Minecraft Wither Skeleton

Minecraft Wither Skeleton

Wither Skeleton

Health points	20 × 10
Behavior	Hostile
Attack strength	Melee: Easy: 5 Normal: 8 Hard: 12 × 6 Wither: 1 per 2 sec Wither (status effect) for 10 sec ()
Size	Height: 2.4 Blocks Width: 0.7 Blocks
Common drops	Coal (0–1) Bone (0–2) Wither Skeleton Skull (1) when killed by a charged creeper
Rare drops	Wither Skeleton Skull
Natural equipment	Stone Sword (Main Hand) Jack o'Lantern (Head) Pumpkin (Head)

Spawning

Wither skeletons spawn in fortresses at a light level of 7 or less, in groups of 1-5.

Spiders and cave spiders spawned in the Nether (via spawn egg, monster spawner, etc.), have a 0.8% chance of spawning as a Wither Jockey.‌^[BE only]

Spawning is not limited to the fortresses.‌^{[LCE only][1]}

On Halloween, wither skeletons have a 22.5% chance of spawning wearing a pumpkin and a 2.5% chance of spawning wearing a jack o'lantern.‌^[JE only]

Wither

On Normal difficulty or harder, the wither will spawn 4 wither skeletons when below half health.‌^{[BE & LCE only]}

Spawn eggs

A wither skeleton spawn egg can be found in the Creative inventory. This egg spawns only wither skeletons.

Drops

When killed, wither skeletons will drop 0–2 bones.

Wither skeletons have a ¹⁄₃ chance to drop a single coal. The maximum amount of coal is increased by 1 per level of Looting. The chance of a wither skeleton not dropping any coal can be found using the formula 2 / (Looting Level + 3). For example, Looting III gives a ¹⁄₃ chance of not dropping any coal. All other amounts have an equal chance of occurring.

They also have a 2.5% chance to drop 1 Wither skeleton skull when killed by the player. Looting increases the chance by 1% per level (up to 5.5% chance of a drop with Looting III). They will always drop their skull if killed by a charged creeper (Not guaranteed for PS4).

They have an 8.5% chance of dropping their stone sword, which will have a random durability, and always be un-enchanted.

They drop 5 experience when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Halloween

If a wither skeleton wearing a pumpkin or jack o'lantern is killed using a tool enchanted with Looting, there will be a chance equivalent to the level of Looting used to drop the pumpkin or jack o'lantern, up to a maximum of a 3% chance of a drop.

Behavior

Wither skeletons wander when idle, but will sprint at the player's walking speed when attacking players, snow golems, baby turtles, and iron golems.

When the entity is attacked by a wither skeleton, they are inflicted with the wither effect for 10 seconds, which turns the health bar black ( × 10) and decreases the health by 1 every 2 seconds, similarly to poison. Wither skeletons deal 5 on Easy, 8 on Normal and 12 × 6 on Hard.

Like other undead mobs, wither skeletons may spawn with the ability to pick up dropped melee weapons and armor. Although they may spawn with the ability to pick up items, wither skeletons will never pick up a bow under any circumstances; they do not use melee attack if they hold a bow in their main hand, instead they shoot fire arrows even if their bows are unenchanted.

Immunities

Like most Nether mobs, wither skeletons are immune to fire damage, and thus are not affected by fire blocks or lava. Wither skeletons are undead mobs, which means Wither bosses will not attack them, besides being unaffected by poison and regeneration effects. Their immunity to fire prevents them from burning in sunlight if transported through a nether portal or manually spawned in the Overworld, but they will still seek shade and water. Just like the skeletons they can not swim and end up sinking, but do not take drowning damage.

They are also immune to the damage done by a Wither Rose. However, if hit by a wither's skull, wither skeletons can be afflicted with the Wither effect.

Data values

Wither skeletons have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

•  Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities [show]
  • Tags common to all mobs [show]

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
				Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo
	Sniper Duel	Kill a skeleton with an arrow from more than 50 meters	Use a launched arrow to kill a skeleton, wither skeleton, or a stray from 50 or more blocks away, horizontally.	Yes	PS3	Yes	Yes	30G	Silver
					PS4, PSVita				Bronze

Advancements

Main article: Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Internal ID
	Spooky Scary Skeleton	Obtain a Wither Skeleton's skull	A Terrible Fortress	Have a wither skeleton skull in your inventory.	minecraft:nether/get_wither_skull
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration, and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	minecraft:adventure/root
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 25 mobs. Other mobs are ignored for this advancement.	minecraft:adventure/kill_a_mob
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 25 mobs. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for the advancement.	minecraft:adventure/kill_all_mobs

History

Java Edition
1.4.2		12w36a			Added wither skeletons.
		12w38b			Wither skeletons spawn more frequently.
1.4.4		?			Wither skeletons can sprint towards the player.
1.8		14w11a			Wither skeletons now run away from creepers that are about to explode.
		14w30a			Wither skeletons now drop their skull when killed by a charged creeper.
1.8.1		pre1			Wither skeletons no longer run away from creepers that are about to explode.
1.9		15w31a			Wither skeletons now lower their arms when idle and swing their arms when damaging something.
					Wither skeletons now sometimes spawn with their left hand as their main hand.
					Wither skeletons now have the ability to hold items in both of their hands.
		15w39a			Wither skeletons are slightly shorter (2.4 blocks tall rather than 2.535) and narrower (0.7 blocks instead of 0.72).
1.10		16w20a			Added wither skeleton spawn egg.
		pre2			Removed wither skeleton spawn egg.
1.11		16w32a			Re-added wither skeleton spawn egg.
					Entity ID is changed from Skeleton to wither_skeleton, SkeletonType tag is removed.
					Their in-game name is now "Wither Skeleton" instead of "Skeleton".
		16w39a			Wither skeletons now have their own sounds.
1.13		18w19a			Wither skeletons now sink underwater.
					Wither skeletons no longer drown underwater.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.12.1		build 1			Added wither skeletons.
		build 9			Wither skeletons are now larger than regular skeletons.
		build 12			Added new sounds for dying wither skeletons.
0.15.0		build 1			Wither skeletons now lower their arms when idle and swing their arms when damaging something.
					Added wither skeleton spawn egg.
0.16.0		build 4			Wither skeletons now spawn when a wither's health reaches 50%
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			The entity ID is changed from skeleton.wither to wither_skeleton.
Bedrock Edition
?					No longer spawn with gear (or enchanted gear).
1.5.0		beta 1.5.0.0			Wither skeletons will now sink in water, and won’t drown.
		beta 1.5.0.4			Wither skeletons now seek and attack baby turtles.
Legacy Console Edition
TU19	CU7	1.12	Patch 1		Added wither skeletons.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Wither skeletons will now drop their skull when killed by a charged creeper.
TU54	CU44	1.52	Patch 24	Patch 4	Added wither skeleton spawn egg.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added Wither Skeletons.

Issues

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

Trivia

• If a wither skeleton is wielding a bow (which can be spawned with /summon wither_skeleton ~ ~ ~ {HandItems:[{id:bow,Count:1b}]}), it will use it like an ordinary skeleton, but the arrows it shoots will always be set on fire, regardless of enchantments.
• Wither skeletons run from wolves like normal skeletons do.

Gallery

• 

  A wither skeleton.
 
• 

  A wither skeleton wearing iron armor and wielding an iron sword.
 
• 

  A wither skeleton in the Overworld.
 
• 

  A wither jockey.
 
• 

  A wither skeleton next to the wall of a nether fortress.