Arrow

Arrows are ammunition for bows, crossbows and dispensers. They can be modified to imbue status effects on players and mobs.

Drops
Skeletons and strays may drop between 0 to 2 arrows upon death. The maximum drop is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0–5 arrows with Looting III.

Strays have a 50% chance of dropping 1 arrow of Slowness when killed by a player. Each level of Looting increases the chance of this drop by 50% of the previous chance. This results in a maximum of 93.75% with Looting III.

$$, pillagers also drop 0–2 arrows upon death. The maximum drop is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 arrows with Looting III.

Arrows shot by a creative mode player, skeleton, stray, or pillager cannot be picked up, even in creative mode.

Trading
Novice-level fletcher villagers have a 50% or $2/3$ chance to sell 16 arrows for one emerald as part of their trades.

$$, master-level fletcher villagers have a $15/16$ chance to sell 5 tipped arrows for 2 emeralds and 5 arrows. $$, they have a $2/3$ chance to sell 5 tipped arrows for 2 emeralds and 5 arrows. If the trade is offered, the potion effect is chosen randomly from the list below.


 * Arrow of Decay
 * Arrow of Fire Resistance
 * Arrow of Harming
 * Arrow of Healing
 * Arrow of Invisibility
 * Arrow of Leaping
 * Arrow of Slow Falling
 * Arrow of Night Vision
 * Arrow of Poison
 * Arrow of Regeneration
 * Arrow of Slowness
 * Arrow of Strength
 * Arrow of Swiftness
 * Arrow of the Turtle Master
 * Arrow of Water Breathing
 * Arrow of Weakness

To summarize, this is all potion effects except Slow Falling $$, or all potion effects except Luck $$. This is the only legitimate way to obtain arrows of decay in survival mode, besides using a potion of decay in a cauldron, which is rarely generated in a swamp hut.

Rewards
In Java Edition any regular or tipped arrow can be obtained as a reward item from fletcher villagers when the player has the Hero of the Village status effect.

Retrieving
Arrows stuck in a block that were originally shot by dispensers or by players in Survival without the Infinity enchantment may be collected. Arrows originally shot by Skeletons, Strays, illusioners, Pillagers, players in Creative, players using the Infinity enchantment, or duplicate arrows created by Crossbows with the Multishot enchantment cannot be collected. Arrows cannot be retrieved when they are stuck in a player or mob, and players or mobs do not drop them when killed. Retrievable arrows have a despawn timer of 60 seconds.

Cauldrons
Tipped arrows can also be obtained by using arrows on cauldrons that contain potions. The number of tipped arrows created depends on the potion inside the cauldron. When the cauldron is one-third full, 16 arrows can be tipped. When the cauldron is two thirds full, up to 32 arrows can be tipped and when the cauldron is full, an entire stack of 64 arrows can be tipped. This is more efficient than using lingering potions as up to 21.33 arrows can be tipped per potion.

Usage
When fired, arrows fly in a ballistic trajectory affected by gravity and drag in air, water, and lava. They travel approximately 3 blocks when fired parallel to a flat plane with no charge, 15 blocks average with medium charge, and 24 blocks average with maximum charge. Arrows (with bow at full strength) can travel 120 blocks when fired from the optimal angle. The maximum height an arrow fired by a bow can reach is around 66 blocks.

An arrow fired in water experiences much more drag than in air: it moves less than 8 blocks before completely losing horizontal speed and falling straight down, although the knockback of the arrow remains unaffected. It also leaves a trail of bubbles in its wake.

There is a random variable to the trajectory of an arrow, given by  for the x, y and z coordinate. The inaccuracy is relatively small, becoming noticeable over larger distances.

An arrow's speed determine the damage it inflicts. When fired from a fully-charged bow, arrows do of damage, with a smaller chance to damage for. They inflict damage from a medium-charged bow, and  from a bow with no charge. Arrows fired from dispensers always do of damage. Arrows fired from crossbows do to  of damage.

Immediately after hitting the target, there is a 0.5 second cooldown period during which the target is immune to further damage. Arrows hitting the mob in this state lose all speed and drop to the ground.

Arrows also stick into objects they come in contact with and remain there for one minute before disappearing; the distance from the object and the angle determine how far into the target the arrow penetrates. Such arrows may be retrievable.

The custom effects (NBT tag ) of tipped arrows evaporate after the arrow has been stuck for 30 seconds, but the primary effect (NBT tag  ) is not subject to evaporation.

If an arrow is stuck in a block and the block in which the arrow is stuck in is broken or disappears (e.g., leaves upon decay), then the arrow falls straight down and damages entities below.

Arrows can bounce off mobs immune to damage like the wither under the "wither armor" effect and a perching ender dragon.

Arrows shot through lava (but not fire) catch on fire and show an appropriate animation until they pass through water. Like arrows shot from a bow with the Flame enchantment, they can set other entities they hit on fire for 5 seconds and ignite TNT.

An arrow shot at a boat or any kind of minecart causes the vehicle to break, dropping any components (including container contents).

Arrows can get stuck in players $$, although not any other mobs.

Redstone circuits
An arrow can activate a wooden button, wooden pressure plate, or a tripwire. If the arrow sticks in the switch, the switch remains activated until the arrow despawns after one minute. Other switches (such as those made of iron) are not affected by arrows.

When arrows are fired into the sides of blocks, they change their orientation to point more downwards than their original flight path might indicate. This can cause them to intersect and thus trigger switches above them that they didn't actually hit, or block rails above them.

Explosions
Arrows are affected by explosions while they are in flight. Since explosions increase the speed of an arrow, they can also increase the damage dealt by them.

Tipped arrows
Tipped arrows are arrows that imbue a potion effect when hitting a mob or player. The duration of the effect is $1/8$ that of the corresponding potion, if applicable, and is not affected by the power of the arrow. The status effect is the same as the regular power effect for the potion. If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, tipped arrows are still consumed.

The types of arrows are:



Uncraftable tipped arrow
The uncraftable tipped arrow is a tipped arrow with no effect that is unobtainable in survival. It is also available in potion, splash and lingering potion forms.

It can be obtained using the following command:. It is also obtained any time a potion has invalid or missing potion effect tags, and thus serves as a placeholder.

Spectral arrows
The Spectral Arrow imbues the Glowing status effect for 10 seconds. The Glowing effect creates an outline of the target, which is visible through blocks, and coloured based on the target's team (white by default). If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, spectral arrows are still consumed. It is not known if it can be duplicated via Multishot.

Item Data
In Bedrock Edition, arrows use the following item data values:

Normal and tipped arrows
Arrows have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Spectral arrows
Spectral arrows also have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Trivia

 * By default, arrows spawn slightly offset to the right. If the player stands close to a wall and fires several arrows without moving the crosshair, the arrows cluster around a point slightly to the right of the crosshair. If the player switches their main hand to be the left hand in options, the arrows instead cluster to the left.
 * Arrows fired at Nether Portals often skip through the portal block completely and fail to collide, thus continuing through to the opposite side of the block.
 * A tipped arrow with no potion effect (obtained via commands) is called "Arrow of Splashing".
 * Arrows stuck in blocks vibrate upon a world reload.
 * Although an enderman still teleports when hit by any tipped arrow, they are still given the said effects while avoiding arrow damage.