Blaze

Blazes are mobs with a yellow skin and brown eyes found in The Nether. They spawn from Monster Spawners found mostly inside Nether Fortresses. They can spawn on Nether Brick without a spawner. Their bodies are made up of a head atop a central column of smoke, and three rotating sections. Each rotating section contains four floating yellow rods. Blazes can fly and shoot Fire Charges. They make a metallic breathing sound.

Spawning
Blaze spawners can be found only in Nether Fortresses, and will start spawning Blazes once the player gets within 16 blocks. The spawners have a chance of spawning 1-4 Blazes at once. Blazes can only spawn in light level 11 or lower (at the lower half of their body). Blazes also seem to be able to spawn on Nether Brick, but aside from this they do not spawn naturally.

Behavior
Though Blazes are able to fly, they will stay on the ground or sink down slowly in the air when not attacking. When they see a player, they will start flying and shooting. They will catch fire briefly before shooting a three round burst of Fire Charges. A short cool down period occurs between attacks.

In addition to normal weapons, Blazes can be hurt by water and snowballs, as well as rain, if they are forced to spawn in the overworld. They are not damaged by fire or lava. When defeated, they drop Blaze Rods, but only if defeated by a player.

Strategy
Blazes are considerably difficult mobs to fight, due to their ranged, unblockable attacks and rapid rate of fire. Their ability to fly usually leaves the player's sword useless, while a player's bow's charging time and move speed leaves the player highly vulnerable to attack. On the other hand, Blazes have a much shorter attack range than the player, which makes it more feasible to snipe them from afar.

Much like Ghasts, the Blaze's ability to fly can make it difficult to recover their loot after killing them. However, a viable tactic of combat is to fight them at close range by reeling them in with a fishing rod first. The use of a potion of fire resistance is extremely helpful when fighting Blazes.
 * Using a Splash potion on you AND an Iron Golem can nearly double the blaze rod count

'Camping' at a Blaze spawner is an effective way to gather Blaze Rods, as they will always appear close enough to attack with a sword, and there is a delay in their attack after they spawn because they have to charge first. This is best done in combination with the fire resistance potion in effect, which makes the player immune to the Blaze's attacks and can be brewed by adding Magma Cream to awkward potions. You can also build a doorway, 2 blocks tall and 1 block wide, where you can camp and kill the blazes as they come down. This strategy is extremely effective if you cover up the roof of the spawner room and camp in the doorway with a diamond sword. However, make sure that the outside of the "Blaze box" is well lit, otherwise the Blaze may spawn outside the box and catch you unaware, giving you little time to react and defend yourself.

A Blaze suffers damage upon contact with water, rain (downfall), or from snowballs, making a small army of Snow Golems a great way to kill them or even make Golem-based Blaze grinders, provided the player has enough ingredients to replace the fallen golems, a safe place to hide while making new golems, as well as that the initial attack is made with enough snowmen to defeat the first wave of Blazes, before more Blazes can arrive and turn the Blaze grinder into a Snow Golem grinder. Be aware with Blaze spawners as these can quickly create new waves of Blaze, outnumbering the golems. In SMP, this tactic is one of the easiest ways (if not THE easiest way) to kill Blazes, as another player can be assigned the mission to gather snow from dead snow golems and turn this into blocks, letting the golem maker work without stopping to get more snow. Systems like this can in practical use take out several spawners with the only resource requirement being pumpkins for new golems, making the Blaze killing process almost self-sustaining. A pumpkin farm could produce unlimited pumpkins, making it fairly sustainable, although the snow would run out if the dead golems' snowballs weren't collected.

Blazes are also an efficient way to farm experience. They drop 10 experience points when killed by the player, as opposed to only 5 dropped by most other hostile mobs. The above camping method, combined with potions of fire resistance, can generate an average of about 100 experience per minute.

History
Blazes were introduced in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 1.

Starting from Beta 1.9 Pre-release 4 they only dropped items when they aren't on fire (about to attack); This has since been fixed, and they will now drop Blaze Rods any time they are killed.

As of Beta 1.9 Pre-release 5, Blazes only drop a Blaze Rod when killed by the player.

Sounds specific to Blazes were introduced in version 1.0.0RC2. They make "breath" sounds and make metallic clunks when hurt.

Trivia

 * Blaze cannot shoot if trapped in a Cobweb.
 * Unlike Ghasts, projectiles fired by a Blaze cannot be deflected.
 * Fire Charges will set whatever they hit on fire, which includes solid blocks, mobs, and the player.
 * With a 'fire resistance potion' in effect, the blaze is the only mob whose attacks are capable of being neutralized, including their knockback effect. However, they are able to hit players when up close with a melee attack when they are on fire and only when they are on fire.
 * The player and Snow Golems can kill a blaze with snowballs, although Snow Golems will be killed quickly by the Blazes' attacks.
 * Each snowball deals damage, so it takes 7 snowballs to kill one Blaze.
 * Also The snow golems will melt before they can do any real damage.
 * Blazes will take damage from rain and snowy weather if spawned into The Overworld.
 * Blazes, despite their almost alien morphology, share a recolored face with The Player and other humanoid mobs.
 * When this mob is not in pursuit of the player, they are bound to the ground. One can observe this as they may jump to get onto higher blocks and drop when going off an edge.
 * One may also observe that when they make contact with a block below they make footstepping noises appropriate to the block, as any earth-bound mob with feet would make, despite being a floating mob.
 * Once fired, the Fire Charge has an infinite range, and is not affected by gravity.
 * Blazes drops the most experience second to the Ender Dragon.
 * Blazes, when not in pursuit of the player, are affected by gravity, but like a chicken, take no fall damage.
 * Blazes seem to be one of the only mobs which reacts to getting shot by an arrow, if you shoot an arrow at a Blaze from a certain distance they will attack the player despite not being able to see the player before.

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