Wither

Wither

• Normal
• Blue
• Normal Shield
• Blue Shield

Health points	Java Edition: 300HP × 150 Bedrock Edition: Easy: 300HP × 150 Normal: 450HP × 225 Hard: 600HP × 300
Armor points	4 ()
Behavior	Hostile
Mob type	Undead, Monster
Attack strength	Birth explosion: Varies by proximity; maximum: Easy: 35HP × 17.5 Normal: 68HP × 34 Hard: 102HP × 51 Wither skull: Easy: 5HP Normal: 8HP Hard: 12HP × 6 Explosion: 5HP Wither: Normal: Wither II for 10 seconds (1HP per sec) Hard: Wither II for 40 seconds (1HP per sec) Dash attack:‌ 15HP × 7.5
Hitbox size	In Java Edition: Height: 3.5 blocks Width: 0.9 blocks In Bedrock Edition: Height: 3.0 blocks Width: 1.0 blocks
Speed	0.6
Spawn	Built by player; 11 second spawn delay.

{
    "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=\"2 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 article, displayed as Armor points)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Hostile",
            "label": "Behavior"
        },
        {
            "field": "(link to Undead article, displayed as Undead), (link to Monster article, displayed as Monster)",
            "label": "(link to Mob article, displayed as Mob) type"
        },
        {
            "field": "(values exceeds 1000 characters...)",
            "label": "Attack<br/>strength"
        },
        {
            "field": "'''In (link to Java Edition article, displayed as ''Java Edition''):'''<br>\nHeight: 3.5 blocks<br>Width: 0.9 blocks\n\n'''In (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#movementSpeed 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",
        "Blue Wither.png",
        "Wither_with_Armor.png",
        "Wither_Invulnerable_with_Armor.png"
    ]
}

The wither is a player-constructed and highly destructive undead boss mob that can hover in mid-air and fire barrages of explosive wither skulls. 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.

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 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 skulls. Air blocks are required on either side of the base soul sand/-soil. The orientation of the heads 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.

Drops

On death

On death, the wither always drops a Nether star. It drops 50XP XP when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Item		Roll Chance	Quantity (Roll Chance)
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Nether Star	100%	1	1	1	1

A Nether star, when dropped by a wither:

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

Behavior

The difference between the ender dragon's boss bar and that of the wither.

Spawning

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 ). After this, the wither attacks nearby mobs and can take damage.

Health and 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:

• Barrier
• Bedrock
• Command Block
• End Gateway
• End Portal
• End Portal Frame
• Jigsaw Block
• Light Block
• Moving Block‌
• Moving Piston
• Reinforced Deepslate
• Structure Block

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

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 (like exit portal), can be used to suffocate the wither due to their wither immunity.

The wither is hostile toward all mobs except:

• Agents ‌
• Ghasts
• Undead mobs:
  • Other withers
  • Phantoms
  • Skeletons and their variants
  • Skeleton horses and zombie horses
  • Zoglins and zombified piglins
  • 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. A renamed wither displays its changed name above its boss bar. The fog around a player darkens when a wither is loaded.

Java Edition

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

Attacking

Upon noticing a mob or a player, 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 feet 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.

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.

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 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 the 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.

Side heads behavior

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 the 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:
      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

Bedrock Edition

The wither has different spawn and death animations, both of which involve the wither exploding.

Sky light

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

Attacking

Upon noticing a player or mob, the wither flies to a random location horizontally near the target, strafes a few blocks 3 times, then hovers in place. It always attempts to be above the player's reaching distance. 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.

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 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, it dashes toward its target, destroying blocks and damaging mobs in its path. It continues firing skulls as normal but dashes every second burst.

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.

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. 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.

Wither Skull

Wither Skull

• 

  Normal

• 

  Dangerous

Hitbox size	Height: 0.3125 blocks Width: 0.3125 blocks

{
    "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 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. 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.

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.

[hide]Sounds
Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	​Wither angers	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	entity.wither.spawn	subtitles.entity.wither.spawn​	1.0	1.0	16 (technical) / ∞ (effective)
	​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

Bedrock Edition:

[hide]Sounds
Sound	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 or dashes toward its target	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	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

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	[hide]Translation key
Wither	wither	can_breathe_under_water fall_damage_immune freeze_immune_entity_types ignores_poison_and_regen inverted_healing_and_harm undead wither_friends	entity.minecraft.wither
Wither Skull	wither_skull	impact_projectiles	entity.minecraft.wither_skull

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	[hide]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.

• [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template[show]
  • Tags common to all mobs see Template:Nbt inherit/mob/template[show]
  • [Int] 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.

• [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template[show]
  • Tags common to all fireballs see Template:Nbt inherit/fireball/template[show]
  • Tags common to all projectiles see Template:Nbt inherit/projectile/template[show]
  • [Boolean] dangerous: 1 or 0 (true/false) - If true, the wither skull renders as blue, moves more slowly, and ignores the hardness values of most blocks upon exploding.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

[hide]
Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		It Spreads	Kill a mob next to a catalyst	—	10	Bronze
		Monster Hunter	Attack and destroy a monster.	Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: an enderman, a piglin, a zombified piglin, a spider, or a cave spider.	15	Bronze
		Overkill	Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.	30	Bronze
		Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	—	20	Silver
		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.	40	Silver
		The Beginning?	Spawn the Wither	Be within a 100.9×100.9×103.5 cuboid centered on the Wither when it is spawned.	20	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	A Throwaway Joke	Throw a Trident at something. Note: Throwing away your only weapon is not a good idea.	Hit a mob with a thrown trident.
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity.
	Arbalistic	Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot	Armor Stand also counts for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Kill one of these 73 mobs near a sculk catalyst:[show] Mobs that drop no experience as well as the ender dragon are ignored for this advancement.
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Kill one of these 37 mobs:[hide] Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Kill each of these 37 mobs:[hide] Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.
	Not Today, Thank You	Deflect a projectile with a Shield	Block any projectile with a shield.
	Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	–
	Take Aim	Shoot something with an Arrow	Using a bow or a crossbow, shoot a mob with an arrow, tipped arrow, or spectral arrow.
	Withering Heights	Summon the Wither	Be within a 100.9×100.9×103.5 cuboid centered on the wither when it is spawned.

History

[hide]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 monster 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.
							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.
			12w36a				Withers can now be spawned by arranging soul sand in a T shape and placing three wither skeleton skulls on top.
							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.
							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.
							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.
			14w05a				The armor that protects the wither from arrows when it is taken down to half no longer turns red when the wither takes damage.
			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.
							Withers can now be built sideways and upside-down instead of just upright and require air blocks next to the base soul sand.
1.8.1			pre3				Barriers can no longer be broken by blue wither skulls.
1.9			15w31a				Withers now have a uniquely colored boss bar.
							Wither health bar now starts at full health instead of filling up during the spawning animation.
			15w46a				Withers no longer move while invulnerable.
			15w49a				Withers no longer travel through portals.
1.11			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.
							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.
							All mobs killed by withers now have one wither rose planted at their location upon death.
			18w44a				Withers now have loot tables.
			19w12a				Due to the rewriting of the sound system the wither spawning sound now always plays at full volume even if the player moves while it is playing.
1.16			20w07a				Withers can now also be summoned using soul soil.
			pre3				Withers can now be built sideways even at Y=0 and Y=1.
1.17			20w46a				Wither health bar once again fills up during the spawning animation instead of starting directly at full health.
			21w17a				Withers are now immune to freezing.
1.18			21w37a				Fixed bug where withers do not pursue players in survival mode unless attacked.
			21w41a				Tweaked the Wither Skull's texture to use the new Wither face from the Texture Update.
1.19			Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot 1				Added reinforced deepslate, which cannot be broken by withers.
1.19.3			22w44a				Added spawn eggs for withers, which can be obtained only with commands as to avoid potential destruction of creative builds.
1.21.2			24w34a				Wither skulls no longer go through the world border if hit.
[hide]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.
							Withers also trigger explosions when created, when at half health, and when killed, rather than just when created as in Java Edition.
[hide]Pocket Edition
1.0.2							Wither skulls from withers can now be deflected with a sword.
[hide]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.
							Added piglins, which attack withers.
1.17.0			beta 1.17.0.56				Withers are now immune to freezing.
1.19.60			Preview 1.19.60.20				Added spawn eggs for withers.
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added withers.
TU24	CU12	1.16	1.16	1.16			The armor that protects the wither from arrows when it is taken down to half no longer turns red when the wither takes damage.
TU31	CU19	1.22	1.22	1.22	Patch 3		The player can now spawn withers by dispensing the wither skulls.
							Withers can now be built sideways and upside-down instead of just upright.
TU54	CU44	1.52	1.52	1.52	Patch 24	1.0.4	Wither health bar now starts at full health instead of filling up during the spawning animation.
							The maximum amount of boss mobs that can be loaded at once has been increased from 1 to 5. This means outside the end it is possible to have up to 5 withers instead of only 1 and in the End it is possible to have up to 4 only if the ender dragon is alive.
TU60	CU51	1.64	1.64	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.
							Wither health bar once again fills up during the spawning animation instead of starting directly at full health.
[hide]New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.3.12							Added withers.

Data history

[hide]Java Edition
1.11			16w32a				The entity ID has been changed from WitherBoss to wither.
							The projectile entity ID has been changed from WitherSkull to wither_skull.
1.13			17w47a				Numeric IDs for entities were presumably deprecated in this version.​
1.20.3			23w40a				Withers are now part of the #can_breathe_under_water and #undead tags.
[hide]Pocket Edition
1.1.0			alpha 1.1.0.0				The entity]ID has been changed from wither.boss to wither.

Issues

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

Trivia

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.
• 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).
• 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 can make footstep sounds.
• 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?".
• On the webpage for the 10th anniversary of Minecraft, an image of the wither is referred to internally as a ghast.

Gallery

Renders

• 

  The wither and its armor.

• 

  The wither prepares for explosion with the invulnerable status after summoned.

Screenshots

• 

  The withering effect after being damaged by a wither skull.

• 

  The "wither armor" that blocks arrows.

• 

  A larger image to show how to summon the wither.

• 

  The pit created after the wither has charged.

• 

  The wither attacking horses.

• 

  The wither attacking a sheep.

• 

  The wither attacking a village.

• 

  A wither summoning set-up.

• 

  Image from Dinnerbone of a wither being built horizontally.

• 

  A player avoiding a wither by using the Invisibility effect.

• 

  First image of a wither being built in Bedrock Edition.

Textures

• 

  Wither texture file.

• 

  Invulnerable wither texture file.

• 

  Wither armor texture file.

In other media

• 

  Wither in promotional artwork for the Pretty Scary Update.

• 

  Artwork of the Wither used on the 10th anniversary website.

• 

  Wither pictured in the Mobestiary.

• 

  The Wither on the cover of Castle Redstone.

• 

  LEGO Minecraft wither.

• 

  "Acid Wither," an official T-Shirt design.

• 

  "Jolly Mobs Flying Head," another T-Shirt design.

• 

  Players fighting the wither.

See also

• Ender dragon, the other boss mob in Minecraft
• Tutorial:Defeating the wither, a tutorial explaining different tactics to fight and kill the wither

External links

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