Zombified Piglin

Zombie Pigmen are neutral mobs that spawn naturally in the Nether, and can also appear rarely in the Overworld either when Lightning strikes within 3-4 blocks of a pig, or near active Nether portals. Like wild wolves, they are not initially hostile, but all zombie pigmen in the area will become aggressive and converge on the player if any individual is attacked. This only applies to the player; mobs that provoke zombie pigmen will only be attacked by that specific individual.

In the Pocket Edition, they are always hostile, but from a shorter distance than for other hostile mobs. Their texture and animations are also slightly different.

Drops
Zombie pigmen drop 0-1 rotten flesh, 0-1 gold nugget, rarely 1 gold ingot and rarely their golden sword. Zombie pigmen that spawned wearing a pumpkin or jack o'lantern may rarely drop it when killed using a tool with the Looting enchantment. In Pocket Edition they also drop feathers, carrots and potatoes. They also drop 5 experience (12 if baby) when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior
Zombie pigmen spawn in groups of 4. However, groups may often merge and form an even bigger group. They spawn twice as often as ghasts in the Nether. When idle, zombie pigmen move relatively slowly, but if aggravated their speed will significantly increase. While hostile, they will make an aggressive noise every 0 to 39 ticks.

Zombie pigmen sometimes catch fire during the day, but it is immediately extinguished; this is due to zombie pigmen being a variant of standard zombies. In addition, some zombie pigmen will have the ability to spawn reinforcements when attacked, similar to zombies. In some cases, the spawned reinforcement will be a regular zombie. Like zombies, zombie pigmen will sometimes bang on wooden doors, and in Hard difficulty, even break them. They cannot damage iron doors. . Like zombies, they can rarely spawn zombies when attacked, but this is a bug.

Zombie pigmen have a chance of spawning as baby zombie pigmen. They can also ride chickens much like baby zombies.

Like players, zombie pigmen are capable of travelling through nether portals.

Zombie pigmen can drown but are immune to fire and lava damage.

Like most mobs, they can ride in minecarts, so if you decide to create a rail in the nether or by a portal to it, it is likely that you'll see one riding in it.

After giving a zombie pigman a sword that's better than their own, you can "customize" the pigman by giving it armor, enchanted or not. In the event you do customize your zombie pigmen, it is advised that you change into creative mode, or keep them in a pen. You can reclaim your armor and sword without ever making the pigmen hostile by using drowning or suffocation traps.

Hostility
If provoked, zombie pigmen will crowd around and try to overwhelm the player by ganging up on them. An aggravated group of pigmen is a force to be reckoned with, as each member will deal points of damage to the player per sword hit (on Normal difficulty, assuming no armor is worn), and they are faster than the player's normal speed. In order to outrun zombie pigmen, a player must sprint, get away on a horse, or use a potion of swiftness. A player may also manage to find a location out of reach of the zombie pigmen and their swords (pillar jumping and ladders can help). Ideally, this will let the player kill them without being hurt, though Ghasts may pose a problem. It is useful to know which conditions lead to hostility.


 * When attacked by the player, all zombie pigmen within an approximate 40 block radius of the attacked pigman will become hostile.
 * They will attack the player who hit the initial zombie pigman, and will traverse complicated paths around the Nether until they eventually reach the player. this can often cause lingering zombie pigmen to attack the player moments after they have killed off nearby pigmen, thus causing the player to hit those pigmen, causing more zombie pigmen to become aggressive toward the player. with this in mind, zombie pigmen fights can be very exausting, and it is advised not to alarm them if survival is a priority.
 * Travelling far enough from the area will cause them to despawn and make it safe again, provided you do not attack any other zombie pigmen on the way back.
 * Zombie pigmen will remain hostile for 20–39.95 seconds (losing the speed boost), although they will continue to pursue an already-targeted player after this time until the player dies or escapes their 40 block pursuit radius.
 * Approaching an already hostile zombie pigman causes it to sound an alarm call, angering other individuals in a 40-block radius.
 * Pushing a zombie pigman off a cliff or otherwise causing environmental damage to them will not make them hostile.
 * However, damaging zombie pigmen with TNT ignited with flint and steel or flaming arrows will make them hostile, because these count as player-induced damage.
 * Similarly, damaging zombie pigmen with a redirected ghast fireball will make them hostile.
 * Baby Zombie Pigmen can chase the player even faster than normal zombie pigmen when provoked, and do not lose their initial speed boost, sometimes catching up even when the player is sprinting. This, combined with their ability to squeeze through one-block high gaps, having a one-block high hitbox and their ability to ride chickens, makes them a more significant threat than their grown brethren if made hostile.
 * The forgiveness timer does not advance for zombie pigmen in unloaded chunks. Thus, if the player enters a nether portal and returns, any provoked zombie pigmen in the area will still be aggressive unless another player was nearby to keep the chunks loaded. It is also possible for aggressive zombie pigmen to enter a portal while the player is still in the Nether, and these individuals will attack the player as soon as they return to the Overworld.
 * For the same reason, dying will not cause zombie pigmen to become neutral towards the player, regardless of whether or not they killed you.
 * Switching the difficulty to Peaceful will cause all zombie pigmen to de-spawn completely. It will also reset their neutrality if the difficulty is changed to something else afterward, as the newly spawned zombie pigmen will be neutral. Baby pigmen riding chickens will despawn, but their chickens won't, which can lead to the presence of random poultry in the Nether.

Appearance
Zombie pigmen wield a golden sword in their right hand, and wear a loincloth. Occasionally, the Sword will have an enchantment on it, visible as a shimmering purple sheen. This chance increases at higher difficulties, and the sword's enchantment will more commonly be of a higher level.

On Halloween (October 31st), zombie pigmen have a chance of spawning with a pumpkin (22.5%) or jack o'lantern (2.5%) equipped as headgear. If you want to see this on days other than Halloween, simply change your computer's clock to October 31st; the year or time is irrelevant.

In Pocket Edition, zombie pigmen are missing their face (hat layer) and appear to have merely a dry skull for a head (see gallery). It is unknown whether it is a bug or if it's meant to happen. Baby zombie pigmen in the PC version also look like this, due to.

Trading
You are able to "trade" swords with zombie pigmen by throwing them a sword that is better than their golden sword. They have a 33% chance of dropping their golden sword and pick up the sword the player threw. This is a good tactic on getting swords with enchants due to zombie pigmen having a chance of spawning with an enchanted sword.

Farming
Since zombie pigmen spawn in the Nether and in Nether portals in the Overworld, players can build a zombie pigman farm in either dimension which provides a steady stream of gold nuggets. Additionally, players can obtain gold ingots and gold swords as rare drops.

Spawning
Zombie Pigmen are capable of spawning on the bottom row of obsidian in a Nether portal frame, the same way the player spawns when emerging from a portal. When a portal block is ticked the game generates a number between 0 and 2000 inclusive, if that value is less than the difficulty setting, a zombie pigman is generated. This means spawn frequency correlates with the current difficulty setting.

If the player is riding a pig when lightning hits it, a zombie pigman will appear on top of the player.

History
The green liquid in the zombie pigman skin was originally blood red, but this was changed for an unknown reason, probably because it looked too gory. The skin file has "THX XAPHOBIA" written on it as a credit by Notch to the skin's original creator, XaPhobia.

Zombie pigmen were originally presented as unarmed passive creatures in a preview before the Halloween Update.

Trivia

 * If a baby pig gets struck by lightning, it will commonly become an adult zombie pigman.
 * If a pig in the overworld is struck by multiple lightning bolts simultaneously, multiple zombie pigmen will spawn. However, this is extremely unlikely without using to spawn multiple lighting bolts.
 * The zombie pigmen themselves however are immune to lightning due to their immunity to fire.
 * If a zombie pigman is hit by a projectile, such as a skeleton's arrow, only the zombie pigman who was shot will attack it, but only when attacking a player. If hit in this state, the zombie pigman will either stand wtill or hit the skeleton once before standing completely still. This behavior is shared among many other mobs.
 * They will never attack a ghast.
 * You can hear their sound effects of them being angry far away and even all the way down to the bedrock layer, like thunder and ghast noises.
 * Zombie pigmen will turn hostile towards the player even when hit by "non-harmful" projectiles such as eggs, ender pearls and snowballs.
 * Zombie pigman spawners cannot be disabled with torches or any light; they will spawn in any light level.
 * If a zombie pigman wears a mob head, it will only show on the "skeleton" part of its face.
 * This is because the pig half is the hat layer of the zombie pigman's skin, and mob heads will not cover the hat layer.
 * The zombie pigmen in the Pocket Edition and the baby pigmen that rarely spawn do not have a hat layer, therefore lack the pink skin.
 * When riding a minecart, a hostile zombie pigman can slowly move the minecart by itself along the rail while trying to chase the player.
 * Occasionally, zombie pigmen may swim up lava springs. Due to their fire resistance, though, this will not harm them directly, but they may take fall damage (and possibly even be killed) upon touching solid ground afterwards since lava does not prevent fall damage.
 * In Pocket Edition:
 * Zombie pigmen will burn in sunlight like any other zombie.
 * However, they still have an immunity to fire, so they will not die.
 * Zombie pigmen that remained from the Nether reactor will despawn when the player leaves them.
 * Zombie pigmen do not hold out their hands like zombies, instead they have their hands to their sides similar to the player.
 * Unlike the PC and other editions, their attack animation is also identical to that of the player.
 * In creative mode, if you get a bunch of pigmen angered, shoot one with a bow. They'll forget about you and wander off.