Characters / Minecraft — The Nether

Main Character Index > The Overworld (Hostile Mobs) | The Nether
Spinoffs > Minecraft: Story Mode | Minecraft Dungeons

General

• Immune to Fire: With the exceptions of the Piglin, Piglin Brute, and Hoglin, mobs native to the Nether cannot catch fire or take damage from it, which helps them survive in their lava- and fire-rich dimension.

Passive Mobs

Striders

Introduced in Snapshot 20w13a, they are the first fully passive mob^note Piglins are born passive, but become hostile as adults exclusive to the Nether, spawning near or in lava lakes. By equipping a saddle and using warped fungus on a stick, Striders can be used to safely traverse lava. Like many Overworld passive and neutral mobs, they can be bred to produce offspring, using warped fungus. They drop string upon death.

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• Benevolent Monsters: They are the first passive mob exclusive to the Nether.
• Cartoon Creature: Striders have a passing resemblance to a toad and/or axolotl, perhaps, but their head-on-legs body plan and bizarre features make them generally unfamiliar to any creature in real life, befitting of a creature from the hellish, alien Nether.
• Cephalothorax: The Strider just has a giant head for a body.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Since the Strider favors lava, rain and water will damage them.
• Horse of a Different Color: Similar to a pig, you can saddle it up and then lead it around by a fishing rod with its favored food at the end of it (warped fungus in this case).
• Kill It with Ice: In the 1.17 update that adds in powder snow, Striders take extra damage from freezing.
• Kill It with Water: Similar to Blazes and Endermen, they are hurt by rain and water and will die from prolonged exposure to it.
• Lava Surfing: Striders are used to transverse the many lava oceans that cover the Nether. In fact, they move faster on lava than they do on other blocks.
• Motivation on a Stick: In order to steer a saddled strider, the player needs to combine a warped fungus with a fishing rod to make the "warped fungus on a stick" item, which lets you steer the creature you're riding in whatever direction the player is looking.
• Power Up Mount: With a saddle and a warped fungus on a stick, Striders can be used to safely traverse any flat lava, with the vast lava lakes in the Nether being the most immediate application for them. Zombified Piglins will also be seen riding Striders that come naturally equipped with saddles.
• Purple Is Powerful: Inverted. Striders change from red to purple when outside of lava, and this causes them to start shivering and move considerably slower.
• Token Good Teammate: They're the only passive Nether mobs.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Warped fungus, which is used to breed Striders or control the direction they travel in with the use of a warped fungus on a stick.
• Waddling Head: Their body consists of a giant head and a pair of short legs.
• Walk on Water: Played with and justified in this case. Striders can't walk on water, but they can walk on top of lava. Lava is much denser than water, but Striders are unique because all other mobs and the player will sink right through it.

Neutral Mobs

Zombified Piglins

^{Click here to see the old version of this mob back when it was known as the Zombie Pigman.}

Undead forms of the Piglins that spawn in groups, and, unlike other undead mobs, they will only attack if you do first. Attacking one causes the whole group to become hostile, and will take some time to become passive again. They drop gold nuggets and rotten flesh upon death.

Prior to the 1.16 Nether Update, this mob used to be known as the Zombie Pigman and had no non-undead counterpart, but was changed to become the Zombified Piglin (with a new model as well) to fit better with the Hoglins and Piglins that were added to the Nether.

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• Artificial Stupidity: Until 1.8, they retained the single directional AI zombies and skeletons had.
• Attack on One Is an Attack on All: You attack one of them, and all Zombified Piglins within a certain radius will come down on you to beat you black and blue in return. In Java Edition, they will also rush any mob that aggros them, and remain hostile for a short time when that mob is killed, even attacking any nearby players regardless of whether said players attacked them.
• Body Horror: Their disfigurements are a lot more jarring and visceral compared to the other undead enemies, as normal flesh is mixed in with necrotic wounds, you can see a ribcage and part of their skull, and one of their ears is missing. In their design prior to 1.16, baby Zombified Piglins had their entire skulls exposed.
• Berserk Button: If you attack even one of them, the entire group will turn hostile and try to kill you — and given that they are harder to kill and hit harder than regular mobs, they can do for you quite easily.
• Elite Mooks: Their natural Armor stats are one of the best, they spawn in packs of 15 or more, they are almost as fast as you, they are persistent as hell once their Berserk Button is pushed, and their gold swords are considerably painful, dealing as much as 6.5 hearts of damage against an unarmored player on Hard mode. Unless you are prepared for them when they go into Unstoppable Rage mode, they will utterly ruin you. In addition, they can break down doors on Hard difficulty, just like the other types of zombie.
• Foil: To the Zoglins. Both are undead versions of Nether-native hostile mobs, and scare their living counterparts. What makes them distinctive are their personalities: Zoglins become much more aggressive to not just the player, but practically anything that happens to be nearby, whereas Zombified Piglins are much more apathetic towards the player, disregarding whatever they do unless they attack them directly. Zoglins also don't spawn naturally, only created if a player is crazy enough to take their living counterparts into the Overworld, whereas Zombified Piglins spawn naturally in, and are a common sight in the Nether.
• Forced Transformation: If a pig is struck by lightning or a Piglin remains in the Overworld for too long, they transform into a Zombified Piglin. They behave the same way as they do in the Nether.
• Kick the Dog: They will actively seek out turtle eggs and stomp on them, just because. What makes this all the more disconcerting is that they are relatively peaceful creatures and can be reasoned with to a limited extent, so to see them maliciously attempt to harm another creature is quite jarring.
• Lightning Bruiser: Don't let the fact that there's a lot of them fool you. Even one is a handful thanks to their gold swords and decent health, and they can keep pace with a non-sprinting player. Just hope you don't aggro the small ones, who are just as lethally fast as regular child zombies and can easily chunk you for over a third of your health if you're wearing little or no armor.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: It has the face of a pig and the rotting flesh of the undead, but walks upright and carries a sword, like a man.
• Non-Human Undead: Interestingly enough, it wasn't until 1.16 that the living versions was finally introduced.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Sword-wielding zombies that are pigmen, with half of their flesh rotten and green and some missing so you can see their skeleton. They are a zombified version of an existent mob, similar to Zombie Villagers, but unlike them no cure exists for Zombified Piglins.
• Pig Man: A zombie version.
• Rare Random Drop: There's a rare chance that Zombified Piglins can drop Gold Ingots, Golden Swords and Golden Helmets and there's also a chance the sword and helmet may already be enchanted.
• Retcon: One of the first mobs in Minecraft history to get a heavy overhaul with a new name and model, once being known as the Zombie Pigman before being updated as the Zombified Piglin as of the 1.16 Nether Update. However it still remains the same behavior and characteristics as before.
• Savage Setpiece: Initially they're harmless and at most look at you as you walk through a group of them. Since they spawn near Nether Portals, some may even take up residence in the "house" you build to protect said portal since they can access any place you can (unless your door is button-activated) and end up teleporting to the Overworld by accident. Attacking one changes things considerably, though.
• Token Good Teammate: Out of all the Nether mobs (except Striders), which at best consist of carpet-bombing eldritch horrors and murderous sword-wielding skeletons with an affinity for decay, they’re only hostile towards you if you attack them first, happily coexisting with the player if they’re not bothered by them. Funnily enough, the Zombified Piglins are also a rare case of an undead variant of a species being more benign than their living counterpart, since normal Piglins are outright hostile by default unless a player is wearing gold armor.
• Zerg Rush: If you attack one, even inadvertently, they begin to swarm you and attempt to slice you to death with swords from all directions.

Piglins

Pictured wielding a crossbow.

Introduced in snapshot 20w07a, Piglins spawn in crimson forests, bastion remnants and the nether wastes biomes. Piglins are the denizens of the Nether, and while normally hostile can partcipate in trades with adventurers.

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• A.I. Breaker: Because of their love for gold, a Piglin that's found wearing Diamond or Netherite armor will gladly downgrade if it means getting gold armor instead. Diamond and Netherite are both far more rare and powerful than gold, which means players can potentially abuse this to gain better equipment from a Piglin.
• Artificial Brilliance: If Piglins in a group are outnumbered by Hoglins, they will keep a distance of 6 blocks instead of attacking. It's this trope because fewer Piglins means decreased strength and efficiency, and a greater likelihood of being killed by the Hoglins.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: If the player drops gold ingots mid-combat, Piglins will dash towards them and pick them up, giving the player an opportunity to attack them or run away. Quite fittingly, there's even an achievement called "Ooh, Shiny" for doing this. They will turn hostile again once they've finished bartering or when the player attacks them, however.
• Berserk Button: Trying to mine gold around them or trying to open any chest around them will immediately set them off, even if you are wearing golden armor. Even a chest you bring from the Overworld into their realm will result in them swarming you when you try to use it.
• Dirty Coward: Piglins fight almost exclusively in groups while hunting Hoglins or battling Wither Skeletons. If a lone Piglin comes across one of the two groups on their own however, they will avoid attacking the former, and outright flee from the latter. Unfortunately, this cowardice doesn't apply to when they fight players.
• Even Evil Has Standards: If piglins notice the player has gold, they'll try to barter for it fairly rather than robbing them. Also, they're unwilling to kill baby Hoglins.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: They have this rivalry with Wither Skeletons, with Piglin representing the Evil side. Piglin are crude, greedy, barbaric and treats the player with a kill-on-sight attitude. However, they are also willing to cease hostilities and barter provided that the player has gold on them, and do have some sort of civilized, if primitive society. The Wither Skeletons on the other hand represent Oblivion, as they're are a component in creating the Wither, one of the most destructive entities in Minecraft who seeks the death of all living beings and inflict the Wither status onto their foes. As a result Piglins and Wither Skeletons will gladly attack each other in battles to the death. It's even noticeable in the architectural differences of their structures. Bastion Remnants are tall, bulky and condensed buildings that consist of blackstone and basalt to contrast with a Nether fortress. The overall layout of a bastion remnant looks very haphazard and ruined, supported by rampants and blackstone cave systems that most likely require mining to effectively trek through.
• Fantastic Sapient Species: The Piglins are clearly sapient; they live in buildings that they apparently built, farm plants and breed livestock for food, trade with outsiders with their own form of currency (once initial conflict is resolved through gold, of course), and can manufacture and use metal tools and weapons. Their ability to construct crossbows, in particular, suggests relatively advanced engineering capabilities.
• Furry Confusion: They are a type of Pig Man... who hunt the Hoglin for food, something that is even more muddled by the fact young Piglin like to play with and ride on baby Hoglins. It could be justified by the fact there aren't many other sources of food in the Nether.
• Global Currency Exception: Unlike Villagers who use Emeralds as standard currency, Piglins value gold ingots instead.
• Gold Fever:
  • To say Piglins are obsessed with gold would be an understatement. As long as the player wears one piece of gold armor, Piglin become neutral (although will still attack a player if hit first). They will also willingly downgrade armor if it means exchanging it for gold armor, which Piglins prioritize the most. The same applies for weapons too, as Piglins will gladly swap out a crossbow or stronger sword for one made of gold. The bartering process also begins with gold ingots, which they will take when thrown on the ground and drop an item in return.
  • The Piglins' love of gold can also be used as an escape tactic for players if needed. If the player has all their gold armor destroyed (or never had any to begin with), they can throw down gold ingots on the ground, and the Piglins will stop chasing the player to admire them.
• Happy Dance: Piglins will perform a victory dance upon completing a successful "hunt" for a Hoglin.
• Human Ladder: Well, Piglin ladder. Up to three baby Piglins can be stacked on top of each other while riding a Hoglin.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Piglins avoid instigating a fight against non-player mobs if they're on their lonesome, knowing that the chances of them surviving aren’t that great.
• Last Bastion: Their main bases are bastion remnants, which are bulky black bulwarks that have fallen into a state of decay. They can be seen living in these dark structures along with Hoglins, and will vehemently attack players who attempt to mine out the gold or open the chests inside.
• Lightning Bruiser: They're just as fast and strong as their undead counterparts if provoked, and a sufficient-sized group of them can quickly murder an unprepared player with their gold swords and crossbows. The only saving grace is that the baby variants will never attack players even if their adult counterparts are angered.
• Mortality Phobia: Piglins hold a burning hatred towards anything that has to do with the undead. They flee from Zombified Piglins and soul torches/lanterns, avoid Nether portals, and will attack Wither Skeletons if they see any in the vicinity.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Averted. If a Piglin is brought to the Overworld or The End it will soon turn into a Zombified Piglin (which, if their behaviour towards undead mobs in the Nether is any implication, is a gruesome fate for them).
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: In a sharp contrast to most baby versions of Minecraft mobs, baby Piglins never grow up no matter how much time passes.
• Our Orcs Are Different: A very straight example of the "porc" variety of Tolkienesque orc: they're dumb in how they get distracted by gold easily and their technology is relatively simple, they're carnivorous in how they'll only kill Hoglins for their meat, have no culture beyond their love of gold, and can also be seen as artificial creatures, given that lightning turns normal Pigs into Zombified Piglins in the Piglin-hostile Overworld.
• Pig Man: Played as straight as it gets. Interestingly, Pigmen had a model designed for over a decade, but when the 1.16 Nether Update was announced, that idea was altered into becoming the more distinct Piglin.
• Primal Fear: Piglins will move away from Zombified Piglins, Zoglins, and from soul fire (along with lanterns and torches made with soul soil). They will also attack Wither Skeletons, if they have another Piglin backing them up. It's fair to say that Piglin outright despise the undead and do not like the idea of becoming one. Rather amusingly, Zombified Piglins do not attack their non-zombified counterparts unless the latter accidentally shoots one.
• Pro Bono Barter: Being more uncivilized than the overworld's Villagers, Piglin exchange goods more primitively in the form of bartering. When a player drops a gold ingot in front of a Piglin (or right-clicks the Piglin while holding an ingot), it will take and inspect it, and then in return drop one of several goods (from most to least common): Soul Sand, Crying Obsidian, Obsidian, Nether Brick, Leather, Gravel, Fire Charge, String, Ender Pearl, Magma Cream, Glowstone Dust, Nether Quartz, Splash Potion of Fire Resistance, Potion of Fire Resistance, Iron Nuggets, Iron Boots with Soul Speed, and Enchanted Book with Soul Speed. Since this is random, in most cases a player will be getter a lesser item in exchange for giving a Piglin gold. But on rarer chances, this can be a good trade for the player, getting otherwise finite or hard-to-obtain resources.
• Prophet Eyes: Also like the Hoglins, Piglins have blank, pure white eyes. It's unknown if this means Piglins are blind, but they can accurately fire a crossbow at their enemies. This design choice was probably intended to show that Piglins are otherworldly.
• Random Loot Exchanger: If you give them a gold ingot, they will exchange it for a randomized item from a special drop table. Some of their possible trades are extremely common — such as blocks of gravel — but they may also hand over rarer materials like Ender Pearls, potions, and gear with the Soul Speed enchantment.
• Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: Versatile enough to play both roles, as Piglins can use either a crossbow or sword for a weapon. Unlike other ranged mobs, Piglins do not strafe from left to right while armed with a crossbow. However they will just rush at a player when equiped with a sword.
• Super Drowning Skills: Like Hoglins, Piglins cannot swim in water and will drown if left submerged.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Will retreat when outnumbered by Hoglins, who themselves will retreat if outnumbered by Piglins.
• Undead Counterpart: Inverted. Their zombie counterparts, known in pre-2020 builds as Zombie Pigmen, were in the game first for 10 years before their living counterparts were added in the game.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: As babies, Piglins are actually passive mobs and won't attack players. This changes when they grow up, becoming hostile not just towards players but to Wither Skeletons and sometimes Hoglins too.
• Victory Pose: Piglins who kill Hoglins have a 1 in 7 chance of doing a victory dance afterwards.
• We Used to Be Friends: Baby Piglins will play with baby Hoglins. But if a Piglin is feeling "hungry," it won't hesitate to attack a Hoglin for food, even if they played with each other when they were younger.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Adult Piglins only intentionally attack adult Hoglins and will leave the babies alone, despite the fact that the babies are just as hostile as the adults (albeit more cowardly). Given that only adults drop porkchops on death, this reflects how in the real world, the majority of pigs that are raised for food are allowed to grow up before they are slaughtered, as adults provide much more meat and thus killing a juvenile would be a waste of an animal.

Hostile Mobs

Ghasts

Exclusive to the Nether, Ghasts are large, jellyfish-esque creatures that spit exploding fire balls. They drop gunpowder and tears upon death. As of 20w06a, Ghasts primarily reside in the Soul Sand Valley biomes within the Nether, but can still appear in the now rarer Nether Wastes. Drops a ghast tear and gunpowder upon death.

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• Airborne Mook: They are one of two regular enemies that fly, and the only one in the Nether. They will use this to their advantage.
• Breath Weapon: If a Ghast manages to sense your presence, they'll let you know by shrieking and spitting explosive fireballs upon your position.
• Berserker Tears: They cry all the time, even when they're attacking you.
• Broken Record: Makes the same groan, whimper, and gentle sob... over and over.
• Death from Above: Their default reaction to the presence of the player is to start shelling them with lava bombs, and considering that Ghasts are naturally airborne creatures, are liable to start their bombardment from an aerial position.
• Eldritch Abomination: They're jellyfish-like creatures who float with no explanation, shoot fireballs, are native to a Hell-like alternate dimension, and sound like children in pain. The only thing clear about them is that they're not undead (although the Wither will still leave them alone, for unclear reasons^note This is likely a pragmatic gameplay decision to stop the Wither from flying away after an airborne target and moving out of the player's range. Johnny Illagers will not attack Ghasts either.); everything else about them either is an enigma at best or makes no sense at worst.
• Every Bullet is a Tracer: Even if you can't see a Ghast when it attacks you, following the trajectory of its fireballs can at least tell you roughly where it is.
• Eyes Always Shut: Ghasts only open their eyes to attack.
• Fireballs: Their ranged attack, and quite powerful too. If you have no armor and are on easy, it'll take nearly 8 hearts worth of damage in a single direct hit. And if on medium or hard, then you better hope that they miss.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: A bug in older versions meant that while in third person view, they shot not the player but the camera. The reason this was removed was that it made the fireballs trivially easy to dodge. Aggro a ghast? Just pop into third-person mode and watch the fireballs sail harmlessly over you.
• Fragile Flyer: Ghasts are surprisingly fragile despite their huge size, having only 10 HP as compared to most other hostile mobs which have at least 20. Even an arrow from a Power I bow will One-Hit Kill them. However, Ghasts are still a threat thanks to their highly-damaging exploding fireballs, and their flight means that bows are the only reliable way of damaging them.
• Giant Mook: They're one of the largest mobs in the game and can hurt a lot, although they do not have much health.
• Glass Cannon: They only have five hearts of HP, half that of zombies/skeletons and five less than spiders. If your arrows manage to reach them, they go down in two shots. Enchanting your bow with even a single level of the Power enchant can make it into a One-Hit Kill. On the other hand, if their fireballs manage to score a direct hit on you, it will deal an incredible amount of damage, enough to One-Hit Kill an unarmored player on Hard.
• Giant Flyer: They’re one of the biggest creatures in the game, and are airborne all the time. Although, this can work out poorly for them as they can occasionally float somewhere too small for them and get stuck.
• Groin Attack: You kill Ghasts by hitting them in the mid-tentacles, although that was due to a hitbox bug. Nowadays (except in some versions) the bug has been fixed and they are now as vulnerable to being shot/stabbed/blown up in the face and main body as everything else.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Either intentionally or not, they'll end up doing this by firing several fireballs at you then floating somewhere else so you can't retaliate. Being the Nether, you can't just pursue them safely unless you have the entire area explored and secured already.
• Hitbox Dissonance: Their hitbox used to be very small, covering only their lower part (where the tentacles are) rather than the whole thing. This was fixed in the 1.2 update, which expanded their hitbox to cover all their bodies.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Their fireballs hit hard and can screw up your day trip in the Nether. This makes it very satisfying when you deflect an incoming fireball back and kill the offending Ghast with their own lava bomb. In fact, a deflected Ghast's fireball does 500 hearts of damage to its sender.
• Long-Range Fighter: Completely lacks a melee attack and launches fireballs from afar. Its flight capability helps keep it far from any melee attacks too.
• Light Is Not Good: Possess an almost completely white colour scheme, and are one of the nastiest creatures to exist.
• Mad Bomber: Their reaction to an enemy force coming within their range of perception is to start spitting out explosive balls of lava until the target either disappears, dies or kills the creature.
• Mighty Glacier: They are relatively slow for their size and are easy to tag with a bow. But let them tag you back with one of their lava bombs and at best you'll get a potent reminder that not getting hit would be in your best interests, and at worst you'll be left kicking yourself on the way back to your spawn point.
• Non-Indicative Name: "Ghast" sounds like "Ghost" and they're all white, but Ghasts are explicitly not undead creatures, and are entirely corporeal.
• No Ontological Inertia: Any fireballs in the air will disappear when the ghast who fired them is killed.
• Our Demons Are Different: Despite not being listed as demons specifically, they do follow some of the guidelines: hostile entities with an affinity for fire that lives in a Hell-like alternate realm filled with the souls of the dead. They’re also quite lovecraftian in nature.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Fishing Rods reel in mobs, which is fairly useless normally, but perfect for bringing Ghasts closer to melee range. This only works if they're within the rod's casting range but at least the hitbox for this is much better than trying to shoot them with arrows.
• Playing with Fire: Their lava bombs will light whatever is caught in the blast on fire. Since the ground infinitely burns in the Nether and there is no water, this can be quite annoying, as a Ghast can blanket an entire area with flames in seconds.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Although their eyes are closed most of the time, they open when attacking, revealing their blood red eyes.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: If a ghast hits a Zombified Piglin with a fireball, the Zombified Piglin will attempt to kill it, although in 9 out of 10 cases will not work due to the Piglin being incapable of flight.
• Swiss-Army Tears: Tears they drop have healing properties when used in potions.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Ghasts use fireballs to attack you. Their fireballs can be deflected back. Do the math.
• Tennis Boss: You can reflect Ghast fireballs with melee attacks, arrows, fishing rods, or even snowballs. Sometimes you can unintentionally reflect the fireball with an arrow while trying to snipe the Ghast. Good thing, too, since they love to float out of range of your conventional weapons and a reflected fireball instantly kills them. The game acknowledges killing a Ghast this way with an achievement.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: A Ghast's deflected fireball will deal 500 hearts of damage to itself, enough to kill it 50 times over.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: While not a boss, they are a step up from anything the player has fought in the Overworld and are likely to be encountered not long after leaving the Nether Portal. Unless players have a good bow and a decent set of armor (Iron at the minimum), these things will cause them no end of hell. Being properly equipped is essential for surviving the rest of the Nether.

Magma Cubes

Cubic creatures that are only found in the Nether (spawning very frequently in the Basalt Delta biomes since 20w15a), having been around since the beta 1.9 prerelease. They behave exactly like Slimes except being immune to lava and vulnerable to water. They drop the rare magma cream.

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• Asteroids Monster: The largest magma cubes split into two smaller magma cubes on death, and then again. The third iteration cubes stay dead. Just like the Slimes, they spawn naturally in three different sizes, and can be spawned as large as Slimes can.
• Artificial Stupidity: Their lack of intelligent pathfinding skills means that they are absurdly easy to shake off should they become aware of and start tailing you. This usually means you can trivially drive off an attacker by simply jumping over a gap and waiting for them to follow, then watching as they plummet over the edge without a care in the world.
• Blob Monster: Like their mundane cousins in the Overworld, except these ones are made of lava, and are significantly more dangerous to tangle with.
• Cute Is Evil: Just like the slimes of the Overworld, they're quite adorable for monsters who try to kill you.
• Dumb Muscle: The larger Magma Cubes are resistant to damage and hit quite hard, but their Artificial Stupidity makes them easy to shake off if they're pursuing you.
• Elite Mook: Almost identical to slimes in appearance and behaviour, but does more damage and has high armour. Tiny magma cubes can harm the player unlike tiny slimes, who are unable to do so. They're immune to fall damage, too. As if that isn't bad enough, their health also scales with their size, making the larger ones much harder to fight. Perhaps their main Achilles' Heel is their lack of intelligent pathfinding.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The implication being that that's lava glowing through.
• In a Single Bound: Oddly, their jump height depends on their size, so while the tiny magma cubes can make only small hops, larger ones spawned via console command can jump far higher than the player can even build. They're also immune to fall damage.
• Kill It with Ice: In the 1.17 update that adds in powder snow, Magma Cubes take extra damage from freezing.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Their name seems to be such to specify that they're meant to be seen as literally cube-shaped against every other creature in the game that's implied to be merely stylistically blocky like the rest of the world.
• Ledge Bats: They're common in the Basalt Deltas, and an attack from one at an inopportune time could easily send a player flying into the lava.
• Living Lava: Judging from their texture and the fact that their natural habitat is the Nether, it’s pretty obvious that they’re essentially blobs of lava that have come to life under their own power.
• Magma Man: They're basically sentient globs of lava. They are made of "slices" which can be seen when they jump, and a lava core can be seen in their center.
• Organ Drops: The most likely explanation for what their "magma cream" drop is, the only complication being that the same item can also be crafted from blaze powder and overworld slime balls.
• Underground Monkey: To the Slimes. They use a reskin of the Slimes' model, and attack, move and split into smaller versions of themselves upon death the same as regular Slimes. The main differences are that they are found in the fiery Nether and themed around it, being designed to resemble the lava that fills their home and gaining an immunity to fire damage. Even the magma creams they drop use a recolor of the sprite for the Slimes' slimeballs.

Blazes

Strange-shaped yellow mobs that found in Nether fortresses as of the beta 1.9 prerelease. They fly around and shoot fireballs which ignite the player. Drops a blaze rod, the most essential material for brewing, upon death.

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• Airborne Mook: The other normal enemy in the Nether besides Ghasts that can fly. They mostly just hover, though, and never rise significantly above the ground.
• Ambiguous Robots: They make clanging sounds when hit, constantly emit smoke and have heavy Vader Breath, but it's unlikely that they are truly robotic.
• Artificial Brilliance: They will often hide behind walls of intersections and under Nether Fortress bridges in order to stay away from arrows and ambush the player.
• Broken Record: About the only sound you can hear from them is their loud "RRRRR" when they've noticed you. The only other sound is their deathrattle which isn't a common thing to hear until you can successfully fight back.
• Charged Attack: The Blaze shoots three fireballs in rapid succession, but telegraphs this by igniting its body so players can know when to go on the defense. There's a cooldown between each volley of fireballs to allow the player to go on the offensive.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Despite Blazes being very dangerous foes to take on, especially in groups, their fireball barrages are the only thing that makes them such a threat to begin with. As a result, anything that grants the player the Fire Resistance potion effect will almost completely neutralise them, with the only thing left to worry about until the effect wears off being their melee attack (and even that is ineffectual for the most part considering that they don’t make much of an effort to close the distance and their movement speed is fairly slow).
• Death from Above: Their capability for laying down barrages of flame from the infernal heavens is matched only by that the Ghast itself.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: As a fire-based mob, it takes damage from water or snow.
• Elite Mook: Of the Nether. They're rare, deadly to the unprepared, and drop quite a bit of experience. Interestingly, you need to track down and kill both them and the regular Elite Mooks (Endermen) for the ingredients to make Eyes of Ender and reach The End.
• Fireballs: And unlike the Ghast's lava bombs, these ones can't be deflected.
• Kill It with Ice: In the 1.17 update that adds in powder snow, Blazes take extra damage from freezing.
• Kill It with Water: They are hurt by water and snow. Realistically, you will only be able to exploit this by throwing snowballs at them (as water will instantly evaporate when placed in the Nether) unless you can get one through a port somehow, at which point it will begin to die whenever it starts raining or snowing.
• Logical Weakness: Blazes will be hurt by all things water-related, including regular water, splash water bottles, rain, snow and snowballs. Since they're basically made of living fire, it makes sense that they would be hurt by things that would quench their flames (and in the snow's case, by things that would cool them as well).
• Long-Range Fighter: Blazes do have a melee attack, but it's quite weak compared to their three-fireball burst.
• More Dakka: Their three round burst of fireballs may not seem much when it's just one Blaze, but as many as a small group of four can unleash hell upon your position.
• Organ Drops: For a given value of "organ", they do drop their rods when they die.
• Playing with Fire: Either bring some fire resistance (enchantments/potions) or just be very careful fighting them.
• Piñata Enemy: They're sought after as they drop blaze rods which are a very effective fuel source and are used to make various brewing-based items. They're also necessary to get to The End. In addition, blazes drop a lot of experience. This tends to be a problem in multiplayer, since most players will destroy spawners by habit and Blazes become that much harder to find as a result.
• Vader Breath: Their idling noises sound strongly like raspy, metallic breathing.
• Weaksauce Weakness: All things related to water, whether liquid or solid. While you can't bring any into the Nether, you can just chuck snowballs to kill them. If brought into the Overworld, they're likely to die the first time they're caught in the rain.

Wither Skeletons

A mob that spawns in Nether fortresses since snapshot 12w36a. They look just like their normal Skeleton counterparts, but charred, taller, and they wield stone swords instead of bows. Commonly drops bones and coal and rarely its skull upon death.

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• Ambiguously Human: They look like human skeletons, but are abnormally tall for no explanation and are apparently partly made of coal.
• Close-Range Combatant: Their swords and resulting wither effect are only dangerous if you dare to close in and engage in melee combat with them, or are careless. Otherwise they are easy pickings when it comes to attacking at range.
• Dark Is Evil: Contrary to the normal variant, their bones are charred black. They will also kill you the moment they see you.
• Dem Bones: Skeletons from Hell.
• Elite Mooks: Their stone swords plus their wither effect is painful to your health and should be avoided by even those with diamond armor.
• Evil Is Bigger: Comparing their size to a normal Skeleton, it’s clear that they are considerably taller than their Overworld counterparts.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Are a rival mob to the Piglin, with the Wither Skeleton representing the Oblivion side. Wither Skeletons are the only other mob besides the Wither to inflict the death-inducing Wither status, linger in the disturbingly dead Nether Fortresses, and their heads are used in crafting the game's most destructive mob to all those not undead: the Wither. Piglin on the other hand are on the Evil side of this rivlary, being no more than dirty gold-obsessed barbarians that only tolerate players if they're wearing gold just to barter for some more (usually giving the player junk items in-exchange). However the Piglins still at least have a primitive society, care for their young, and despise undeath. So naturally Wither Skeletons and Piglins will kill each other on sight. From a main base design perspective, this applies with the Wither Skeletons' Nether fortress as well. Nether Fortresses cover a lot of horizontal terrain composed entirely of neatly-placed netherbrick. These large bridge-like structures can be very long to walk through, and Nether fortresses that dig into netherack can easily cause a play to get lost due to every block looking the same.
• Lightning Bruiser: They possess the ability to sprint and can keep up with a non-sprinting player, their stone swords and wither effect are very painful, and with 10 hearts of health they can take a fair deal of damage before expiring.
• Make Them Rot: The Wither status effect that they inflict on damaging a player is essentially this, draining the player's health and even causing the death message to change to "<Player> withered away" if it kills a player.
• Off with His Head!: Considering that the easiest way to grab a Wither Skeleton skull is hacking at them with a sword that has the Looting enchantment, it’s a fair bet to say that you'll claim many of the skulls you obtain in this manner.
• Organ Drops: Zig-Zagged. The drop the same bones that normal skeletons do, but also drop coal, which might potentially also qualify depending on what their exact nature as undead creatures is meant to be. They occasionally drop their sword, which obviously isn't a bodypart at all, but their rarest drop is their own skull, a perfectly straight example.
• Playing with Fire: If they somehow manage to get their hands on a bow, they’ll shoot flaming arrows at you, making them significantly more dangerous when fighting them at a distance. It’s especially notable that they don’t need the bow to be enchanted with flame before they can do this, they simply use their supernatural powers to do the lighting for them.
• Rare Random Drop: Wither Skeletons have a rare chance in dropping their own skulls. You could use these as decorations or use them to summon the Wither. They may also drop their stone swords, which may be helpful to you should you be lacking a sword or want to preserve your stronger swords.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Since it's undead, Potions of Harming heal it, Potions of Healing harm it, and it is unaffected by Regeneration and Poison potions.
• Status Effects: They inflict the Wither status when they hit you, which acts like poison except it turns your hearts black and can actually kill you.
• Stock Femur Bone: The bones they drop look like generic cartoon bones. Also, despite being charred black, Wither Skeletons drop the same white bones that normal Skeletons drop.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Because they are half a block taller than you, spreading two-block high doorways throughout their fortress will make grinding for their skulls much easier, since you can poke them from the other side of such a doorway with impunity.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Downplayed. Like normal Skeletons, they are absolutely terrified of Wolves and will promptly retreat upon seeing one. Unlike normal Skeletons, however, if a pursuing Wolf damages them, they will retaliate and can quickly kill the attacking Wolf due to their damage output and Wither effect.

Hoglins

Introduced in snapshot 20w06a, the Hoglin is a mob that spawns in crimson forests and bastion remnants within the Nether. These beasts are monstrous pig-like creatures that are the main source of food for adventurers in the Nether. They are currently the only breedable hostile mob. Drops raw pork and leather upon death.

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• Does Not Like Spam: While Hoglins love crimson fungus, they will not attack players holding warped fungus. In fact, they seem to despise warped fungus so much that they will actively avoid players who are holding or standing near it.
• Evil Is Bigger: While not necessarily evil, Hoglins are hostile mobs, and are definitely more demented and larger than the overworld's pigs.
• Full-Boar Action: Unlike the peaceful pigs on the overworld, Hoglins will attack players on sight.
• Immune to Flinching: Just like the Ravager, Hoglins have very high knockback resistance.
• Knock Back: Their attacks deal considerable knockback.
• Launcher Move: Hoglins fling their opponents into the air, similar to an Iron Golem.
• Last Bastion: They reside in bastion remnants along with Piglins and Magma Cubes, typically being found in the stables of these ruined ramparts.
• Organ Drops: Pork meat, like overworld pigs.
• Prophet Eyes: These creatures have blank, pure white eyes. It is unknown if this means Hoglins are blind or not, but that doesn't stop them from charging at players. From a design perspective, their eyes do help signify that Hoglins are otherworldly.
• Pun: Their large, aggressive, porchine creatures, similar to an entelodont. They also inhabit the Fire and Brimstone Hell-like Nether. They're literal hell-pigs.
• Super Drowning Skills: Hoglins cannot swim, and will sink and drown in water.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Will retreat when outnumbered by Piglins, who themselves will retreat if outnumbered by Hoglins.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Crimson fungus, which is also used to breed them. This makes Hoglins the first breedable hostile mob in Minecraft.
• We Used to Be Friends: Baby Hoglins will play with baby Piglins. However adult Piglins will hunt adult Hoglins in the Nether, even if the mobs were seen interacting with each other in their youth.

Zoglins

Introduced in snapshot 20w14a, Zoglins are the undead version of the Nether's Hoglins. They only spawn after a Hoglin remains in the Overworld for 15 seconds, similar to how Piglins become Zombified Piglins. Drops rotten flesh upon death.

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• Body Horror: Just like Zombified Piglins, their bodies are rotting to the bone, and they're missing one of their Prophet Eyes.
• The Berserker: Barring Creepers and other members of their kind, Zoglins will attack and kill everything they see, and are now aggressive to the point that not even warped fungi will discourage an attack.
• Enfant Terrible: Baby Zoglins are just as homicidal as their parents, and will not play with baby Piglins like their living counterparts do.
• Evil Is Bigger: While the Hoglin was already large and animalistic, Zoglins are mindless beasts that have no qualms killing anything and everything in their path. They're also by far one of the biggest undead mobs in the game.
• Fearless Undead: Downplayed since they do possess some instinct of self preservation, considering Creepers are the only creature besides themselves that they won't touch, but aside from that all bets are off. Regardless of whether the opponent is a chicken or an iron golem, they will not hesitate to go for them and will keep attacking until they or their opponent are dead. To make things worse, their selective mycophobia is now nonexistent, so they'll still keep coming even when someone is dangling warped fungi right in front of their face.
• Foil: To the Zombified Piglins. Both are undead versions of Nether-native hostile mobs, and scare their living counterparts. What makes them distinctive are their personalities: Zombified Piglins become more apathetic towards the player, disregarding whatever they do unless they attack them directly, whereas Zoglins become even more aggressive to not just the player, but practically anything that happens to be nearby. Zombified Piglins are also fairly common in the Nether, whereas Zoglins will only spawn if a player is crazy enough to take their living counterparts into the Overworld.
• Full-Boar Action: They attack just like Hoglins, and are willing to kill almost anything in their path unlike their living counterparts.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: These guys will attack anything (besides creepers) that they find, including armor stands!
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Despite being from a completely different dimension, Zoglins seem to be aware of the Creeper's explosive properties, as they will avoid attacking them.
• Non-Human Undead: Even moreso than the Zombified Piglins, as Zoglins don't have any human-like characteristics.
• No-Sell: In contrast to their living counterparts, Zoglins will continue attacking you if you're holding warped fungi, and are unable to be fed or bred with crimson fungi.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Mojang had to clarify that Zoglins attacking armor stands was intended behavior.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Once a Hoglin turns into a Zoglin, they will attack everything in sight, even armor stands, except for Creepers, Ghasts and other Zoglins. Even the Wither is fair game for them (although the chances of a Wither dying to a Zoglin are pretty slim).
• Raising the Steaks: A hostile swine turned into an undead swine that is even more hostile than before.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Since snapshot 20w15a (though oddly, not before this), the Zoglin is classified as an undead mob; thus, Potions of Harming heal it, Potions of Healing harm it, and it is unaffected by Regeneration and Poison potions.
• Unique Enemy: Despite being classified as a Nether mob, Zoglins can't be found anywhere in the Nether itself, and don't spawn naturally anywhere else. Getting one to appear actually requires players to push a Hoglin into a Nether portal, where they will turn into their undead counterparts in the Overworld. This is much more difficult than it sounds, as Hoglins are always hostile to the player, and they actively avoid hanging around near Nether portals.

Piglin Brutes

A stronger and more aggressive variant of the Piglin which was added in the 1.16.2 update.^note It is one of many new Nether mobs added in the Nether Updates, but since it was created so late into development of the Nether Update, the developers decided to include it in a later, minor update by itself. They spawn only in the bastions, and not only hit harder and can take more hits than their more common brethren, they are not distracted by gold and will attack players on sight.

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• Armor-Piercing Attack: Downplayed. Their axes can penetrate a player's shield and temporarily disable it, similar to Vindicators in the Overworld, but won't destroy it. Considering their similar speed and damage output to Vindicators, it's still a dangerous ability, so players should be extra careful attacking them.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Averted for this variant. They will attack the player no matter how much gold armour they wear or how many gold ingots they chuck down and cannot be bartered with.
• Beef Gate: They act as the guardians of the Piglin bastions and the riches within, justifiably seeing all players as trespassers into their home that must be killed on sight, and are much tougher than regular Piglin.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: According to Word of God, their arm guard is used as a miniature shield (something that isn't reflected visually), which is the explanation for why they have so much more health than the regular Piglin.
• Elite Mook: They have more than twice as much health as, and do considerably more damage (one more heart in Bedrock, three more hearts in Java) than the normal Piglins, and can even temporarily disable their target's shield. They also have no fear of soul fire or zombified Piglins. The only ability the Piglin Brute lacks is the ability to hear chests being opened or gold being mined.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Just like regular Piglin, they will attack Wither Skeletons on sight as well.
• Expy Coexistence: They are the Nether's counterpart to the Overworld's Elder Guardian. Both only spawn within a specific generated structure in their respective dimension, are much stronger than their normal brethren, and do not respawn after they are killed.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: They wear a golden forearm guard on their left arm only.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: They wear black clothing and are stronger than normal Piglins (which have brown clothing).
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: They're a lot more on the ball than their gold-obsessed brethren and take their job of guarding the bastion a great deal more seriously. They don't barter and don't even so much as falter if someone tosses an ingot at their feet. If they become aware of the player, then turning tail or fighting to the death are the only options.
• Rugged Scar: They have a scar over one of their eyes and are considerable tougher than the normal Piglin.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Unlike regular Piglins, Piglin Brutes take their job of guarding Bastion Remnants very seriously, meaning the chances of a player bribing them with gold to leave them alone are zero.

Bosses

The Wither

A boss type monster introduced in Version 1.4.2, the Pretty Scary Update. They are black ghost-like entities that fly in the air and have three heads, resembling a cross between a skeleton and the mythical Hydra. The smaller heads produce copy skulls as explosive projectiles for its attacks and they can destroy almost any block. The player has to build it, similarly to making a golem, in order to summon it.

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• Achilles' Heel: The Wither is incredibly strong, but has the misfortune of being spawnable on-demand anywhere in the world, unlike its fellow boss and boss-lite Ender Dragon and Elder Guardian, who will always have the home turf advantage. The simplest way to cripple it is by summoning it underground to negate its flight and fast movement (although to varying levels of success due to its massively destructive attacks letting it blast open space for itself), and the hands-down easiest method to kill it is to suffocate it with the bedrock ceiling in the Nether where it can't even retaliate.
• Action Bomb: The moment the Wither is finished charging up, it unleashes an enormous explosion capable of killing a fully armored player before the fight even begins, and leaves a crater like someone set off a small nuke. The Pocket Edition version also explodes upon death as well.
• Airborne Mook: Yup, this thing can fly. Unless it gets down to low health, in which case it descends and starts getting protection against arrows.
• Artificial Brilliance: It is unique in that it can focus on three mobs at a time. Ergo, taking it on as a party makes the fight no less dangerous. In Pocket Edition, this is taken even further; The Wither becomes both tougher and more clever, staying out of range first off and keeping its distance, sending barrages of varying ferocity at you while moving after each salvo to avoid being shot at. When it does get down to 50% health and sends a squad of Wither Skeletons at you, it will still retain its behaviour of keeping back and shelling you, but will speed away out of range should you close in and not attack it fast enough.
• Adaptational Badass: Zigzagged in regards to the Pocket/Bedrock Edition. The Wither you face in this edition has much more health (up to 300 hearts on Hard) than a normal Wither and is a lot more intelligent with its attacks, being a lot more precise and controlled with its bombardments compared to the PC version's wanton shelling of everything living that's in range. It's lot more smart with its movement too, where it'll actively reposition and make evasive maneuvers while firing compared to the Java Edition Wither's reputation as The Berserker. To add to this, the Bedrock Wither will drop off a squad of Wither Skeletons to assist killing you when it enters its second phase, periodically use a deadly charge attack that destroys blocks and knocks players away, and will blow itself up when it's finally put down in a last ditch attempt to kill the player. Although with this, the creature also has more weaknesses to be exploited: this Wither can be stunned momentarily if its blue wither skulls are deflected back at it (while normal Withers can't have their projectiles reflected), and cannot fully regenerate its health when it's in the second phase of the fight, meaning once grounded, it will not fly back up again.
• Begin with a Finisher: The Wither starts the battle with a gigantic explosion centered on itself, which can deal up to 102 damage to mobs and players around it depending on difficulty. Naturally, it's suicide to stand anywhere near it when this happens.
• The Berserker: Compared to the Ender Dragon, the Wither likes to fight the player in this manner (especially the non-Pocket/Bedrock Edition version). But thanks to both being able to smash through everything in its way and to take devastating punishment before it goes down, it is no less dangerous and is in fact moreso.
• Big Eater: The Wither will destroy any block (besides bedrock) in its wake, including obsidian, complete with a crunching sound as if it were eating the blocks.
• Create Your Own Villain: Literally. The Wither can only be created when the player gathers the necessary resources to build it, and it serves as the game's second boss.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: It has even more health than the Ender Dragon. 150 hearts worth to be exact, the most health of anything in the game before the Warden was added. In the Pocket/Bedrock Edition version, it has up to 300 hearts worth, more than even the Warden itself.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: The Pocket/Bedrock Edition version of the creature will detonate itself when it dies.
• Deflector Shields: It pops up a shiny, pulsing shield when it reaches half health that causes any arrows or tridents, regardless of charge or enchantment, to slide or ping harmlessly off. Although, it does squat to protect against melee attacks.
• The Dreaded: This thing's nigh-unstoppable nature crossed with its desire to destroy everything, elicits an Oh, Crap! from everyone more often than not, and those who don't heed the warnings and underestimate the creature will find themselves in a hastily dug grave.
• Dummied Out: Briefly. The Wither was first seen in snapshot 12w34a, but was removed due to causing the game to crash. Snapshot 12w36a remedied the problem and they were afterwards able to be spawned.
• Dynamic Entry: When it awakens, it sets off a massive explosion that puts Charged Creepers to shame.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Wither is the result of three Wither Skeletons fused together via soul sand, whose only purpose or drive is to destroy life — including other hostile mobs (unless they are already dead like zombies or skeletons). The overworld sky darkens with its presence and even when everything around it is dead, it still destroys things aimlessly.
• Enemy to All Living Things: No matter if they are hostile to the player or not, in the eyes of the Wither, they must die. The only things that'll be spared the Wither's wrath are the undead, making this trope quite literal.
• Evil Counterpart: To Iron Golems, of all things. Both are tanky mobs summoned by constructing a body and head(s) out of their respective materials, but while the Iron Golem is neutral at worst and protects Villagers and players from the undead, the Wither seeks to destroy everything that isn't undead.
• Flunky Boss: Starting from 0.1.6.0 from Pocket Edition, when the Wither has 50% health left, it spawns 3-4 Wither Skeletons to help it.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: In 0.1.6.0 of Pocket Edition, When the Wither reaches 50% health, it will alternate between shooting bursts of wither skulls at you and shooting back and forth like a living missile to both attack and avoid you, damaging anybody standing in its way and destroying everything in its path.
• Feed It with Fire: Similar to Nether mobs, they're immune to any form of fire damage.
• Foul Flower: Any mobs it kills will have a Wither Rose planted where it died^note unless a flower is unable to be planted there or if the mobGriefing gamerule is set to false, in which case it will be dropped instead. The rose will then afflict the Wither status effect to whatever touches it.
• Griefer: Destruction is its modus operandi, and it's even better at it than Creepers or Ghasts.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Its eyes and throats emit an eerie white glow.
• Green Thumb: A rather horrifying example in version 1.14 and above — if its Wither Skulls kill a non-undead mob, it spawns a Wither Rose on the block said mob was on. Any mob touching a Wither Rose will get 1 second of Wither status. Of course, the repeated explosions while this thing's around tend to destroy the roses almost as soon as they're placed.
• Homefield Advantage: Although the player can just as easily exploit this as well due to being able to spawn the creature on demand in any area of their choosing, the Wither itself will put up a significantly tougher fight if it’s spawned in the Nether, where its explosive bombardments combined with the perilous terrain can easily lead to a player getting fatally dunked in lava if they make a misstep or are just plain unlucky enough to get the ground blasted away underneath them in a bad spot.
• Having a Blast: The Wither is just constantly exploding. Whether it's the biggest explosion in the game when it first appears, the constant stream of small wither-skull explosions that each of its heads fires off whenever it sees really anything, or the occasional blue-skull explosion that can easily break through explosion-resistant blocks - even the normally near-indestructible obsidian - this thing is like an avatar of Stuff Blowing Up.
• Healing Factor: They regenerate health at a rate of a half-heart per second. They can also accelerate it with their Life Drain ability, which heals a lot more whenever they kill something.
• Hero Killer: It has even more health than the Ender Dragon, and it can dish out much more damage than it, partially due to its rate of fire and how damaging it is. At full strength, your best bet is to fight it with a party, and even then, you're likely to suffer a lot of casualties. As a result, an appearance by the Wither is often met with an Oh, Crap! from players.
• Hell Is That Noise: The birth of a Wither is announced with a loud, deep ringing that can be heard server-wide.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Given that you have to physically create it yourself, anyone unprepared to fight will certainly suffer this fate.
  • On the Pocket Edition version you can actually inflict this on the Wither itself, as its projectiles can be shot back and if they do hit, the creature will become paralysed for a few seconds, allowing a window for damage to be inflicted upon the Wither with impunity.
• Immune To Arrows: When fired at close range, they tend to bounce off harmlessly. An arrow must be at max power and at long range to hurt it. But when the Wither's health falls below half, it gains an armor that makes it immune to arrows and thrown tridents no matter how much charge you put into the bow.
• Implacable Man: Walls won't stop it, players with unenchanted weapons won't even make it flinch and massive TNT explosions will simply be shrugged off. The only thing that will stop it in its tracks for a significant amount of time is the killing blow.
• The Juggernaut: It will smash through walls as tough as obsidian without slowing down.
• Life Drain: The Wither will heal for 2.5 hearts whenever it kills something. Stack it with its passive Healing Factor, and the fast fire rate of those wither skulls, and damn.
• Lightning Bruiser: Holy damn. It can almost keep pace with a sprinting player, deals a lot of damage through spamming projectiles from its three heads, and has among the most health of anything in the game which is further augmented by its Life Drain capabilities and becoming invulnerable to projectiles at half health.
• Living Weapon: The Wither can be weaponized by a sufficiently sadistic player. One example being, in a player vs player scenario, awakening a Wither in the middle of your opponents' base will cause absolute carnage and devastation to them. Of course, you have to back off out of there to stop it from turning its attention to you and being killed by your own creation.
• Mad Bomber: When it's finished powering up, it goes off with enough lethal and ground-wrecking force to make a nuclear device blush and when assaulting a target pumps skull-missiles out like a machinegun. Cross that with the fact that only bedrock bunkers will survive its rampage, and you have got one hell of a problem to sort out. The Pocket Edition version also explodes when it dies.
• Made of Iron: This thing is arguably the toughest mob in Minecraft in terms of the punishment it can take. It takes enchanted weaponry to even do anything other than tickle it. And then there's its Healing Factor and Life Drain abilities working in unison. Only being aggressive with your attacks will allow you to stay on top of it.
• Make Them Rot: The Wither status effect it inflicts on damaging a player is essentially this, draining the player's health and even causing the death message to change to "<Player> withered away" if it kills a player.
• Mercy Invincibility: When the Wither is first created, it flashes blue and is immune to all damage until its health finishes charging up.
• Mook Maker: When it's half-dead, it spawns a group of Wither Skeletons in Pocket Edition.
• More Dakka: Compared to the Ghast and Blaze, the Wither fires its projectiles alarmingly fast and barely pauses between shots. Unlike the Ghast, the Wither's projectiles can't be reflected back (unless you're playing PE). Fighting this thing above ground, unless you have something to distract it, is tantamount to suicide.
• Multiple Head Case: Each fires projectiles... which are even more heads.
• Obviously Evil: A three-headed skeleton with a sickly black dust and a blank expression on its faces that spends all its time bombing its surroundings. At least the Ender Dragon has the mask of an unassuming draconic figure. The Wither, on the other hand, is incredibly clear in just how insane it really is.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Everything alive must die in its eyes. It ignores undead mobs.
• One-Man Army:
  • It's pretty much a supernatural weapons platform. It has proven to be able to decimate entire armies of mobs that would normally give players trouble, and the only thing that can even survive an assault from it is the Ender Dragon or Warden, the former of which is immune to all mob damage. Not only can it fly to avoid most of normal attacks, its sheer health, damage, and healing factor makes it painfully apparent that nothing but the player is even capable of killing this thing. Even then, its sheer health, damage, and healing factor are so much to handle that even an army of players — which can take on pretty much anything up to this point — will either have an incredibly hard time killing it, take a lot of casualties, or just be plain wiped off the map.
  • To break this down, each of its three heads fire explosive skulls that do ludicrous damage in addition to fatally poisoning anything that somehow survives the initial impact. The heads also swivel independently, allowing the Wither to fire these projectiles in entirely different directions to fight multiple mobs at once. It flies very fast, allowing it to catch fleeing mobs (or players) easily. It has a massive amount of health that regenerates both passively, and whenever it lands a killing blow on any creature.
• Organ Drops: The most likely explanation for what exactly their "nether star" is.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Good lord, the amount of damage this thing can inflict on mobs, players, and the environment is cataclysmic. To start, the Wither glows brightly as it comes to life, until it lets loose a massive explosion that makes it look like a meteor crashed into the world. After that, it begins a rapid bombardment of explosive skulls in all directions at any and every living thing it can detect: the explosions from these skulls are powerful enough to destroy any block, including obsidian, which is normally the only minable block in the game that nothing, not even the Final Boss, can destroy. The only things the Wither's attacks can't destroy are bedrock and end portal frames. Even if you somehow kill it, chances are the area will be reduced to a lifeless wasteland filled with smouldering craters.
• Pre-Explosion Glow: When it comes to life, The Wither glows very brightly before triggering a massive explosion that dwarfs a Creeper's.
• Regenerating Health:
  • The Wither recovers half a heart of health per second. Only being aggressive with your attacks can counteract this.
  • In the Pocket Edition, it cannot regenerate past 50% HP if it's already below that.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Since it's undead, Potions of Harming heal it, Potions of Healing hurt it, and it is unaffected by Regeneration and Poison potions.
• Roar Before Beating: When a Wither is powering up after being spawned, it screams repeatedly. You can tell it's just itching to destroy everything once it fully manifests.
• Schmuck Bait: One of the possible paintings depicts the formation of blocks necessary to create the Wither. Now, imagine if an unsuspecting player decided to recreate that painting...
• Superboss: While Minecraft doesn't have traditional linear gameplay, the Wither still counts as this, especially considering that The End is typically used as an endgame. You never need to face off against the Wither, but if you want to build your Beacon, you'll have to summon it and kill it in order to get its Nether Star.
• Taking You with Me: The Pocket Edition version of it will try this trick on you when you finally kill it. Make sure to get away before the dying Wither explodes.
• Throat Light: Has this along with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
• Token Evil Teammate: Even in comparison to other hostile mobs, the Wither is by far the worst and most destructive of them all, as unlike the other mobs, it does not need to be provoked or disturbed to start attacking things, as it does so entirely on its own. It's also the only one that's a Person of Mass Destruction.
• Turns Red:
  • Upon reaching half health, it gains "Wither Armour", which renders it immune to arrows.
  • In the Pocket Edition, it will also spawn in a group of Wither Skeletons to deal with you and gain access to a dangerous charge attack that plows through everything in its path. In exchange, however, it loses the ability to regenerate past half health.
• Undead Abomination: The Wither is a three-headed, unholy amalgamation crafted from Wither Skeleton skulls and soul sand, then brought to life under its own power. When fully formed, the resulting entity resembles an armless, floating skeletal torso and possesses enough power to darken the skies around itself with its very presence alone and to easily kill and destroy everything and everyone in the vicinity, with a mind so violent and insane that it actively seeks to do so.
• Walking Wasteland: Due to its highly destructive nature, the Wither is continuously destroying everything in its path even when it’s idle, while rotting the flesh of any creature that comes into contact with it.
• Zerg Rush: There's a dozen or so useful strategies out there to quickly and safely kill the Wither that require some advance preparation. Ignoring those, the only way to take it down is to swarm it with lots of people (and take heavy losses) or just be very lucky/skilled fighting it solo.

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