Blaze

"Alchemy addicts and experience farmers are among the few who might have good things to say about the blaze, a ferocious, flaming mob that spawns in the formidable Nether Fortresses. There they patrol, to unknown purpose, aggressively flambéing any and all adventurers who enter their domain."

- Marsh Davies

Blazes are flying hostile mobs found in nether fortresses.

Spawning
Blazes spawn naturally in nether fortresses at a light level of 11 or less.

Spawners
Blazes spawn from spawners of nether fortresses.

Drops

 * 0–1 s (0-4 with the Looting III), if killed by the player or tamed wolf.
 * if killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior
Blazes fly, although when not attacking they stay on the ground or sink down slowly through the air. Blazes do not attempt to swim upward in lava or water. Despite taking damage from water, blazes make no attempt to protect themselves if pushed or dropped into water. Their pathfinding does not avoid fire or lava but does avoid water.

Attacking
Blazes target players within 48 blocks. If a blaze is damaged by a player or other mob, it alerts other blazes within 48 blocks to target the attacker. A blaze flies when it acquires a target, slowly approaching while attempting to remain 0.5–3.5 blocks above the target.

A blaze's normal attack is a trio of fireballs, shot from up to 16 blocks. A blaze shoots only when it has line of sight to its target. If line of sight is broken in the middle of its volley, the blaze suspends the remainder of its volley until line of sight returns. When using this attack, the blaze burns with fire for 3 seconds, shoots three fireballs over the course of 0.9 seconds, then extinguishes its flames and waits for 5 seconds before attacking again. A blaze shoots its fireballs with roughly the same lack of accuracy as a dispenser; however, the blaze's shots maintain the same speed all the way to the target, unlike the dispenser's, which start slow and accelerate.

A blaze that touches its target performs a melee attack that does damage on normal difficulty, once per second. This attack is not considered fire damage and does not ignite the target.

Blaze fireball
Blazes shoot fireballs at players. If a fireball hits a block, fire is placed at that location. If it hits an entity that is not immune to fire and doesn't have the Fire Resistance effect, the entity takes of projectile damage regardless of difficulty level. The target is set on fire for 5 seconds, which does an additional fire damage over time. A blaze's fireball cannot be deflected by melee attacks or arrows, unlike ghast fireballs. However, it can be blocked by shields, which prevents the player from being attacked.

Blaze fireballs can light campfires.

Data values
Blaze fireballs are also entities that have associated entity data.

Combat
In addition to normal weapons, blazes are hurt by snowballs, taking damage per hit, and by splash water bottles, taking  damage per hit. Like endermen, they are also damaged by snow, water and rain by every half second. Like most Nether mobs, they are immune to fire and lava.

Data values
Blazes have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

Trivia

 * Blazes can see the player through walls, like spiders and slimes.
 * When throwing a potion of invisibility on a blaze, the smoke remains visible.
 * According to Jeb, blazes look the way they do because all mobs in Minecraft are cuboid-shape, so to make them flame-like and magical, he created them as a core surrounded by rotating rods, and he gave them eyes so they had personality.
 * Despite not having visible feet, blazes are still capable of making footstep sounds.