Certain mobs in the game truly make a huge difference to gameplay. These are boss mobs. A boss will have a lot of health, dangerous attacks, and specific spawns. Wither is one such, having a unique behavior overall. Let’s let’s dive into this Minecraft Wither boss and see what it can do.
Wither Boss
The Wither is a unique boss mob in Minecraft. They are undead floating mobs that can be incredibly difficult to deal with. Even more unique is that they do not spawn. Instead, they are created by the player. We can summon one by placing 4 blocks of soul sand or soul soil in a T shape, together with 3 wither skeleton skulls on top.
Once we are done placing the skulls, and if we’ve followed it all properly, the Wither will spawn. It looks similar to the construction we had, with three skeleton heads attached to a ghastly body. It will start by exploding in the area around itself. From there on, the mob will start acting hostile.
Wither Boss Behavior
A spawned Wither will grow while its health fills up. The Wither is invulnerable during this duration, topping it off with an explosion. Now, the proper Minecraft fight begins.
This mob is going to engage the player immediately. Instead of a standard situation where we can find a mob idle, it’s either kill or be killed when a Wither is spawned. Taking damage makes Wither blow up nearby blocks, even those usually resistant to destruction. This includes obsidian, which can’t be destroyed by any other mob.
Wither is also hostile towards any mob aside from a few. First, undead mobs are entirely free from Wither’s hostility. Additionally, Ghasts won’t be attacked by this boss, either. That means this boss won’t target anything from zombie to other Witherswon’t.
Wither Boss Attacks
The attacks available to the Wither are a couple. The standard attack they have includes launching a wither skull. This attack deals 8 damage if it connects, at least on normal difficulty. If it strikes the ground, the skull explodes, dealing the same damage. The attack will also inflict Wither for 10 seconds, dealing 1 damage per second. If you bump the difficulty up to hard, this status lasts 40 seconds.
The Wither may fire a blue skull. These skulls are the same in explosion strength but more destructive to items. They break a ton of usually resistant blocks. They also deal more damage and can be deflected if you play on Minecraft Bedrock Edition.
Upon reaching 50% health, Wither will summon 3 to 4 Wither Skeletons. These will fight the player and aren’t hostile or attacked by Wither. At this point, the Wither will fire up to 4 skulls every time it attacks, three of which are black and one blue.
Wither Boss Drops
Killing a Wither will reward us with a unique drop in Minecraft. This item is called a Nether Star, and it’s a guaranteed drop whenever a Wither is killed. The Java and Bedrock Editions have a slight difference when it comes to the behavior of this item.
The Java Edition has the star despawn after ten minutes on the ground. This behavior doesn’t happen in Bedrock Edition. Therefore, it is not affected by Looting enhancement.