Wither

{
 "title": "Wither",
 "rows": [
 {
 "field": "(values exceeds 1000 characters...)",
 "label": "(link to Health article, displayed as Health points)"
 },
 {
 "field": "4 (<span class=\"iconbar pixel-image nowrap\" style=\"--icon-offset:-1px;\" title=\"4 armor points\">(link to File:Armor (icon).png article, displayed as 9px|link=|alt=🛡)(link to File:Armor (icon).png article, displayed as 9px|link=|alt=🛡)</span>)",
 "label": "(link to Armor#Natural armor article, displayed as Armor points)"
 },
 {
 "field": "Hostile",
 "label": "Behavior"
 },
 {
 "field": "<span class=\"nowrap\"><span class=\"sprite-file\" style=\"\">(link to File:EntitySprite undead.png article, displayed as 16x16px|link=Undead|alt=|class=pixel-image|)</span>(link to Undead article, displayed as <span class=\"sprite-text\">Undead</span>)</span><br><span class=\"nowrap\"><span class=\"sprite-file\" style=\"\">(link to File:EntitySprite monster.png article, displayed as 16x16px|link=Monster|alt=|class=pixel-image|)</span>(link to Monster article, displayed as <span class=\"sprite-text\">Monster</span>)</span>",
 "label": "(link to Mob type article, displayed as Mob type)"
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 {
 "field": "(values exceeds 1000 characters...)",
 "label": "Attack<br/>strength"
 },
 {
 "field": "'''''(link to Java Edition article, displayed as Java Edition)'':'''<br>\nHeight: 3.5 blocks<br>Width: 0.9 blocks\n\n'''''(link to Bedrock Edition article, displayed as Bedrock Edition)'':'''<br>\nHeight: 3.0 blocks<br>Width: 1.0 blocks",
 "label": "(link to Hitbox article, displayed as Hitbox size)"
 },
 {
 "field": "0.6",
 "label": "(link to Attribute#Movement_speed article, displayed as Speed)"
 },
 {
 "field": "Built by player; 11 second spawn delay.",
 "label": "(link to Mob spawning article, displayed as Spawn)"
 }
 ],
 "invimages": [
 "Wither Spawn Egg"
 ],
 "images": [
 "Wither.png",
 "Wither with Armor.png",
 "Blue Wither.png",
 "Wither Invulnerable with Armor.png"
 ]
}

The wither is an undead boss mob spawned by building a specific structure using soul sand or soul soil and three wither skeleton skulls. It is able to fly, fires explosive blue and black skulls at players and most non-undead mobs, and becomes immune to projectiles below half health. It is the only source of Nether stars, which are needed to craft beacons.

The wither is spawned by placing 4 blocks of soul sand and/or soul soil in a T shape, and putting 3 wither skeleton skulls on top of the three upper blocks. The last block placed must be one of the skulls (which can either be placed by hand or by a dispenser) then it will load a boss bar that takes 12 seconds to fully charge up, this then is followed by a large explosion. Air blocks are required on either side of the base soul sand/-soil. The orientation of the skulls does not matter, and the structure as a whole can be built upright, lying down, or upside-down. The wither spawns at the base soul sand/soil.

On death, the wither always drops a Nether star. In Java Edition, it drops 50XP XP only when killed by a player or tamed wolf. In Bedrock Edition, it always drops 50XP XP no matter how it dies.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

A Nether star, when dropped by a wither:

• takes 10 minutes (as opposed to 5 minutes normally) to despawn in Java Edition^[1]
• never despawns in Bedrock Edition

When spawned, the wither switches colors between black and blue as its health bar fills up. While in this state, the wither is invulnerable and neither moves nor attacks. When this state ends after 11 seconds or 220 game ticks, the wither creates a large explosion centered on itself, destroying nearby blocks and dealing tons of damage to nearby players and other entities.

It is the largest individual explosion that the player can cause in Java Edition without commands, with a blast power of 7, more than that of a charged creeper or an end crystal. It is accompanied by a global sound event (a sound that is played for everyone, no matter how far away they are from the wither‌^{[JE only] [2]}). After this, the wither attacks nearby mobs and can take damage.

In Java Edition, the wither's health is 300HP👁 ❤️
× 150, regardless of difficulty.

In Bedrock Edition, wither's health depends on difficulty:

• 300HP👁 ❤️
  × 150 on Easy
• 450HP👁 ❤️
  × 225 on Normal
• 600HP👁 ❤️
  × 300 on Hard

The wither is immune to fire, lava, drowning, and freezing. Like other undead mobs, the wither is harmed by the Instant Health effect and healed by the Instant Damage effect as well as affected by weapons with the Smite enchantment. It is immune to all other status effects, and cannot be damaged by other undead mobs.

Upon taking damage, the wither breaks all blocks within a 3×4×3 area around it, including blast-resistant blocks like obsidian, crying obsidian, and ancient debris, dropping them as items if possible. The wither is the only mob in the game that can destroy obsidian. (See Tutorial:Obsidian farming)

The wither cannot break the following blocks:

• 👁 Image
  Allow‌^{[BE & edu only]}
• 👁 Image
  Barrier
• 👁 Image
  Bedrock
• 👁 Image
  Border‌^{[BE & edu only]}
• 👁 BlockSprite chain-command-block.png: Sprite image for chain-command-block in Minecraft
  👁 BlockSprite command-block.png: Sprite image for command-block in Minecraft
  👁 BlockSprite repeating-command-block.png: Sprite image for repeating-command-block in Minecraft
  Command Blocks
• 👁 Image
  Deny‌^{[BE & edu only]}
• 👁 Image
  End Gateway‌^{[JE only]}
• 👁 Image
  End Portal
• 👁 Image
  End Portal Frame
• 👁 Image
  Jigsaw Block‌^{[JE only]}
• 👁 Image
  Light Blocks
• 👁 Image
  Moving Piston
• 👁 Image
  Nether Portal‌^{[JE only]}
• 👁 Image
  Reinforced Deepslate
• 👁 Image
  Structure Block
• 👁 Image
  Structure Void‌^{[BE & edu only]}
• 👁 BlockSprite test-block-start.png: Sprite image for test-block-start in Minecraft
  👁 BlockSprite test-block-log.png: Sprite image for test-block-log in Minecraft
  👁 BlockSprite test-block-accept.png: Sprite image for test-block-accept in Minecraft
  👁 BlockSprite test-block-fail.png: Sprite image for test-block-fail in Minecraft
  Test Block‌^{[JE only]}
• 👁 Image
  Test Instance Block‌^{[JE only]}

In Java Edition, these blocks are listed under the wither_immune tag.

The wither's block-breaking behavior makes suffocation ineffective under most circumstances. However, the blocks listed above, as well as some natural structures that include them (like the exit portal), can be used to suffocate the wither due to their wither immunity.

The wither is hostile toward all mobs except:

• 👁 Image
  Agents‌^{[BE & edu only]}
• 👁 Image
  Ghasts^[3]
• Undead mobs:
  • 👁 EntitySprite wither.png: Sprite image for wither in Minecraft
    Other withers
  • 👁 Image
    Phantoms
  • 👁 EntitySprite skeleton.png: Sprite image for skeleton in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite bogged.png: Sprite image for bogged in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite parched.png: Sprite image for parched in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite stray.png: Sprite image for stray in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite wither-skeleton.png: Sprite image for wither-skeleton in Minecraft
    Skeletons and their variants
  • 👁 EntitySprite skeleton-horse.png: Sprite image for skeleton-horse in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite zombie-horse.png: Sprite image for zombie-horse in Minecraft
    Skeleton horses and zombie horses
  • 👁 Image
    Zombie nautiluses
  • 👁 Image
    Camel husks
  • 👁 EntitySprite zoglin.png: Sprite image for zoglin in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite zombified-piglin.png: Sprite image for zombified-piglin in Minecraft
    Zoglins and zombified piglins
  • 👁 EntitySprite drowned.png: Sprite image for drowned in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite husk.png: Sprite image for husk in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite zombie.png: Sprite image for zombie in Minecraft
    👁 EntitySprite zombie-villager.png: Sprite image for zombie-villager in Minecraft
    Zombies and their variants
• Mobs with the Invulnerable NBT tag.

Armadillos are afraid of withers (and other undead mobs) and hide in their shell if a wither is nearby.

If the wither is idle, it simply hovers and is unable to gain altitude. On Normal or Hard difficulty, it fires blue skulls in random directions until it finds a target.

The color of the wither's bossbar depends on the edition: dark purple in Java Edition or light purple in Bedrock Edition. It appears whenever a player is within the vicinity of a wither. All withers display a boss bar on the screen, with a limit of five boss bars. A renamed wither displays its changed name above its boss bar.

In Java Edition, the fog around a player darkens when a wither is loaded. In Bedrock Edition, the effects from thunderstorms are applied; on Fancy graphics the sky darkens and the clouds turn black, and with Vibrant Visuals all environmental effects get darker and more brown/yellow.

Additionally, the wither's side heads shoot targets slightly slower than the main head. The interval for smaller heads is 2–3 seconds, while the main head's always 2.​^{[more information needed]}

Attacking

Upon noticing a mob or a player within 40 blocks, the wither hovers above it and rapidly shoots black wither skulls. The wither always tries to fly 5 blocks above, and within 3 blocks horizontally from its target. Each head fires independently, allowing a wither to attack up to three different mobs/players at the same time. The wither skulls try to fly toward the middle of the target's eye height and its feet vertically and the middle of its hitbox horizontally.

The main head controls the wither's movement and fires a black wither skull toward its target every 2 seconds, with a 0.1% chance to shoot a blue wither skull instead of the default black one. When the line of sight to its target is blocked, the wither stops firing wither skulls but still pathfinds toward the target. Side heads find a new target and fire black wither skulls toward the new target.

The wither skulls from the main head spawn 3 blocks above its body vertically and the middle of its hitbox horizontally. The wither skulls from the side heads spawn 2.2 blocks above its feet vertically, 1.3 blocks offset from the middle of its hitbox horizontally.

Regeneration

The wither has a passive regeneration rate of 1HP👁 💔
every 20 ticks (1 second), and a direct killing blow on a target instantly heals 5HP👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 💔
.

Wither roses

When a wither kills another mob, a wither rose is planted if the ground is grass block, dirt, coarse dirt, moss block, mud, netherrack, soul sand, or soul soil, or otherwise dropped as an item at that mob's location; however, it may be destroyed by other wither skulls. Wither roses are planted/dropped even when the game rule doMobLoot is set to false.^[4]

Wither armor

When its health drops below half (150HP👁 ❤️
× 75), the wither gains a natural "wither armor" effect, which makes it immune to damage from arrows and thrown tridents and causes it to fly at the same height as the target. The armor disappears if it regenerates above half health.

Despite being immune to projectiles when it has "wither armor", it can still be hit by a warden's sonic boom attack because it is not a projectile, but an instant damage attack. It can also still be hit by explosive fireworks, shot with or without a crossbow.

Breaking blocks

When being damaged, the wither destroys a 3×4×3 area, with the lowest center block being the block where the wither's tail is located. The block where the wither tail is located is the block at the bottom center of the wither's hitbox (block position of the wither's coordinate).

The attack can destroy any block in the game except moving piston/blocks, unbreakable blocks, and liquids. Withers can do block breaking attacks every 20 ticks.

When a wither is damaged, it sets its block breaking counter to 20. Every time it gets processed, it first decreases the counter by 1, then check if the counter equals 0. If it is 0 after the decrement, it breaks the blocks around it.

Suffocation is processed before the block breaking, so if wither is suffocated or damaged by something else before it ticks, it breaks blocks 19 ticks after the damage instead of 20 ticks.

When one of the wither's side heads does not have a target, it locks onto a target randomly within line of sight and attempts to shoot a skull. Each head can lock onto different targets. When it has a target, it fires a black wither skull toward the target every 2–3 seconds. If the side head fails to fire a skull for 9.5–17.2 seconds, or the wither is damaged faster than 12 tick intervals, it fires a blue skull at a random direction. Each head has its own separate wither skull cooldowns. If reloaded, the side heads could possibly shoot at 7.5–17.2 seconds after reloading instead.

Every tick the wither gets processed:

1. It decreases its side head wither skull cooldown by 1
2. The game then checks through each side heads for their respective wither skull cooldown, if the wither skull cooldown equals to 0 after the decrement, it does the followings:
   1. Set the wither skull cooldown to 10 ~ 19
   2. Add 1 to blue wither skull counter
   3. If the blue wither skull counter is greater than 15 after the addition and the game difficulty is set to Normal or Hard:
      1. Shoots a blue wither skull in random direction
      2. Set blue wither skull counter to 0
   4. If the head has a target, it does the followings:
      1. Shoot a black wither skull toward the target
      2. Sets wither skull cooldown to 40 ~ 59
      3. Set blue wither skull counter to 0
   5. If it does not have a target, target a random target with line of sight

When the wither is damaged, the blue skull counters increase by +3. This increment occurs even if the wither is under its invulnerability timer and cannot lose health — the event is still treated as valid for the counter. The 12‑tick threshold and the 2–3 second/9.5–17.2 second intervals are calculated from the wither's processing.

The wither has different spawn and death animations, both of which involve the wither exploding. With Vibrant Visuals, the eyes and mouths of both the wither and its skulls are emissive, and during spawning, shooting, or explosions the blue texture is emissive. The charge overlay below half health is also emissive.

Attacking

Upon noticing a player or mob, the wither flies to a random location horizontally near the target, sometimes strafing a few blocks before settling, then hovers in place. It always attempts to be above the player's reaching distance (about 4 blocks). It shoots 3 black wither skulls and one blue wither skull before flying to another location. The time between each shot decreases when the wither reaches 500HP👁 ❤️
× 250 and 400HP👁 ❤️
× 200. At half health it fires skulls at the original rate, then once again shoots faster at 200HP👁 ❤️
× 100 and 100HP👁 ❤️
× 50. On Normal difficulty or higher, if the wither has targeted an entity but cannot find a location to pathfind to, it shoots random blue skulls in a random direction along with the skulls directed toward the target.

A blue wither skull can be deflected by hitting it or using a projectile. If a deflected blue wither skull hits the wither, the wither takes damage.

Half health behavior

At half health, it crashes into the ground causing a large explosion that spawns 3 wither skeletons (except on Easy difficulty), as well as gaining wither armor. It then sometimes dashes into the ground destroying all the blocks around it, until it goes down approximately 40 blocks or reaches a block it cannot break.

Instead of flying to a random location, the wither moves by dashing toward its target, destroying blocks and damaging players or mobs in its path. When dashing, the wither pauses and tilts its body completely horizontal before moving at a high speed. It continues firing wither skulls like before, dashing after every second volley.

The wither's dash ability breaks all blocks in a 6x8x6 volume around it, rounded to the south-east if required. Despite the wither being able to destroy obsidian with blue skulls, the wither cannot dash through it.

A wither retains its anti-projectile armor after regenerating over 1/2 of its total HP, though it disappears after the game is restarted.^[5]

Wither roses

Wither roses always drop as an item when the wither kills a mob. Wither roses are dropped even when the game rule doMobLoot is set to false.^[6] The wither rose inflicts the Wither effect for a couple of seconds when stepped on.

Easy difficulty

On Easy difficulty, the wither does not inflict the wither effect or summon wither skeletons.

{
 "title": "Wither Skull",
 "rows": [
 {
 "field": "Height: 0.3125 blocks<br>Width: 0.3125 blocks",
 "label": "(link to Hitbox article, displayed as Hitbox size)"
 }
 ],
 "invimages": [],
 "images": []
}

When attacking, the wither rapidly fires explosive projectiles called wither skulls, which look similar to its own heads, at its target. There are two types of wither skulls: a fast-moving black one, and a slower blue one.

• Black wither skulls explode with a blast power of 1, the same as a ghast's fireball, and cannot break blocks with a blast resistance above 4.
• Blue wither skulls have the same explosion strength, but move slower and are more destructive to terrain. They treat all breakable blocks as having a blast resistance lower than 0.8 (except reinforced deepslate), such as obsidian, ancient debris and blocks of netherite. Blue skulls are able to destroy water and lava source blocks, but cannot break unbreakable blocks like bedrock and end portal frames. In Minecraft Education, blue wither skulls deal increased damage, but with the same explosion radius.

If either type of wither skull hits a player or mob, it does 8HP👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
damage on Normal difficulty. It also inflicts Wither II for 10 seconds on Normal difficulty and 40 seconds on Hard, which turns the player's hearts black (👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
) and drains health, similarly to Poison. However, unlike Poison, it can kill the player.

Like other status effects, the Wither effect can be cured by drinking milk.

In Bedrock Edition and Legacy Console Edition, the blue skull can be deflected by hitting it with an empty hand, weapon, tool, throwable projectiles such as tridents, arrows, snowballs, and throwable potions and explosions. Deflected blue skulls can damage the wither if it hits the body, but not the heads. Killing a wither with a blue skull drops a wither rose as it is considered to be killed by a wither.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Java Edition:

Withers have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Wither skulls have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements that apply to all mobs:

Advancements that apply to all mobs:

Issues relating to "Wither" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

• The wither was originally supposed to shoot flaming skulls, but the game would not stop crashing despite the best efforts of the developers. So, the skulls were changed to no longer be on fire.^[14]
• According to Jeb, the wither was inspired by Terraria, which has a summonable boss mechanic. The name itself is inspired by a poison spell in another game made by Jeb called Whispers in Akarra.^[15]
• There is a painting showing the soul sand and wither skeleton skull formation needed to spawn a wither.
  • Similarly, the wither appears on the four sides of chiseled red sandstone.
• If the wither is damaged by the void, it frantically attempts to fire blue skulls.
• Above half health, the wither always attempts to stay a few blocks above the mob it is targeting. This means that attempting to build or climb up to hit the wither using a sword is essentially impossible.
  • If the wither is after a blaze and the blaze tries to fly up to it, the wither attempts to keep rising above the blaze, thus making both of them rise higher until they hit a ceiling or until the blaze despawns or dies.
• Although the wither is 3.5 blocks tall, 3 blocks wide, and 1 block thick, its hitbox is only 3.5 blocks tall, 1 block wide, and 1 block thick.
  • The true dimensions of the wither are: 2.844 blocks tall (varies), 3 blocks wide, and 1.719 blocks long (also varies).
• An enemy called the wither storm appears in Minecraft: Story Mode. It was created by replacing the center block of soul sand with a command block.
• Despite not having visible feet, withers can make footstep sounds.^[16]
• In Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34, withers drop red keys.
• According to Quinn Richter, Marketplace Partner Manager, the wither's name is "Simmons?", similar to the ender dragon's name being "Jean?".^[17]
• On the webpage for the 10th anniversary of Minecraft, an image of the wither is referred to internally as a ghast.^[18]

• 👁 The wither and its armor.
  
  The wither and its armor.
• 👁 The wither prepares for explosion with the invulnerable status after summoned.
  
  The wither prepares for explosion with the invulnerable status after summoned.

• 👁 The withering effect after being damaged by a wither skull.
  
  The withering effect after being damaged by a wither skull.
• 👁 The "wither armor" that blocks arrows.
  
  The "wither armor" that blocks arrows.
• 👁 A larger image to show how to summon the wither.
  
  A larger image to show how to summon the wither.
• 👁 The pit created after the wither has charged.
  
  The pit created after the wither has charged.
• 👁 The wither attacking horses.
  
  The wither attacking horses.
• 👁 The wither attacking a sheep.
  
  The wither attacking a sheep.
• 👁 The wither attacking a village.
  
  The wither attacking a village.
• 👁 A wither summoning set-up.
  
  A wither summoning set-up.
• 👁 Image from Dinnerbone of a wither being built horizontally.
  
  Image from Dinnerbone of a wither being built horizontally.
• 👁 A player avoiding a wither by using the Invisibility effect.
  
  A player avoiding a wither by using the Invisibility effect.
• 👁 First image of a wither being built in Bedrock Edition.
  
  First image of a wither being built in Bedrock Edition.
• 👁 The darker sky when a wither is nearby
  
  The darker sky when a wither is nearby

• 👁 Wither texture file.
  
  Wither texture file.
• 👁 Invulnerable wither texture file.
  
  Invulnerable wither texture file.
• 👁 Wither armor texture file.
  
  Wither armor texture file.

• 👁 Efe and Zuri defeating the wither.
  
  Efe and Zuri defeating the wither.
• 👁 Wither in promotional artwork for the Pretty Scary Update.
  
  Wither in promotional artwork for the Pretty Scary Update.
• 👁 Artwork of the Wither used on the 10th anniversary website.[18]
  
  Artwork of the Wither used on the 10th anniversary website.^[18]
• 👁 Wither pictured in the Mobestiary.
  
  Wither pictured in the Mobestiary.
• 👁 The Wither on the cover of Castle Redstone.
  
  The Wither on the cover of Castle Redstone.
• 👁 LEGO Minecraft wither.
  
  LEGO Minecraft wither.
• 👁 "Acid Wither," an official T-Shirt design.
  
  "Acid Wither," an official T-Shirt design.
• 👁 "Jolly Mobs Flying Head," another T-Shirt design.
  
  "Jolly Mobs Flying Head," another T-Shirt design.
• 👁 A painting of the Wither as seen in A Minecraft Movie.
  
  A painting of the Wither as seen in A Minecraft Movie.
• 👁 A wither-themed spinner produced by ThinkGeek.
  
  A wither-themed spinner produced by ThinkGeek.

• 👁 Image
  Ender Dragon, the other boss mob in Minecraft
• Defeating the wither, a tutorial explaining different tactics to fight and kill the wither

• Meet the Wither – Minecraft.net on February 13, 2017