How do I summon a Wither?
The Boss Update for Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta gives you the ability to summon and fight a Wither, a fearsome, three-headed enemy who shoots exploding skulls at you while it flies around. Think you're up for the challenge? Here's what you need to know about summoning and defeating a Wither.
- Collect resources from the Nether
- Prepare yourself for the fight
- Choose your battleground
- Summon and fight the Wither
Collect resources from the Nether
The first thing you need to do is collect the resources needed to spawn the Wither — these resources include four blocks of soul sand and three Wither skeleton skulls. Prepare yourself accordingly for your trip to the Nether— many dangers lie ahead!
These skeletons are a bit bigger than normal skeletons and have a darker shade to them. They don't always drop skulls, so you'll likely have to kill quite a few before collecting three. Enchanting your sword with Looting will help your chances of collecting skulls.
Soul sand is only found in the Nether and is usually found in Nether fortresses. Use a shovel to mine four blocks.
When you've collected three skulls and four blocks of soul sand, beat a hasty retreat to the Overworld.
Prepare yourself for the fight
The Wither has a ton of health, it destroys every block its body touches, and it shoots exploding projectiles. Needless to say, the battle will be tough.
Crafting diamond armor and enchanting it with a high level of Protection or Blast protection is recommended to better protect you from the Wither's attacks.
You'll also want a diamond sword enchanted with a high level of Smite, as the Wither is considered an undead enemy. A bow enchanted with Power and Flame will greatly help your ranged attack prospects.
Brew yourself some potions:
- Potion of Healing II: Down one of these to immediately regenerate eight hearts of health.
- Potion of Strength II: Increases your melee damage by 260% for 1.5 minutes.
- Potion of Regeneration II: Restores health for 22.5 seconds.
- Potion of Night Vision: Allows you to see in the dark — perfect for when the Wither destroys your torches.
Craft as many golden apples as you can — when consumed, they provide five seconds of health regeneration and two minutes of damage absorption.
Choose your battleground
The Wither is going to cause a lot of damage — its projectiles explode in the same way a Creeper explodes. Any blocks it touches will also disappear.
For these reasons, you'll want to spawn the Wither in a remote location with a lot of open space. Do some scouting to ensure you won't stumble on any surprises during the battle — you want your focus to remain on the Wither.
Summon and fight the Wither
To spawn the Wither, place four blocks of soul sand in the shape of a T.
Next, place three Wither skeleton skulls along the top of the T. This will spawn the Wither.
The Wither starts small and with half a bar of health, but it immediately starts to grow and gain health. When its health bar fills up, it lets out an explosion — make sure you're nowhere near when this explosion occurs.
Hit the Wither with everything you have while remaining aware of your surroundings. Drink a few potions, eat some golden apples, and you'll hopefully down the Wither on your first try. Upon death, it will drop a Nether star, which can be used to construct a beacon.
Beacons provide a bright beam of light to help you and friends locate your settlement and also provides some regeneration and other positive effects when you're in its vicinity. Worth the challenge? Definitely!
Your Wither battle
Will you go after a Wither to obtain the rare Nether star? Let us know in the comments section below!