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The Combat Tests are a series of snapshots released in 2019 and 2020 for Java Edition with changes related to combat.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Currently, nine snapshots, the latest being Combat Test 8c, have been released exclusively on Reddit, and are forks of what was the latest version of Java Edition at the time of their release, with nearly half of them being forks of 1.16.2. Changes and additions from the Combat Tests were stated to be intended to be added to the base game once the new combat system had been finalized.[2]
It was stated by Jeb in 2020 that development is planned to be done in two phases, with the currently released Combat Test versions being a part of phase 1. When phase 2 begins, the focus will shift from combat system changes to changes related to mob balance and difficulty.[6][9][10]
The latest Combat Test, Combat Test 8c, was released in August 2020. For subsequent developer statements on the Combat Tests, see developer statements.
Attacking is no longer possible until the attack cooldown has reached 100%.
In a case where a player attacks after 80% charge but before 100% charge, an attack will be buffered to come out at 100% charge.
The attack cooldown can now further charge up to 200%, where attacks at 195% or greater charge are given an additional block of reach.
The damage of attacks remain the same as 100% charge.
The cooldown requirement for sweep attacks has also been increased, and is dependent on the weapon.
Sword sweep attacks require 185% or greater charge, while axe sweep attacks require 190% or greater charge.
Holding down the attack key now attacks automatically 1 game tick (0.05 seconds) slower than optimal timing.
The attack cooldown is now shorter when missing an attack, at 4 game ticks (0.2 seconds), regardless of weapon attack speed. When using hold-to-attack, the missing cooldown is 5 game ticks (0.25 seconds) instead.
Weapons with attack cooldowns that are shorter than 10 game ticks (0.5 seconds) now give the target less attack invulnerability time (invincibility frames), to allow the weapon's faster attack speed to connect all of its attacks appropriately.
The attack cooldown no longer resets when switching items, now only resetting when the player performs an attack.
The first 100% charge of the attack cooldown no longer displays the attack indicator, and instead the attack indicator is used to indicate 130% to 200% charge.
The swing animation that is displayed when attacking has been changed to emphasize the new rhythm of attacks.
The initial swing no longer moves the weapon downwards off the screen as much.
The swing now lingers out longer visually.
The slow rising-up animation of the weapon after swinging now begins at 120% charge, rather than immediately.
The attack cooldown is now repeatedly reset when breaking blocks, rather than only reseting when successfully breaking a block.
Saturation is no longer used to regenerate quickly, and is instead now only relevant for its purpose of pausing hunger loss.
Saturation is no longer accumulated by eating multiple instances of food. Instead, saturation is set to the eaten food's saturation value, as long as said saturation value exceeds the player's current saturation.[note 1]
Hunger no longer decreases along with saturation. Instead saturation is used first and after being completely used up, the hunger bar begins depleting as normal.
Starvation damage now damages the player faster, at every 40 game ticks (2 seconds) rather than every 80 game ticks (4 seconds).
Natural regeneration now uses hunger to heal every 40 game ticks (2 seconds) rather than every 80 game ticks (4 seconds).
Natural regeneration no longer uses saturation before using hunger, and instead ignores saturation.
The consumption of hunger by natural regeneration is now 1:1, taking 1 (👁 🍖 ) to heal 1HP👁 💔 . This ignores the player's current saturation value, making it so hunger bars can be lost even if food was just consumed.
The chance of 1 (👁 🍖 ) being consumed when healing 1HP👁 💔 is random, at a 50% chance. This means that the amount of healing players can do during a fight is heavily influenced by the RNG of hunger loss when healing.
👁 Image Eating being stopped upon getting attacked.
Eating and drinking consumables is now interrupted and reset when getting attacked.
Note that this does not take effect when being damaged by all damage types, only when taking damage from mobs and other players.
Liquids consumables (such as stews, honey bottles, milk buckets, and potions) are now consumed faster than other consumable types (20 ticks rather than the usual 32 ticks).
Increased attack speed for all axes to 2 (0.5 seconds), was 0.8 (1.25 seconds) for wooden and stone axes, 0.9 (~1.11 seconds) for iron axes, and 1 (1 second) for golden, diamond, and netherite axes.
Decreased the attack damage of all axes, making them all deal 1HP👁 💔 more damage than their sword counterparts across all tiers.
👁 Image Instantaneous shield blocking with the removal of the 250ms activation delay.
Now only block up to 5HP👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ 👁 💔 of melee damage, down from 100% of melee damage.
Shields that have banners applied to them block up to 10HP👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ of melee damage, however this is only a temporary change to test different shield types.[8]
Now only block 50% of knockback from player attacks, down from 100%.
The knockback resistance of a shield is now displayed as a stat.
Not implemented as an actual attribute modifier, as checking the knockback resistance attribute using /attribute while blocking shows no change to the attribute value.
Now fail to block explosions if said explosion was caused by a player.
Removed the 0.25 seconds (5 game ticks) activation delay.
Can now be activated by crouching, with different mechanics than when activating by right clicking.
Crouch shielding prevents the user from doing 200% charge attacks, but allows the user to attack while shielding.
Crouch shielding cannot be performed with a shield in the main hand, only with one in the offhand.
Crouch shielding can be enabled or disabled in the accessibility settings, and is enabled by default.
The arc of shield protection has been decreased to 148 degrees, down from 180 degrees.
Can now have their status indicated by a new "Shield Indicator" option that has a display similar to the attack indicator.[3]
Displays when a shield is activated, and if it is currently disabled by an axe.
Found in video settings and is disabled by default.
Has the options "OFF," "Crosshair," or "Hotbar."
Overwrites the crosshair attack indicator.
The shield disable icon does not display for shields in the main hand, only for shields in the offhand.
Shield strength
Represents the maximum amount of damage a shield can absorb and uses the translation key attribute.name.generic.shield_strength.[note 3]
Default base: 5
Value is the maximum damage that a given shield can absorb.
This also means that the Multishot enchantment can now deal damage to a single mob with all three arrows.
Instantaneous effects on tipped arrows are now scaled by 1/8, just like the duration of other effects. For example, an arrow of Harming deals additional 0.75HP👁 ❤️ × 0.375 magical damage.
Vertical momentum no longer influences the flight path of fired arrows.
Is now required to perform sweep attacks, rather than swords having the ability innately.
Has had its damage increase reduced to 25% at level 1, 33% at level 2, and 37.5% at level 3, down from the previous 50% at level 1, 66% at level 2, and 75% at level 3.
👁 Image Impaling increasing damage against a mob in water.
Now also applies its damage increase to all mobs that are in water or rain.
Note that Impaling still also increases damage to aquatic mobs, unlike in Bedrock Edition. The damage increase does not apply twice when attacking mobs that are both aquatic and also in water or rain.
3HP👁 ❤️ 👁 💔 on Easy, 4HP👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ on Normal, 6HP👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ 👁 ❤️ on Hard, down from 4.25HP👁 ❤️ × 2.125 on Easy, 6.5HP👁 ❤️ × 3.25 on Normal, 9.75HP👁 ❤️ × 4.875 on Hard.
Also planned for phase 2 of the Combat Tests are changes to the game's difficulties. Jeb has stated that he will need to consult the team and create a philosophy around difficulty before going forward with any changes.[6]
Hit registration
Jeb plans to further improve Minecraft's server-side hit registration in future Combat Tests, as the current system struggles to keep up with the constant changes in attack reach, causing desyncs and ghost attacks.[8]
Entities with bounding boxes smaller than 0.9 blocks on their largest dimension (such as rabbits and vexes) now have their hitboxes inflated to reach 0.9 blocks in that dimension when being attacked.
This means that they still have their normal hitboxes ordinarily, but can be attacked outside of their hitbox within a range of 0.9 blocks.
For example, a vex whose dimensions are 0.4 x 0.8 will become 0.5 x 0.9 for the purposes of targeting. However, a bat (0.5 x 0.9) will not be inflated at all due to their largest dimension not being smaller than 0.9.
Entities can now have their hitboxes attacked through certain transparent blocks like short grass or vines.
This also doesn't destroy the block that is attacked through.
Banner shields having higher damage absorption than normal shields is a temporary change, as stated by Jeb. The goal is to test the impact of different shield strengths, and make way for different kinds of shields. It was not stated whether this meant tier-based shields, or unique shields not related to tiers.[8]
Several statements have been made regarding the Combat Tests since Combat Test 8c released in 2020:
In June 2021, a Q&A in the Minecraft discord server featured developer Ulraf, who revealed that he would be taking up work on the Combat Tests from Jeb.[11]
In January 2022, developer kingbdogz clarified that it would not be solely developed by Ulraf, and that instead the gameplay design team as a whole would be taking up work on the Combat Tests some time in the future.[12]
In August 2025, Ulraf made several statements regarding the combat system:
To address a question about the controversy around the original Combat Update, he explained Jeb's mindset during that update's development, on how the pre-Combat Update combat system was too simple and made it difficult to add meaningful combat challenges. He explained how Bedrock Edition not receiving the Combat Update's attack cooldown mechanic has left the issue of uncomfortable trigger spamming on controllers unresolved. He reiterated that there is a significant portion of the playerbase that likes the current system and another portion that does not, and that while this makes it a difficult topic, they still want to make improvements while listening to the community, to ultimately achieve combat parity between Java and Bedrock editions.[13]
Later in the stream, in response to a question about the state of the Combat Tests, Ulraf explained that with the gameplay design team taking up work on the Combat Tests, the original code written by Jeb would likely not be used, and instead certain ideas from it would be kept. He specifically mentioned the changes to axes, later mentioning the Cleaving enchantment by name as something he was fond of. Ulraf also specifically mentioned that the feature of being able to swing at entities through foliage was something he would want to add to the game outside the Combat Tests, stating that it was a general improvement, and that there were other general improvements like this. He expressed that he was fond of the direction of the Combat Tests, but that it was not perfect and needed to be resolved further. Lastly, he reiterated that a release date would not be soon, and stated that when they are picked up again they would not necessarily be separate snapshots.[14]
Knockback resistance decreasing the knockback taken from attacks rather than giving a random chance to ignore all knockback was first added in the Combat Tests, and then added partially in 20w06a and fully in 22w03a.
The promotional image for the Combat Tests features stone with a snow layer texture overlay on it, despite this being impossible in-game.
With the release of Combat Test 3, a custom map was released.
↑ This change was made in Combat Test 5, however went unmentioned in the changelogs.
↑This change was made before Bedrock Edition's unarmed attack damage was lowered from 2HP👁 ❤️ to 1HP👁 💔 in 1.18.30, which cited parity with Java Edition as a reason.
↑As one can see when using /attribute on this version, this is not an actual attribute, but rather is used solely for the purposes of the shield's tooltip.
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