Zombie

Zombies are the most common hostile mobs (and also most common of all the Mobs) that spawn in dark or dimly lit areas, and will attack the player by slowly moving toward them and inflicting damage by making contact. Like Skeletons and Zombie Pigmen, Zombies catch fire in sunlight. Zombies can be heard making moaning and growling noises when near.

In addition to generic Zombies, which closely resemble an "undead" version of The Player, several rarer Zombie forms may spawn.


 * Zombies have green skin, empty eye sockets, and identical clothing to the player and other humans. They are 2 blocks tall, 1 block wide, and 0.24 blocks thick.
 * Zombie Villagers have the same bodies as original Zombies, but their heads appear as undead versions of Villager heads.
 * Armored and/or Armed Zombies resemble either ordinary or Villager types, but wear armor and/or wield weapons or tools.
 * Baby Zombies spawn as of version 1.6.2. Presumably they have less health, but they are much faster than normal zombies.

Zombie Villager
Zombie Villagers comprise 5% of all spawned Zombies. They generally behave as ordinary Zombies, but their character model's head and face is reminiscent of that of a villager, especially the nose. Zombie Villagers may occur in easy, normal, hard, or hardcore game modes.

Zombie Villagers can (but do not always) result from Zombie attacks on ordinary Villagers. If any type of Zombie kills a Villager, there is a chance that the Villager will transform into a Zombie Villager (100% in hard difficulty, 50% in normal, 0% in easy and peaceful). This often occurs during sieges.

Zombie Villagers can be cured by throwing a Splash Potion of Weakness at them, then giving them a Golden Apple by right-clicking on the Zombie Villager with it. A loud hissing sound will be heard if successful, and the Zombie Villager will begin to shudder. The transformation will take between 2 and 5 minutes, during which time the Zombie Villager will still attack and must be protected from other attacks and Sun damage. While the zombie is being cured, it will be given the Strength I effect in normal difficulty, or Strength II in hard difficulty, making it more important to isolate the zombie.


 * Cured Villagers do not retain the same trades they had before they became infected.
 * If the Zombie Villager is wearing any Armor or wielding Tools or Weapons, those items disappear when the villager is cured.
 * During the curing process keep the Zombie Villager away from any other zombies, because the other zombies will stop the curing process.

Baby Zombie Villagers
Baby Zombie Villagers are created by infecting a Baby Villager. The chance of infection are the same as standard Zombie Villagers: 100% on Hard difficulty, 50% chance on Normal, and 0% chance on Easy. They are the same as regular Zombies, with the following oddities:
 * They will not burn in sunlight.
 * They do not grow up unless cured.
 * When they wear armor it shrinks to fit their body size.
 * They are able to climb ladders.
 * Unlike adult zombies, baby zombies respond to attacks even when they are attacking something else.
 * They are much faster.

As of 1.6.2 generic baby zombies also can exist in vanilla minecraft. Like Zombie Villagers, they make up 5% of zombie spawns.

A Zombie Villager cannot be cured by switching from Normal or Hard difficulty to Easy or Peaceful. They will just disappear, like all other mobs when switched to Peaceful.

Armed Zombie
Along with Skeletons, some Zombies spawn with the ability to pick up dropped items from the ground. These Zombies will automatically hold nearly any item they come across, but if those items happen to be Armor, Weapons, or Tools, the Zombie will wear/use them. Some of these Zombies spawn already sporting such items, and those items may also be enchanted. The chances of said event are listed below and are taken from the game's code. If you give armor to a zombie he won't despawn.

or, or with an external inventory editor.)

Behavior


Zombies spawn in groups of 1-6 and will pursue the player on sight. Zombies will attempt to avoid obstacles, including sheer cliffs and lava, and will try to find the shortest path towards the player. Here's a video demonstrating the Zombíe's path finding. Unlike Skeletons, Zombies do not try to avoid being hit, and continue to pursue the player even when being attacked. Zombies can sometimes deal damage through a closed door, as shown on the picture to the right. Like most mobs, Zombies will always float on water, even if their target is below them.

Zombies can call other Zombies in the area to "help", and in a matter of seconds, more Zombies will target the player. The "calling range" of Zombies is affected by the difficulty setting.

At dawn, generally when the Sun is 15 degrees or more above the ground (that is, when the moon can no longer be seen), Zombies will catch fire and burn once exposed to direct sunlight. They may make some attempt to seek out shade during this time, or enter bodies of Water to protect themselves from burning up. Being in Water bodies, rain, or shade negates the effects of direct sunlight, preventing them from burning. Zombies will exit protective areas to chase a close player or Villager, whereupon they will again be vulnerable to burning. Zombies wearing headgear will also be protected from burning.

Zombies will attack Villagers within 16 blocks. Once a Zombie has focused on a Villager, the Zombie will ignore any other Villagers, and the player, until its target is dead or the player attacks.

Zombies will bang on closed wooden doors, and can succeed in breaking them down in Hard difficulty. In other difficulties, the door will crack, but not break. Iron Doors are always safe.

As of snapshot 13w04a, if you attack a zombie while you are in Creative mode, more Zombies will follow you and swarm you (similar to the behavior of Zombie Pigmen), and no matter how far you run or fly, they will follow you.

As of 1.6, if a zombie is attacking a villager and is hurt by another mob, then the zombie will retaliate and attack the offending mob.

If the game difficulty is on hard, whenever a zombie is damaged by another entity it will attempt to spawn one reinforcement zombie nearby. Both the damaged zombie and the new zombie will have a reduced chance of summoning another reinforcement, so they cannot cause an infinite number of zombies to spawn, but they can multiply significantly. You can combat this effect by killing the zombie in as few hits as possible, or by using environmental damage such as falls or lava, or by ignoring them.

Xbox 360 Edition
As of TU11 Xbox 360 Edition, zombies cannot break wooden doors in any difficulty setting whatsoever. Also, zombie sieges are not possible in the current update for the 360 platform. Plus, zombies cannot alter the state of a Villager to a zombie villager.

Tips
Formerly, Zombies did not pose much of a threat unless encountered in large groups or in narrow spaces. As of 1.6, however, a lone zombie can easily become a large group. Furthermore, they now hit a lot harder when injured. Killing the zombie rapidly (iron or diamond sword), or leading with environmental damage, can help cut the multiplication. Blocking the zombies off with fences still works fairly well, but remember that reinforcement zombies can appear and approach from all directions!

On the other hand, the multiplication makes it easy to "farm" zombies for experience, dog food, and drops. Stone swords and moats are helpful here.

A player on sufficiently high ground can repeatedly hit a Zombie as it approaches, knocking it away consistently before it gets close enough to cause damage. Placing yourself so that you are 1 block lower than the Zombie makes it easier to prevent contact. Like Zombie Pigmen and skeletons, Zombies have a chance of spawning equipped with armor, enchanted or not, wielding an iron sword or iron shovel.

Zombies, along with Zombie Pigmen and Skeletons, can be damaged by Splash Potions of Healing, and healed with Splash Potions of Harming.

Zombies are vulnerable to daylight, lava, fire, and contact with cacti. Surface Zombie populations can be controlled if the player regularly sleeps in a bed at dusk, since Zombies will only spawn at night if the player is awake.

If the player places a door rotated so having one "closed" appears "open" and vice versa, zombies will not attempt to break them, simply standing in front of them if they wish to enter. Another popular method of protecting your shelter from Zombies in Hard mode, without wasting iron, is to place a fence gate and wooden pressure plate in front of your door. That way, the zombie cannot get to the door to break it, and you stay protected from the arrows of Skeletons and the detection of other mobs as you would with a door in your shelter.

Since Zombies can be spawned with a Dispenser and Spawn Eggs, it is possible to make large zombie waves with no mods.

Trivia



 * You can give Zombies a bow, and make an artificial Skeleton by giving them a skeleton head, a bow, and iron armor. However, the Zombie will use the bow as a melee weapon, and cannot shoot. Skeletons can also be turned into an artificial Zombie by giving them a zombie head, green leather armor, and a sword.
 * If you are lucky enough to find a zombie with a sword, then even more lucky to get it to drop, it will be very damaged, sometimes with only a few uses left.
 * Zombies can spawn with colored leather armor. However, this is very rare.
 * Both the Zombie and The Player skins share the same model, thus the Zombie skin can be used as the player's skin and vice versa.
 * Despite being nocturnal, zombies are the most common Mobs in Minecraft, found extremely commonly in dark places like caves, strongholds, dungeons, etc, and outside at night, even more so than the other Mobs.
 * A Giant is an unused huge variation of a zombie that can only be spawned through third party programs or SMP commands. Its appearance is identical to the zombie's, but it has 50 hearts of health, deals 25 damage in a single hit, and is unable to damage the player unless they are right beneath it.
 * A Splash Potion of Fire Resistance can be used to prevent zombies from burning in direct sunlight.
 * Zombies and Zombie Villagers will get hurt by a Splash Potion of Healing, and get healed by a Splash Potion of Harming. Splash Potions of Regeneration and Poison have no effect on them. This applies for all the undead mobs, like skeletons.
 * Zombie armor has no durability score, which means it can never "wear out" the way player armor does. Two points of armor gives 8% damage reduction from most sources. This means the player would need to deal  physical damage to kill a zombie. When dropped from a height of 23 blocks, a zombie would have its health dropped to half a heart but still takes two unarmed hits to kill. As unarmed hits deal half a heart each hit, the first hit would be reduced by the armor and send the zombie's health down below half a heart, thus a second hit is required. There is no one-hit (unarmed) method to kill zombies in a falling trap.
 * In the 12w04a snapshot, when spawning a Zombie in daylight with an egg on Soul Sand, it will not catch fire.
 * When in daylight while raining, a zombie might make a hissing sound, due to the fact that it will catch on fire and immediately be burned out.
 * Even if attacked by an entity other than the player, the zombie will still be focused on attacking the player.
 * Zombies can climb ladders, but will only do so if their path finding runs them into one.
 * Starting snapshot 12w32a, zombie NBT tags can be edited to make them use any item in the game with any enchantment as a weapon and wear any armor with any enchantment.
 * Zombie Villagers have brown eyes, but normal villagers have green eyes.
 * When the Zombie Villager was first introduced, the texture for their body depended on the body texture of the regular Zombie, located in the "zombie.png" image file. This made it impossible to give the villager Zombie and the regular Zombie distinct body texture when using a texture pack. However, in one of the following snapshots, Villager Zombies were given their own texture file called "zombie_villager.png" which fixed this annoyance.
 * Zombie Villagers are thinner and slightly taller than Villagers.
 * This is due to the fact that Zombie Villagers are modeled as Zombies with alternate heads instead of using the model of the villager. However, it could be intentional in order to avoid confusions.
 * Zombie Villagers also have their noses sticking through a pumpkin if they are wearing one.
 * When walking in a space that is 2 blocks tall, the top of the Zombie Villager is higher than the ceiling, and goes through it with no effect.
 * Before 12w34a, when zombie villagers were added, the textures that could be used did not require modification to be a player skin.
 * The attribute applied to allow them to pick up items is called CanPickUpLoot.
 * On Halloween, zombies sometimes spawn with pumpkins or Jack 'o' Lanterns on their heads.
 * Since Zombies can pick up items, this can make them useful for preventing items from despawning, however the zombie itself will despawn if you walk out of a certain radius, which is approximately 32 blocks for allowed despawn and 128 blocks for instant despawn. A better method that still displays the item in question is to put them into item frames.
 * Any Zombie wearing a helmet, pumpkin, or head will not catch on fire, however this uses up durability if it is wearing a helmet and may eventually be destroyed, causing the zombie to burn.
 * Very rarely, a zombie can pick up its loot as it is dying.
 * Zombies are one of the two mobs (the other being the Skeletons) to be able to actually pick up any dropped block/item and use it.
 * Zombies are also the first mob to have an attack animation (implemented in Classic, taken out in Indev, put back in 1.4.5), the second being the Iron Golem.
 * Even if a zombie has complete diamond armor, it is limited to 20 armor points (80% damage reduction).
 * A zombie with armor has a 40% chance of it being leather, 49% gold, 9% chain, 1.8% iron, and 0.2% diamond.
 * When a zombie villager child equips a decorative head, the head will float above it.
 * In 13w05b, due to the fact that Zombie Pigmen share many of the same codes as zombies, zombies will act like their pig counterparts in that all the zombies within a certain area will target a player who has attacked one zombie. Game mode and invisibility potions do not matter.
 * Zombies can frighten villagers from behind walls of glass. Villagers will even run into a fire to "escape" from zombies behind glass.
 * Zombies attack range is a bit higher in the Xbox version then the PC version hence making it harder to kill in the Xbox edition
 * If a zombie spawns wearing multiple pieces of armor, the armor will never be mismatched (i.e. all pieces will be made of the same material); the same applies for skeletons.
 * The hat part of zombie texture can be used to zombie villagers, but it will be cubic instead of parapedical.
 * When making a texture pack, using a regular player skin for the zombie texture results in the zombie's face being on the back of its legs.
 * Zombies will not catch fire if they are caught in Cobwebs.
 * A Zombie holding an item given by a player will not despawn when left alone.
 * If you look at the zombie's arms, they are not straight, they are bent sloping down inwards.
 * Due to the zombie summoning ability, if a large number of zombies are caught in sunlight, it will cause, to be described best, raining zombies. (This is a bug caused by the new feature of more zombies being spawned when a zombie takes damage, fixed in 13w18b.)