Warden

The warden is a hostile mob summoned by sculk shriekers which is able to do both melee and ranged attacks. Wardens are completely blind and thus rely on vibrations and their sense of smell to identify moving entities, and deal the most non one-off damage of any mob in the game.

Spawning
Wardens do not use traditional mob spawning mechanics. When a player activates any sculk shrieker three times, and there isn't another warden within 48 blocks, and the light level is lower than 11, a warden emerges from the ground. Up to 20 attempts are made to spawn a warden within a 11×13×11 box centered on the shrieker.

The warning count for sculk shriekers is specific to each player, not each sculk shrieker. This means that the same player can activate three different sculk shriekers just once, and a warden spawns on the third activation.

Drops
Wardens drop five experience points when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior
Wardens are blind and wander randomly, even through rails. The warden's hitbox can fit inside a corridor 1 block wide and 3 blocks tall. This allows them to chase foes pathfinding precisely even in small cave corridors. Wardens are immune to knockback and to damage from fire and lava. Water does not slow down a warden and a bubble column has no effect on an aggravated warden. A nearby vibration agitates the warden, which moves toward the location where the vibration originated. It can also smell the area around it, allowing it to zero in on an entity's location. The more vibrations a mob or player makes, the more agitated it grows.

The souls on its chest creates a low throbbing heartbeat sound, in tandem with the Darkness effect. The animation and sound speeds up gradually as the warden becomes more agitated. Wardens prefer to track down mobs that it finds most suspicious, rather than the closest one.

Once a warden reaches a high enough level of agitation, it roars and pursues the target. In this alerted state, the warden pathfinds to the target normally, regardless of vibrations made. If a mob or player collides with a warden, or attacks it first, the warden immediately enters its angry state.

Apart from players, a warden tracks down and attacks all other mobs, excluding other wardens. The warden can also follow vibrations made by non-mob entities such as projectiles or minecarts.

After sixty seconds of being "calm" and not detecting any vibrations, the warden burrows back into the ground and despawns. The warden is completely invulnerable while emerging or burrowing, including damage from, though it can still be pushed by entities, pistons or liquids.

The warden's melee attack disables shields for 5 seconds, and deals an exceptional amount of damage, enough to instantly kill a player wearing unenchanted full netherite armor on Hard difficulty. If the target is still on its search radius and on high ground or hiding behind walls, a warden can charge up a ranged attack called a "sonic explosion." This guided attack can pass through blocks, and is visible with the formation of green-blue particles that are quickly projected out of the warden's chest. It deals the same amount of damage as its melee attack and also disables shields for 5 seconds on impact.

ID




Entity data
Wardens have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.



Advancements
There are no advancements associated with killing the warden. The warden is intended to be a natural disaster that is almost impossible to kill and best avoided. Therefore, killing a warden doesn't count for the Monster Hunter advancement, nor is it needed to receive the Monsters Hunted advancement.

Trivia

 * Some previous names being considered for the warden were the stalker and the hollowed.
 * The stalker iteration was tall, asymmetrical and it had a glowing core. It occurred in totems throughout the deep dark. The stalker would stand completely still to any trick players into taking its core and aggravating it, and could transform into a one block high form to prevent players from digging away. That iteration, specifically its appearance and transformation mechanic, felt clunky and was more goofy than scary, so it was scrapped by the Mojang devs..
 * The hollowed was designed with the intent of inciting trypophobia and had white flesh with holes in it. That iteration was deemed too gory by the developers and had to be toned down.
 * In the sixth episode of “The Secrets of Minecraft” it was jokingly revealed that the warden's personal name is William, similar to how the Ender dragon, the Wither, and player characters all have personal joke names. The word was also jokingly broken down into the words: war and den.
 * Brandon Pearce (kingbdogz) stated in a tweet that the souls in the warden's chest is incredibly important to its lore.
 * Kingbdogz also stated that the warden is inspired by the "monster" heard at the end of the 11 music disc.
 * Coincidentally, in the spinoff game, Minecraft: Story Mode, there is an unrelated character also named The Warden.
 * Although the warden is supposed to be blind, spectating it reveals that it still has normal vision.

Videos

 * Other gameplay