A strange thing happened to me in Grymforge, going to the island where the Lathander ghost is .
I' ve been there at least half a dozen times. I attacked the lava elemental once, which was not a good idea.
I've noticed this too - pre patch 8 you could just jump over to the chest, pick up the amulet and leave and the Elemental wouldn't bother you unless you attacked it.
I've done this now twice on patch 8 and the Elemental seems to auto-aggro once you pick up the amulet. Seems like a deliberate change to me, just like they changed/corrected the optics of the amulet in the cutscenes, so its chain/cord looks more realistic (it's no longer sticking out like it was a solid piece of metal). So I guess they did put some work into this location and possibly changed the Elemental's behavior while they were at it.
On a side note: You can position someone way up top (near where the fourth animated armor was stationed) and above the Elemental's patrol path and give them a bunch of water bottles. When I did this in my last encounter with the thing, simply throwing down those bottles would result in 20 to 25 damage per hit on the Elemental. Then all you need to do is use Bone Chill to prevent the Elemental from healing and the fight can be done in a turn or two. IIRC the thing is worth quite a bit of XP, so killing it should help you hit the next level-up a little sooner.
