Wither

Normal
Blue

Health

Java Edition:

300 × 150
Bedrock Edition:
Easy: 300 × 150
Normal: 450 × 225
Hard: 600 × 300

Classification

Undead

Behavior

Hostile

Spawn

Built by player; 11 seconds spawn delay.

Varies by proximity; maximum:
Easy: 35 × 17.5
Normal: 68 × 34
Hard: 102 × 51

Wither Skull:
Easy: 5
Normal: 8
Hard: 12 × 6
Wither:
Normal:Wither II for 10 seconds (1 per sec)
Hard:Wither II for 40 seconds (1 per sec)
Dash Attack:‌^{[BE only]}
15 × 7.5

Details

Size

In Java Edition:

Height: 3.5 blocks
Width: 0.9 blocks

In Bedrock Edition:
Height: 3.0 blocks
Width: 1.0 blocks

Armor

4 (

)

The wither is a player-constructed and highly destructive undead hostile boss mob that can hover in mid-air and fire barrages of explosive wither skulls at its target (which happens to be everything living). It is the only source of nether stars, which are used to craft beacons.

Spawning[]

Wither build configuration. Soul soil can be used interchangeably with soul sand.

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

The wither is spawned by placing 4 blocks of soul sand and/or soul soil in a T shape (see image on the right in the "Behavior" section), 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 or soul soil under the upper blocks (non-solid blocks such as grass and flowers prevent the wither from spawning). The building pattern can have any orientation (including horizontal and upside-down) as well as the skulls; the wither always spawns at the foot of the pattern. When the wither has successfully spawned, it is angered and creates an explosion around itself.

Like all other hostile mobs, the wither despawns when the difficulty is changed to Peaceful. Building the wither spawning structure in Peaceful difficulty does not spawn anything.

Drops[]

The wither always drops one nether star upon death. The Looting enchantment does not increase this drop. A wither also drops 50 experiences when killed by a player or a tamed wolf. In Java Edition, nether stars dropped by withers take 10 minutes to despawn and are immune to explosions. In Bedrock Edition, nether star items never despawn, neither by time nor by explosions. However, it can still be destroyed by a falling anvil,‌‌^{[Java Edition only]} fire, lava, cacti, or the Void.

Behavior[]

HealthBarComparison — The difference between the ender dragon's boss bar and that of the wither.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

When spawned, the wither grows larger in size 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), the wither creates a large explosion centered on itself, destroying nearby blocks and dealing up to 68 × 34 damage to nearby mobs and players, depending on difficulty. This explosion has a blast power of 7, more than that of a charged creeper or an end crystal. It is accompanied by a loud gruesome sound that can be heard equally from across the map and in all dimensions‌^{[JE only]}.^[1] After this, the wither attacks nearby mobs and can take damage.

The wither has the greatest natural health of all mobs in Minecraft (exceeded by the warden, while Bedrock Edition's wither still has the highest health), at 300 × 150 in Java Edition or 600 × 300 in Bedrock Edition. The wither is immune to fire, lava, drowning damage, 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, like the ender dragon.

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.

The wither cannot break the following blocks:

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

WitherAttack 2 — The wither attacking a villager.

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, can be used to suffocate the wither due to their wither immunity.

The wither is hostile toward all mobs except:

Undead mobs
- Zombies and their variants
- Skeletons and their variants
- Zombified piglins
- Skeleton horses and zombie horses
- Phantom
- Zoglin
Other withers
Ghasts^[2]
Mobs with the Invulnerable NBT tag.

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 wither's boss health bar color depends on the edition: Dark purple on Java Edition, or pink on Bedrock Edition. It appears only when a player is looking in the wither's direction, including through walls. All withers display a boss bar on the screen. Renamed withers display the changed name above its boss bar.

The sky darkens when the wither spawns (a kind of fog).

Java Edition[]

Wither with wither armor effect — Wither with 'wither armor' effect, after half health depleted.

Upon noticing a mob, the wither hovers above it and rapidly shoots black 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 is planted if the ground is grass block, dirt, coarse dirt, moss block, mud, netherrack, soul sand, or soul soil on Java Edition, 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.^[3]

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

When its health drops below half (150 × 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.

Bedrock Edition[]

Upon noticing a player or mob, the wither flies to a random location and hovers in place. It shoots 3 black wither skulls and one blue wither skull before flying to another location. The time between each shot decreases as the wither loses health. 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.

When a wither reaches halfway of its total health, it causes a large explosion that spawns 3 wither skeletons (except on Easy difficulty), as well as gaining wither armor. Instead of flying to a random location, it dashes toward its target, destroying blocks and damaging mobs in its path. It also fires up to 4 skulls per burst: three black skulls followed by one blue skull.

It has different spawn and death animations, both of which involve the wither exploding. 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.^[4] The wither rose inflicts the Wither effect for a couple of seconds when stepped on.

The sky light level drops to 11 and dark clouds appear from the moment the wither spawns until it is dead, preventing zombies, skeletons, and drowned from burning in sunlight.

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

Withers will retain their anti-projectile armor after healing it over 1/2 of its total HP (301 × 150.5), though it disappears after the game is restarted.^[5]

Wither skull[]

When attacking, the wither rapidly fires explosive projectiles called wither skulls, which look like 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. Blue wither skulls break all breakable blocks (including obsidian, ancient debris, and blocks of netherite), but cannot break unbreakable blocks like bedrock, end portal frames, and reinforced deepslate. 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 8 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, or throwable projectiles such as tridents, arrows, snowballs, and throwable potions.

Sounds[]

Java Edition:
Withers use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events. Wither skulls use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
Wither angers ^{[sound 1]}	Hostile Creatures	Randomly	`entity.wither.ambient`	`subtitles.entity.wither.ambient`	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
Wither attacks	Hostile Creatures	When a wither breaks blocks upon taking damage	`entity.wither.break_block`	`subtitles.entity.wither.shoot`	2.0	0.8-1.2	16
Wither attacks	Hostile Creatures	When a wither shoots a wither skull	`entity.wither.shoot`	`subtitles.entity.wither.shoot`	2.0	0.8-1.2	16
Wither dies	Hostile Creatures	When a wither dies	`entity.wither.death`	`subtitles.entity.wither.death`	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
Wither hurts	Hostile Creatures	When a wither is damaged	`entity.wither.hurt`	`subtitles.entity.wither.hurt`	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
Wither released	Hostile Creatures	When a wither is finished charging up ^{[sound 2]}	`entity.wither.spawn`	`subtitles.entity.wither.spawn`	1.0	1.0	16 (technical) / ∞ (effective) ^{[sound 3]}
Explosion	Blocks	When a wither is finished charging up or a wither's wither skull explodes	`entity.generic.explode`	`subtitles.entity.generic.explode`	4.0	0.56-0.84	16

↑ MC-212623
↑ Does not trigger at all if the gamerule globalSoundEvents is false
↑ MC-177741

Bedrock Edition:

Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
Hostile Creatures	Randomly	`mob.wither.ambient`	1.0	0.8-1.2
Hostile Creatures	When a wither breaks blocks upon taking damage	`mob.wither.break_block`	1.0	1.0
Hostile Creatures	When a wither shoots a wither skull	`mob.wither.shoot`	3.0	1.0
Hostile Creatures	While a wither is dying	`mob.wither.death`	varies^{[sound 1]}	0.8-1.2
Hostile Creatures	When a wither is damaged	`mob.wither.hurt`	1.0	0.8-1.2
Hostile Creatures	When a wither is finished charging up	`mob.wither.spawn`	1.0	1.0
Blocks	When a wither is finished charging up, changes stages, is finished dying, or a wither's wither skull explodes	`random.explode`	4.0	1.0

↑ Is normally 1.0, but can be 0.75 or 0.5 ^{[more information needed]}

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags (JE)	Translation key
Wither	`wither`	None	`entity.minecraft.wither`
Wither Skull	`wither_skull`	`impact_projectiles`	`entity.minecraft.wither_skull`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Wither	`wither`	`52`	`entity.wither.name`
Wither Skull	`wither_skull`	`89`	`entity.wither_skull.name`
Wither Skull	`wither_skull_dangerous`	`91`	`entity.wither_skull_dangerous.name`

Entity data[]

Java Edition:

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

Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- Invul: The number of ticks of invulnerability left after being initially created. 0 once invulnerability has expired.

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

Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all fireballs
- Tags common to all projectiles

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements[]

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
PS4	Other	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
		The Beginning?	Spawn the Wither	Be within a 100.9×100.9×103.5 cuboid centered on the Wither when it is spawned.	20G	Bronze
		The Beginning.	Kill the Wither	Be within a 100.9×100.9×203.5 cuboid centered on the Wither when it drops the nether star.	40G	Silver

Advancements[]

Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
Withering Heights	Summon the Wither	Spooky Scary Skeleton	Be within a 100.9×100.9×103.5 cuboid centered on the wither when it is spawned.	`nether/summon_wither`
Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creaking Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.	`adventure/kill_a_mob`
It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Monster Hunter	Kill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Axolotl Bee Blaze Camel Cat Cave Spider Chicken Chicken Jockey Cod Cow Creeper Donkey Dolphin Drowned Elder Guardian Enderman Endermite Evoker Fox Frog Ghast Goat Glow Squid Guardian Hoglin Horse Husk Llama Magma Cube Mooshroom Ocelot Panda Parrot Phantom Pig Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Polar Bear Pufferfish Rabbit Ravager Salmon Sheep Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Skeleton Horse Skeleton Horseman Slime Sniffer Stray Spider Spider Jockey Squid Strider Trader Llama Tropical Fish Turtle Vex Vindicator Warden Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Wolf Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.	`adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst`
Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 37 mobs: Blaze Bogged Breeze Cave Spider Creaking Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.	`adventure/kill_all_mobs`

History[]

Java Edition
1.4.2		12w34a			Added withers.
					Withers currently do not spawn naturally.
					Withers have been left unfinished by Jeb and hidden in the code. They were discovered through the presence of its skin in the /mobs/ folder.
					Withers can be spawned only with edited spawners, mods, or hacks, and can crash the JVM.
		12w34b			When the wither's health is taken down to half, it now gains wither armor, which makes it immune to arrows.
		12w34b			The projectile firing rate and movement speed of withers has been increased.
		?			At PAX, Dinnerbone revealed that it would be possible to spawn withers by arranging wither skeleton skulls in some way.^[6]^[7]
		12w36a			Withers can now be spawned by arranging soul sand in a T shape and placing three wither skeleton skulls on top.
		12w36a			The wither now drops 20 experience and a nether star upon death.
		12w37a			Withers now make a massive explosion upon their creation after their health is fully charged.
		12w37a			When there are no targets, the wither sometimes shoots blue wither skulls, which move slower and can destroy any block besides bedrock.
		12w38a			Added a sound when withers break blocks.
		12w42b			The experience dropped by withers has been increased from 20 to 50 points.
		1.4			Various new sounds have been added for withers.
1.4.4		1.4.3			The 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.
1.4.4		1.4.3			Withers can no longer destroy end portals, which are now supposed to be unbreakable.
1.5		13w05a			Withers are no longer able to ride minecarts.
April 1, 2013					Added a pink wither to the april fools update, Minecraft 2.0. The pink wither is passive, starts with one head, and can be fed sugar to gain two more heads.
1.7.2		13w37a			Added achievements for spawning and killing the wither.
1.8		14w04a			The player can now spawn withers by dispensing the wither skulls.
		14w11b			The hitbox of the wither has been changed.
		14w20a			Withers no longer break barriers.
		14w25a			Withers now move while invulnerable due to MC-57569.
		14w25a			Withers can now be built sideways and upside-down instead of just upright.
		release			Barriers can now be broken by withers again.
1.8.1		pre3			Barriers can no longer be broken by withers.
1.9		15w31a			Withers now have a uniquely colored boss bar.
		15w46a			Withers no longer move while invulnerable.
		15w49a			Withers no longer travel through portals.
1.11		16w32a			The entity ID has been changed from `WitherBoss` to `wither`.
		16w32a			The projectile entity ID has been changed from `WitherSkull` to `wither_skull`.
		16w38a			Structure blocks and structure voids can no longer be destroyed by withers.
		16w40a			The tags `xTile`, `yTile`, `zTile`, `inTile` and `inGround` have been removed from the wither skull entity data.
		16w40a			The wither `life` tag is no longer used for anything, but still saved/read.
1.12		pre3			Withers can no longer break piston extensions or end gateways.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of withers has been changed.
		18w43a			All mobs killed by withers now have one wither rose planted at their location upon death.
		18w44a			Withers now have loot tables.
1.16		20w07a			Withers can now also be summoned using soul soil.
1.17		21w17a			Withers are now immune to freezing.
1.18		21w37a			Fixed bug where withers do not pursue players in survival mode unless attacked.^[8]
1.18		21w41a			Tweaked the Wither Skull's texture to use the new Wither face from the Texture Update.
1.19		Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot 1			Add reinforced deepslate, which cannot be broken by withers.
1.19.3		22w44a			Added spawn eggs for withers, which can only be obtained with commands as to avoid potential destruction of creative builds.^[9]
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.16.0		build 4			Added withers.
					When withers are at half health, they spawn 4 wither skeletons.
					Withers attack differently and have twice the amount of health as Java Edition withers.
Pocket Edition
1.0.2					Wither skulls from withers can now be deflected with a sword.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			The entity ID has been changed from `wither.boss` to `wither`.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The texture of withers has been changed.
1.13.0		beta 1.13.0.9			All mobs killed by withers now have one wither rose planted at their location upon death.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.51			Withers can now also be summoned using soul soil instead of soul sand.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.51			Added piglins, which attack withers.
1.17.0		beta 1.17.0.56			Withers are now immune to freezing.
1.19.60		beta 1.19.60.20			Added spawn eggs for withers.
Legacy Console Edition
TU19	CU7	1.12	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added withers.
TU60	CU51	1.64	Patch 30	1.0.11	The behavior of withers has been changed to match the behavior of withers in Pocket Edition Alpha v0.16.0.
					Withers now blow up and spawn wither skeletons at half health. Upon death, withers stop moving and slowly grow in size while turning white until they explode. They also do the dash attack like in Bedrock Edition and the amount of health that they get when spawning also depends on the difficulty.
					Withers are no longer able to regenerate health.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.3.12					Added withers.

Issues[]

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

Trivia[]

Wither (painting texture) JE1 BE1 — The painting depicting how to spawn a wither

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.^[10]
There is a painting showing the soul sand and wither skeleton skull formation needed to spawn a wither.
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).
The wither appears on the four sides of chiseled red sandstone.
The wither's smaller 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.
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 are still capable of making footstep sounds.^[11]
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?".^[12]
A wither skull can be deflected by shooting an arrow at it.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} If a deflected wither skull hits the wither, the wither takes damage.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
A wither and an ender dragon can engage in combat, but neither one damages the other.
Despite being immune to projectiles when it has "wither armor", it is still able to be hit by the warden's sonic boom attack.
- This is because the warden's sonic boom attack is not a projectile, but an instant damage attack. Therefore, the wither is unable to defend against it with the "armor".