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Wither.pngBlue Wither.png
Health points

300 (Heart.svg × 150)[JE only]
Easy: 300 (Heart.svg × 150)[BE & LCE only]
Normal: 450 (Heart.svg × 225)[BE & LCE only]
Hard: 600 (Heart.svg × 300)[BE & LCE only]
? (other editons)

Armor points

4 (Armor.svgArmor.svg)

Attack strength
Wither Skull

Easy: 5 (Heart.svgHeart.svgHalf Heart.svg)
Normal: 8 (Withered Heart.svgWithered Heart.svgWithered Heart.svgWithered Heart.svg)
Hard: 12 (Withered Heart.svg × 6)

Dash Attack‌[BE & LCE only]

15 (Heart.svg × 7.5)


Normal: 1 (Withered Half Heart.svg) per sec and
Wither for 9 sec (Withered Heart.svgWithered Heart.svgWithered Heart.svgWithered Heart.svgWithered Half Heart.svg)
Hard: 1 (Withered Half Heart.svg) per sec and
Wither 2 for 39 sec (Withered Heart.svg × 19.5


Varies by proximity.
Maximum damage: 68 (Heart.svg × 34)


Height: 3.5 Blocks
Width: 0.9 Blocks


Built by player; 10 second spawn cooldown.

Common drops


Internal ID

JE: 64
BE: 52

Namespaced ID


Blue shield wither.
Wither when spawned with its blue shield.

New Boss: Wither! Better craft a diaper, pal.

The Pretty Scary Update promo poster

The wither is an undead boss mob that shoots explosive skulls at its enemies, and is currently the only player-made hostile mob in the game.


The wither build configuration.

The wither is spawned by placing 4 blocks of soul sand in a T shape (as shown in the image below), and putting 3 wither skeleton skulls on top of the three upper blocks. The last block placed must be one of the three skulls, and can be placed by the player or a dispenser. Air blocks are required on either side of the base soul sand block under the upper blocks (keep in mind that "block" refers to any block, not just those that are block shaped; therefore objects such as Tall Grass and Flowers will still prevent the Wither from spawning). The building pattern can have any orientation (including horizontal) as well as the skulls. When the wither has completely spawned, it will anger and create an explosion around itself.

Like other hostile mobs, the wither despawns when the difficulty is changed to Peaceful. The wither spawning structure will also fail in Peaceful difficulty; the blocks will simply do nothing.


The wither drops the nether star upon death which, until picked up, cannot despawn or be destroyed by explosions. The Looting enchantment will not increase this drop. It also drops 50 experience points when killed by a player or tamed wolf.


Marsh Davies Mojang avatar.png


Marsh Davies[1]
The difference between the ender dragon's boss bar and the wither's boss bar.

When spawned, the wither will grow larger in size as its health bar fills up. While in this state, the wither is invulnerable, and will not move or attack. When this state ends (after 10 seconds), the wither will create a very large explosion centered on itself, destroying nearby blocks and dealing up to 68 (Heart.svg × 34) damage to nearby mobs/players. This “birth” explosion is larger than that of a charged creeper or an end crystal and is accompanied by a loud, threatening, ghastly sound that can be heard equally from across the map, and isn’t actually centered on the wither. After this, the wither will attack nearby mobs and is now able to take damage.

The wither is immune to fire, lava and drowning damage. Suffocation is ineffective, since upon taking damage, the wither will break any block it touches (except bedrock, end gateway blocks, end portal blocks, end portal frames, command blocks, barriers and extended pistons). Like other undead mobs, the wither is harmed by the Instant Health effect and healed by the Instant Damage effect. It is immune to all other status effects, like the ender dragon. However, it takes extra damage from weapons with the Smite enchantment.

The wither is hostile towards all mobs except the following:

Hostile mobs that can be targeted by the wither include spiders and guardians.

The wither is immune to all attacks from other undead mobs except skulls from other withers. The Wither can't see players and mobs affected by Invisibility.

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

The wither has a dark purple boss health bar which is only shown when a player is looking in its direction, including through walls. When looking at the wither, the sky gets slightly darker. All withers will display a boss bar on the screen.

Java Edition[edit]

The wither going on a villager killing rampage.

Upon noticing a mob, the wither hovers above it and rapidly shoots wither skulls. Each head fires independently, allowing a wither to attack up to three different mobs/players at the same time. The main head controls the Wither's movement, and has a 0.1% chance to shoot a blue wither skull instead of the default black one.

Whenever a wither kills another mob, a wither rose will be planted at that mob's location.

The wither has a passive regeneration rate of 1 (Half Heart.svg) every 20 ticks (1 second), and a direct hit on a target instantly heals 5 (Heart.svgHeart.svgHalf Heart.svg).

When its health drops below half (150 (Heart.svg × 75)), the wither will gain a natural "wither armor" effect, which makes it immune to projectile damage and causes it to only fly at the same height as its target. The armor will disappear if it regenerates above half health.

Bedrock and Legacy Console Editions[edit]

Upon noticing a player or mob, the wither will fly to a random location and hover in place. It will shoot 3 black wither skulls and a blue wither skull before flying to another location.

At half health, it causes a large explosion that spawns 3-4 wither skeletons (except on Easy difficulty), as well as gaining "wither armor". Instead of flying to a random location, it will now dash towards its target like a missile, destroying most blocks and damaging mobs in its path. It will also fire up to 4 skulls per burst. It also has different birth and death animations, both of which involve the wither spinning and exploding.

Wither Skull[edit]

Wither Skull
Wither Skull.pngDangerous Wither Skull.png
Internal ID

JE: 19
BE: 89

Network ID

JE: 66

Namespaced ID

See ID

The wither shoots explosive projectiles called wither skulls, which look like extra heads of itself, 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 radius of 1, the same as a ghast's fireball, and cannot break blocks with a blast resistance above 20. The blue wither skull has the same explosion strength, but moves slower and treats most blocks as having a blast resistance of no more than 4, making it more destructive to the terrain.

If either type of wither skull hits a player or mob, it inflicts the wither effect, which turns your hearts black (Withered Heart.svg × 10) and drains your health, similarly to poison.

Like other harmful status effects, the wither effect can be cured by drinking milk or using the totem of undying.

In Bedrock Edition and Legacy Console Edition, the blue skull can be deflected by hitting it with hand or throwable entities (similar to Ghast fireballs).

Data values[edit]


Java Edition:

Entity Namespaced ID
Wither Skull wither_skull
Dangerous Wither Skull

Bedrock Edition:

Entity Namespaced ID Numeric ID
Wither Skull wither_skull 89
Dangerous Wither Skull wither_skull_dangerous 91

Entity data[edit]

Wither skulls are also entities which have associated entity data.

  • Entity data
    •  power: List of 3 doubles that adds to direction every tick. Act as the acceleration.

Data values[edit]



Xbox PS Bedrock Nintendo





Java Edition
Projectile firing rate and movement speed increased.
12w37aThe wither will now make a massive explosion upon its creation after its health is fully charged.
12w38aAdded sound when withers break blocks.
12w42bExperience dropped is increased from 20 to 50 points.
1.4Various new sounds have been added for the wither. oversight where withers can be created in peaceful difficulty has been fixed. Before this update, attempting to spawn the wither in peaceful resulted in a waste of soul sand and skulls.
1.513w05aWithers cannot ride minecarts anymore.
1.7.213w37aAdded achievements for spawning and killing the wither.
1.814w04aYou can now spawn withers by dispensing the wither skulls.
14w11bThe hitbox of the wither has been changed.
14w20aWithers no longer break barriers.
14w25aWithers now move while invulnerable due to MC-57569.
releaseBarriers can be broken by withers again.
1.8.1?Barriers can no longer be broken by withers.
1.915w46aWithers no longer move while invulnerable.
15w49aWithers no longer travel through portals.
1.1116w32aThe entity ID is changed from WitherBoss to wither.
The projectile entity ID is changed from WitherSkull to wither_skull.
1.12pre3Withers can no longer break piston extensions or end gateways.
1.1418w43aAll mobs killed by the wither now have one Wither Rose placed at their location on death.
18w44aThe wither now has loot tables.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.16.0build 4Added the wither.
When the wither is at 50% health, it will spawn 4 wither skeletons.
The wither now attacks differently and has twice the amount of health as the Java Edition's Wither.
Pocket Edition
1.0.2Wither skulls can now be deflected with a sword.
1.1.0alpha entity ID is changed from wither.boss to wither.
Legacy Console Edition
TU19CU71.12Patch 11.0.1Added withers.
TU60CU511.64Patch 30Updated the wither's behavior. It will now blow up and spawn wither skeletons at half health. They will also do the Dash Attack like in Bedrock Edition.
The wither is no longer able to regenerate health.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.3.12Added the wither.


Issues relating to "Wither" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.


  • According to Jeb, the wither was inspired by Terraria which has summonable boss mechanic, the name itself inspired by poison spell in another game made by him called Whispers in Akarra.[4]
  • The wither does not take damage from undead mobs' attacks.
  • Above half health, the Wither will always attempt 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.
  • Summoning the Wither in a small underground room at the end of a long tunnel can make the fight easier, as the Wither will not have as much space to maneuver. Back up along the tunnel and the Wither will need to continuously destroy blocks to chase after you, hopefully allowing you time to shoot arrows to whittle down its health.
  • The wither appears on four sides of chiseled red sandstone.
  • Despite not having visible feet, withers are still capable of making footstep sounds.[5]
  • In Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34, withers drop red keys.


In Other Media[edit]

See also[edit]