to redo all Prep & Setup Missions for that Act to regain access to the Finale.

A good way to save time on each Finale is to own one of the following Facilities:

• Ron's Alternative Wind Farm Facility ($1,875,000)
• Grand Senora Desert Facility ($2,525,000)
• Sandy Shores Facility ($2,740,000)

All of these Facilities are well-placed to quickly travel to the first checkpoints in Acts I and III.

For Act II, the best-located Facility is the Paleto Bay Facility ($1,250,000), but it is not worth purchasing the Paleto Bay Facility solely for Act II since you can complete the Act II Finale in good time for its Elite Challenge from the suggested Facilities above.

The Grand Senora Desert and Sandy Shores Facilities are better-placed than the Ron’s Alternative Wind Farm Facility but more expensive.
The Sandy Shores Facility is overall the most well-placed Facility for all 3 Finales, though you may find the Grand Senora Desert Facility conveniently located close to the Sandy Shores airfield if you like using air vehicles.
I used the Ron's Alternative Wind Farm Facility as it was cheaper and found that it worked fine for the Elite Challenges.
The requirements for the Elite Challenges are as follows:

Act I:

• Complete within 5:30
• Kill 78 enemies or more
• Nobody dies
• Do not trip-skip

The most difficult requirement here is the time limit, so familiarise yourself with your route to the first checkpoint from your Facility and with the enemy combat. Work your way through the enemies quickly to save time - it may be useful to do this as a team of 3 or 4 so you can clear the enemies faster.

You will more than likely kill 78 enemies naturally, but to maximise your chances of doing so, place particular focus on taking out as many enemies as you can once you gain control of the Base Defence System in the last checkpoint.

Read the Tips & Strategies section for advice on not dying, and see the video below for a demonstration.
 
Act II:

• Complete within 15:00
• Take 5% damage to the Avenger or less
• Nobody dies
• Do not trip-skip

The time requirement is more than achievable after gaining some familiarity with the Finale, with the biggest time-savers coming from travelling to the starting vehicles in Paleto Bay quickly, and the combat section in the Submarine. The designated Submarine Team should familiarise themselves with the route to Bogdan so that they avoid wasting time looking for him. If you are travelling to Paleto Bay from a distant Facility at the start, you can save time by using an air vehicle to fly over (if you own one!): simply call Pegasus as soon as you start and request your fastest vehicle (I used a Hydra and parachuted out, while teammates used a Buzzard, either work). If you are struggling to complete the Finale within 15:00, you can purchase and use the Paleto Bay Facility to save time travelling to Paleto Bay at the start, but this shouldn’t be necessary.

The most difficult requirement here is the damage requirement; you can only take a few hits to the Avenger and it is difficult to tell from the Avenger's damage bar exactly how much damage has been taken. Try to have 2 or 3 players in the Air Support team so they can effectively defend the Avenger using its turrets. The submarine section can be comfortably completed alone by a team member familiar with the role. You may also find yourself taking less damage to the Avenger if you fly the Avenger to a point of high altitude, this will result in enemy helicopters having to spend time raising their altitude before they can attack you, giving you more time to take them out.

Read the Tips & Strategies section for advice on not dying, and the videos below for a demonstration.

Submarine Role:
 
Air-Support Role:
 
Act III

• Complete within 30:00
• Get 150 headshots
• 0 hacks failed
• Nobody dies
• Do not trip-skip

The time requirement is quite lenient again so focus on getting through the combat sections safely, it will probably require a few practice runs to get used to the combat and familiarise yourself with the enemies locations. At the start, you will head over to the Grapeseed area where you can choose between either a Khanjali Tank or a Barrage SUV: take the Barrage SUV as this will save time in the driving section of the mission. If you die while driving through the tunnels, use the rest of the run as a practise or restart - you will have wasted no more than 5 minutes by restarting at this point.

There will be ample opportunities to execute headshots in the server section where you are tasked with performing 4 hacks. Take cover and make the most of the infinitely-respawning AI to spawn-kill them.

The designated hacker should get used to playing the minigame quickly and without failing - being able to complete the hacking sections quickly is a huge time-saver in this Finale and will significantly shorten the server section of the Finale. There are 4 hacks, and as long as you don't lose all of the lives you are given in each hacking minigame you will pass the requirement for not failing. The hacker can see the number of lives remaining for each hacking minigame in the top right of the minigame screen. If you or a team member feels they may fail a hack by losing all of their lives in the hacking minigame, they can quit the minigame by pressing and restart the hack immediately after, this does not count as a fail and will still allow you to meet the requirements for the challenge.

The most difficult requirement here is nobody dying. There is a lot of combat in this Finale and your team should get used to taking out Juggernauts together before they kill you. Familiarise yourself with the techniques given in the Tips & Strategies section, and see the video below for a demonstration.
 
You will be awarded $50,000 for each Elite Challenge you complete. The trophy will pop once you have completed all 3 challenges (they needn’t be completed with the same group of players, and can be completed in any order you prefer; you just need to complete each Elite Challenge once).