Wither Skeleton

Wither skeletons are variants of skeletons found in nether fortresses, which can inflict the fatal Wither effect.

Spawning
Wither skeletons spawn in nether fortresses at a light level of 7 or less, in groups of 4. Unlike any other mob, they can spawn on wither roses as they are not damaged by them.

Halloween
On Halloween, wither skeletons have a 22.5% chance of spawning wearing a and a 2.5% chance of spawning wearing a.

Withers
On normal or hard difficulties, the wither spawns 4 wither skeletons when below half health.

Jockeys
Spiders and cave spiders spawned in the Nether have a 0.8% chance of spawning a wither skeleton on their back and form a spider jockey. However, spiders do not naturally spawn in this dimension.

Drops

 * 0 to 2 s. The maximum drop is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 bones with Looting III.
 * $$ chance to drop a single . Each level of Looting increases the maximum drop by 1, so that Looting I drops 0-2 coal with an average of 0.67 coal per kill, Looting II drops 0-3 coal with an average of 1.11 coal per kill, and Looting III drops 0-4 coal with an average of 1.58 coal per kill.
 * 2.5% chance to drop a when killed by a player or tamed wolf. Looting increases the chance by 1% per level or 2% per level, for a maximum of 5.5% or 8.5% chance with Looting III. Their skull is always dropped if killed by a charged creeper.
 * 8.5% chance of dropping their stone sword, which has a random durability and is unenchanted. This chance increases by 1% per level of Looting, for a maximum of 11.5% chance with Looting III.
 * when killed by a player or tamed wolf. If it has, an additional to  is dropped per piece.

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

Behavior
Wither skeletons wander when idle, but sprint to attack players, snow golems, iron golems, baby turtles, piglins and piglin brutes. They also run from wolves. When an entity is attacked by a wither skeleton, it is inflicted with the Wither effect for 10 seconds in any difficulty, which turns the health bar black and decreases it by  every two seconds, similarly to Poison, except that it can kill.

In normal or hard difficulties, some wither skeletons may have the capacity to pick up dropped gear. The chance depends on regional difficulty, with up to 55% of them equipping dropped iron, diamond, or netherite s and any armor. Although they may hold them, wither skeletons never take s; $$, if they hold a bow (which can be done with ) they shoot flaming arrows even if their bows are unenchanted. Like regular skeletons, they cannot use crossbows.

Wither skeletons are immune to fire and the Wither effect. Despite their immunity to fire, they still seek shade or water during daylight if they are in the Overworld. Like most undead mobs, they sink in water but do not drown, are healed by Instant Damage and harmed by Instant Health effects, are immune to Regeneration and Poison effects, and are not attacked by the wither.

Strangely, the player can burn them by throwing a trident enchanted with Channeling during a thunderstorm.

While Wither Skeletons do not do the highest amount of melee damage in the game (that goes to Vindicators and Piglin Brutes), they still pose a serious threat to players, as they do a whopping 12 hearts of damage on hard difficulty, along with the Wither effect that ignored all enchantments. This makes killing them a priority when going into Nether Fortresses. Due to the fact that many fortresses spawn partially or even completely into netherrack, and with them blending into nether brick walls easily, they can quickly turn traversing the long halls of a fortress into a nightmare.

ID




Entity data
Wither skeleton have entity data associated with them that contains various properties. The wither skeleton is taller than the skeleton.

Trivia

 * If you give a bow to a wither skeleton using the command, it will shoot fiery arrows from it.