Ghast

Ghast

Current

Upcoming

Current

Upcoming

Health points	10HP
Behavior	Hostile
Mob type	Monster
Attack strength	Impact: Easy: 4HP Normal: 6HP Hard: 9HP To itself and other ghasts, when redirected by players: 1000HP × 500 Explosion: varies by proximity, maximum: Easy: 9.5HP × 4.75 Normal: 17HP × 8.5 Hard: 25.5HP × 12.75
Hitbox size	Height: 4.0 blocks Width: 4.0 blocks
Speed	0.7
Spawn	Nether Wastes Soul Sand Valley Basalt Deltas

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Ghasts are large, floating, ghost-like hostile mobs found in the Nether, and the only source of ghast tears. Ghasts wander aimlessly and shoot explosive fireballs at players, which can be hit back to kill them instantly upon direct impact.

In the upcoming Summer Drop, the ghast has a passive counterpart, the happy ghast.

Spawning

To spawn naturally, a ghast requires a solid block below it and a free space 5×5 blocks wide and 4 blocks high. They spawn in the basalt deltas, nether wastes, and soul sand valley biomes in any light level. In Java Edition, ghasts cannot spawn in soul sand valleys if another ghast is within 16 blocks of spherical distance to the intended spawning location. In Bedrock Edition, two ghasts can spawn within any 4 chunk span.

Ghasts do not spawn in nether fortresses, but they can wander nearby. They can, however, spawn in bastion remnants.

Drops

On death

Item		Roll Chance	Quantity (Roll Chance)
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Ghast Tear	100%	0–1	0–2	0–3	0–4
	Gunpowder	100%	0–2	0–3	0–4	0–5

• 5XP when killed by the player.

Behavior

Ghasts float around with their eyes and mouth closed and periodically make crying sounds heard from up to 80 blocks away. They have a hitbox of 4×4×4 blocks. The ghast's nine tentacles are not within their hitbox.

When within range, a ghast faces the player and shoots a fireball every 3 seconds, opening its eyes and mouth and making a screeching sound. They strafe left to right in the air while targeting. A ghast requires a line of sight to the player before firing, which can be blocked by any solid block, including transparent blocks. In Java Edition, they target players within 64 blocks horizontally and 4 blocks vertically, and continue attacking as long as they are within a 64 block sphere and have line of sight. In Bedrock Edition, a ghast normally targets a player within a sphere of 28 blocks, increasing to 64 blocks if the player damages it. In Bedrock Edition, a ghast holds its charge like a pillager when it loses sight of its target and shoots again instantly when in range.

Ghasts do not attempt to approach the player once aggravated, but instead fire at the player from their position within firing range. If a ghast is within close range to its target, it may take damage from the explosion of its own fireball, regardless of the player hitting the fireball back.

Ghasts can provoke other mobs into targeting them, but in Java Edition they do not target other mobs, only the player.

Ghasts are immune to fire and lava damage. They are slowed by lava, occasionally sinking into it or passing through lava falls, immobilizing them and making them more vulnerable to ranged attacks for some time.

Despite their ghostly appearance, ghasts are not considered undead mobs. This means they can drown, are damaged by Instant Damage and healed by Instant Health, are affected by Regeneration and Poison, and are not affected by Smite. Despite this, withers never deliberately target them, making them the only non-undead mob ignored by withers (excluding agents‌, and mobs with the invulnerable NBT tag). They are also completely ignored by wolves, "Johnny" vindicators, goats, snow golems, trusting foxes, and zoglins. However, iron golems and wardens attack ghasts, and ghasts do not retaliate.

Despite being flying mobs, ghasts can destroy turtle eggs when on top of them.

Fireball

Hitbox size	Height: JE: 1 Block BE: 0.31 blocks Width: JE: 1 Block BE: 0.31 blocks

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Fireball

Ghasts shoot fireballs at players, dealing damage to entities and creating an explosion that sets fire to nearby blocks upon impact. Blocks with blast resistance as low as 3.5 survive a fireball's explosion.

Hitting a fireball with another projectile or a melee attack deflects it, dealing 1000HP × 500 damage to any ghast hit directly by it, killing them.

All other mobs retaliate to the player instead of the ghast if they are hit by a deflected fireball.

Sounds

Java Edition:
Ghasts use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Sounds
Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	​Ghast cries	Hostile Creatures	Randomly	entity.ghast.ambient	subtitles.entity.ghast.ambient​	5.0	0.8-1.2	16
	​Ghast shoots	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast signals to shoot a fireball	entity.ghast.warn	subtitles.entity.ghast.shoot​​​	10.0	0.8-1.2	16
	​Ghast dies	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast dies	entity.ghast.death	subtitles.entity.ghast.death​	5.0	0.8-1.2	16
	​Ghast hurts	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast is damaged	entity.ghast.hurt	subtitles.entity.ghast.hurt​	5.0	0.8-1.2	16
	None​​	None	Unused sound event	entity.ghast.scream	None​​	None	None	None
	​Ghast shoots	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast shoots a fireball	entity.ghast.shoot	subtitles.entity.ghast.shoot​​​	10.0	0.8-1.2	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sounds
Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Hostile Creatures	Randomly	mob.ghast.moan	2.5	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast signals to shoot a fireball	mob.ghast.charge	2.5	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast dies	mob.ghast.death	2.5	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast is damaged	mob.ghast.scream	2.5	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	Unused sound event	mob.ghast.affectionate_scream	2.5	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a ghast shoots a fireball	mob.ghast.fireball	0.7	0.8-1.2

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	Translation key
Ghast	ghast	fall_damage_immune	entity.minecraft.ghast

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Ghast	ghast	41	entity.ghast.name

Entity data

Java Edition:

Ghasts have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

• [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all mobs see Template:Nbt inherit/mob/template
  • [Byte] ExplosionPower: The radius of the explosion created by the fireballs the ghast fires. Default value is 1.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

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
		Return to Sender	Destroy a Ghast with a fireball.	Kill a ghast using a ghast fireball.	30	Silver

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.
	Is It a Balloon?	Look at a Ghast through a Spyglass	—
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Kill one of these 73 mobs near a sculk catalyst: 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: 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: 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	–
	Return to Sender	Destroy a Ghast with a fireball	Kill a ghast by deflecting a ghast fireball back into it via hitting or shooting a projectile at the fireball.
	Take Aim	Shoot something with an Arrow	Using a bow or a crossbow, shoot a mob with an arrow, tipped arrow, or spectral arrow.
	Uneasy Alliance	Rescue a Ghast from the Nether, bring it safely home to the Overworld... and then kill it	Kill a Ghast while being in the Overworld.

History

Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0			October 11, 2010				Notch tweets that he "just made the most unfair mob ever even more unfair." He then added that "You will hate the Ghast."
			October 22, 2010				Originally, ghasts were intended to be able to spawn near nether portals in the Overworld, though they wouldn’t be able to pass through them. However, the ability for Ghasts to spawn in the Overworld was never implemented.
			October 29, 2010				A preview of the Halloween Update was sent to two gaming companies; their articles highlighted the behavior of the upcoming ghast mobs.
			preview				Added ghasts, along with the Nether.
							Ghasts appear to expand slightly before shooting a fireball, similarly to a creeper about to explode. However, this effect does not work in multiplayer.
Java Edition Beta
1.7							Ghasts now aim toward the player and not the camera. Prior to this, pressing F5 (going into third person view) allowed one to easily send the fireball over their head instead of at the character.
Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease				Ghasts now drop ghast tears.
							Ghasts are now affected by light and no longer appear with the same brightness anywhere.
			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5				Killing ghasts by directly hitting them with a fireball grants the player the achievement "Return to Sender".
1.1			?				As heard in .minecraft/resources/newsound/mob/ghast, ghasts now have an unused "affectionate scream", which is a high pitched horn sound (like the classic cartoon tugboat sounds).
1.2.1			12w05a				The ghast hitbox has been updated to incorporate their whole body. Prior to this, ghasts could be injured only by hitting their tentacles and lower body.
			?				Ghasts now fire fireballs from their eyes instead of mouth.
1.3.1			12w18a				As a result of singleplayer being changed to an internal server, ghasts no longer visibly expand before shooting a fireball, alongside many other features broken by this change.
			12w19a				Ghasts now make their kill sound when killed rather than their pain sound.
1.6.1			1.6				Ghasts no longer visibly catch fire when flying into fire or lava.
1.8			14w06a				The AI of ghasts has slightly changed: They cannot see the player unless their height comes to almost eye level with the player. When attacking, ghasts now turn their whole body to face the player's direction, and repeatedly strafe left to right around the player while attacking. They now have perfect accuracy with their fireballs, shooting at the player's head, compared to earlier versions when the fireball was previously aimed slightly above the player's head.
							The (now broken) code to make ghasts visibly expand while shooting was removed.
1.14			18w43a				The texture of ghasts has been changed.
1.16			20w06a				Ghasts now spawn in the soul sand valley biome in the Nether.
							Ghasts' sounds are now heard at shorter range.
			20w15a				Ghasts now spawn in the new basalt deltas biome.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.11.0			build 1				Added ghasts.
							Ghasts are currently unobtainable in-game without editing.
v0.12.1			build 1				Ghasts can now be spawned using spawn eggs.
							Ghasts now spawn naturally in the Nether.
			build 6				Ghasts now hit the player more reliably.
			build 7				Ghasts now drop gunpowder and ghast tears.
			build 8				The hitbox of ghasts is now bigger.
			build 13				Ghasts now have sounds.
v0.13.0			build 1				The spawn rate of ghasts has been increased.
			build 4				The spawn rate of ghasts has been increased even more.
v0.14.0			build 1				Open ghast eyes now glow.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				The texture of ghasts has been changed.
1.16.0			beta 1.16.0.51				Ghasts now spawn in the soul sand valley biome.
Upcoming Bedrock Edition
1.21.80 Experiment Drop 2 2025			Preview 1.21.80.25				The texture of ghasts has been changed. It is now 32x32 pixels, twice the resolution of the previous textures.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added ghasts.
TU7							Ghasts now drop ghast tears.
TU9							The volume of the ghast sound effects has been reduced.
							The distance the ghast's sound effect for shooting a fireball can be heard from has been increased.
TU11							The volume of the ghast sound effects has been further reduced.
TU12							Ghasts now fire fireballs from their eyes instead of mouth.
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12			Ghasts no longer visibly catch fire when flying into fire or lava.
			1.90				Open ghast eyes and the mouth now glow if the programmer art texture pack is enabled.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Added ghasts.

• 

  Ghast texture shared by notch on a 4chan thread.

• 

  Screenshot of notch's 4chan comment with the ghast texture.

• 

  A ghast up close, shooting a fireball (with the old snowball texture) at the player.

• 

  A ghast opens its red eyes when it spits out fireballs (note old "expansion" effect).

• 

  Ghasts (note old snowball texture).

• 

  A ghast that is in a nether fortress.

• 

  Prior to 1.3, ghasts would slightly expand when shooting a fireball.

• 

  A ghast flying through falling lava (ghasts do not catch fire since 1.6).

Data history

Java Edition
1.11			16w32a				The entity ID of ghasts has been changed from Ghast to ghast.
			16w40a				The ghast life tag is no longer used for anything, but still saved/read.
1.13			17w47a				Numeric IDs for entities were presumably deprecated in this version.​

Issues

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

Trivia

• In English, "ghast" is an archaic word meaning "ghastly". H.P. Lovecraft first coined its use as the name for a monster (a vaguely humanoid one, in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath), but "ghasts" have appeared in many other fantasy stories and games.
• Ghasts are considered to be fire-breathing ghosts in their Meet the Mob Minecraft.net article.
  • In their Mob Menagerie article, ghasts were said to be "large, incorporeal beings" whose origins are unclear. The article states that "they tend to avoid the fungal forests where it's harder to track their prey". They are also "immune to heat damage" because they have "spent so long in the Nether" that "they love the warmth of lava".
• The player can go inside of a ghast by falling through the top of it or flying (or jumping while attacking) up underneath it. If the player stands on top of the head, the player sees inside of it.
• If a ghast is trapped in a 1-thick cube, it shoots fireballs through the cube. This is because all mobs that shoot spawn the projectile one block in front of it to prevent the projectile from hitting the mob.
• On rare occasions, ghasts spawn in such a way as to see through blocks (usually trapped on all sides in a tight area). When this happens and the ghast has a "line of sight" through those blocks, it launches a fireball in the player's direction. This is reminiscent of a blaze but with explosive addition.
• C418 revealed in an AMA on Reddit that ghast sounds are taken from his pet cat, who makes them when disturbed while sleeping.
• Two ghasts are featured in the LEGO set "Minecraft Micro World - The Nether", along with a zombified piglin.
• Splash potions affect ghasts only when hitting their lower half.
• There is an unused ghast sound called "affectionatescream.ogg" in the game files. It can be heard in the last scene of the Nether Update trailer.
• Ghasts use different models between the Java Edition and Bedrock Edition, and some of their tentacles are different lengths.
• Ghasts actually have a joke “angry variant” for April fools snapshot Java Edition 25w14craftmine. It is probably a reference to the happy ghast.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 

  A shooting ghast in Bedrock Edition.

• 

  A monster spawner programmed to spawn ghasts.

• 

  A ghast close to Sunny, showing how large they are compared to players.

• 

  Ari fighting a ghast in a soulsand valley.

Mojang screenshots

• 

  A ghast in Pocket Edition.

• 

  A ghast flying through the Nether.

• 

  A ghast spitting a fireball at a player.

• 

  A preview of three ghasts in the soul sand valley.

Textures

• 

  Ghast texture file.

• 

  Shooting ghast texture file.

In other media

• 

  Header of the ghast’s Meet the Mob Minecraft.net article.

• 

  Header of the ghast’s Mob Menagerie Minecraft.net article.

• 

  Artwork of a ghast.

• 

  A ghast in promotional artwork for the Nether Update.

• 

  Official ghast artwork.

• 

  Animated official ghast artwork.

• 

  Ghast Spirit from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

• 

  A baby ghast in 15 Year Journey.

• 

  A ghast carrying a snifflet.

• 

  A ghast floating behind a camel.

• 

  Ghast micromobs from LEGO Minecraft.

• 

  LEGO Minecraft brick-built Ghast.

• 

  Official T-shirt artwork "Ghastbusters" made by JINX.

• 

  Official T-shirt artwork "Glimpse" made by JINX.

• 

  Official T-shirt artwork "Postcard" made by JINX.

• 

  Official T-shirt artwork "Rumor Has It" made by JINX.

• 

  A glow in the dark ghast T-Shirt.

• 

  An officially licensed ghast hoodie.

• 

  Ghast plush made by JINX.

• 

  An official ghast action figure.

• 

  "Never Trick or Treat in the Nether," an official tote bag sold for Halloween.

• 

  A Ghast pictured in the Mobestiary.

• 

  An officially licensed Nerf Ghast gun.

• 

  The Secret Ghast, featured in the Trails & Tales Event.

• 

  A unique sprite of a crying ghast appearing in the Minecraft launcher on Halloween, 2023.

• 

  Piglins riding Chained Ghasts and attacking a village in A Minecraft Movie.

External links

• "Meet the Ghast" by Tom Stone – Minecraft.net, May 22, 2017.
• "Mob Menagerie: Ghast" by Duncan Greere – Minecraft.net, January 4, 2024.