Blaze

Blazes are mobs with a yellow skin and black eyes found in The Nether. They primarily spawn from Monster Spawners found inside Nether Fortresses. 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 metallic breathing sounds.

Behavior
Although Blazes are able to fly, they will stay on the ground or sink down slowly in the air when not attacking. Blazes will attempt to swim upwards in lava much like regular mobs behave in water. When they see a player, they will start flying and shooting. They will catch fire briefly before shooting 3 Fire Charges in rapid succession. A short cool down period occurs between attacks.

In addition to normal weapons, Blazes can be hurt by snowballs, taking per hit. If they have found a way into the Overworld, they are also damaged by water and even rain: Water does roughly  every second. Like all Nether mobs, they are not damaged by fire or lava. If killed by the player, they drop Blaze Rods.

On the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 version, Blazes do not catch fire when either attacked in Creative mode or when they have spotted the player. They do not make fireball sounds, making it hard to find where they're coming from. They also drop glowstone dust as well as their blaze rods.

Strategy
Blazes are a very difficult mob 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 charging a bow leaves the player vulnerable. Their environments are also places that often contain Wither Skeletons which have contrasting behavior to Blazes, and due to this, are hard to combat simultaneously. Their flight also can make it tricky to collect their loot. One response is to use a fishing rod to reel them in, another is to run behind a corner and ambush them once they get close, or place blocks to take cover between attacks as they advance.

The use of fire resistance is extremely helpful when fighting Blazes, as their ranged attack deals solely fire damage. While the armour enchantment by that name can absorb a lot of damage, you really need total fire resistance to shrug off the hail of fire. For the player's first Blaze fight, they can make an Enchanted Golden Apple: Expensive, but it gives 5 minutes of immunity to fire (and toughness versus everything else), starting with a half-minute of blindingly fast regeneration. After that first fight, of course, you will be able to make potions of fire resistance. Using a Splash potion on you and an Iron Golem can make blaze rods an easily renewable resource.

Snowballs are deadly to Blazes, doing 3 points of damage apiece, and snowballs can be thrown a lot more quickly than a bow can be charged up. Plus, snow is easy to find in any snowy biome and is even renewable, therefore you can collect an ample supply of them. In case inventory is tight, you can make snow blocks to store snowballs until you need them, but you must bring a shovel to break the blocks, otherwise they will not yield snowballs.

Wolves do not do well against Blazes—besides the monster's high health, they tend to get set afire (splash potions of fire resistance can help). If you do try them, bring extra wolves, and plenty of Rotten Flesh or meat to heal your wolf. (Zombie Pigmen drop rotten flesh, if you can take their gang.) On the positive side, wolf kills do get Blaze Rod drops.

Iron Golems can be used to kill blazes, but there are several drawbacks:
 * They do get set on fire by the Blaze's fireballs, and can also take melee attacks. As with wolves, a splash potion of Fire Resistance can help.
 * Blazes won't drop the Blaze Rod unless the Player deals the killing blow.
 * The golem's immense knockback is likely to toss Blazes off the balcony entirely. If they die, the experience and probably the Blaze Rod is lost; if they survive, they will hang around sniping at you from a distance.
 * Iron Golems don't follow you very well, and may wander off in the down time between Blaze spawns. Stray pigmen are a distraction to the golems—the pigmen won't become angry at the player, but the fights will wear down the golem.

'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 potions in effect.

You can try to build a farm, in several ways. If you can build a box around the entire spawn zone, as of 1.7 you can make this box out of Obsidian and light it in order to send them to the overworld and kill them there (tip: the fences around the spawner are not far enough away), you can make a doorway to kill them as they come down, or a single hole in the bottom where you can pelt them with arrows or snowballs. Again, stay within 16 blocks of the spawner to keep it going. You can also make a blaze trap by digging a shelter under their balcony, then mine a 1&times;3 hole up to their balcony. (Sometimes a natural version of this will appear, when a narrow staircase leads up to the spawner room.)

Another good way to hunt Blazes is to use a melee approach that exploits a Blaze's attack cycle: The blaze will "burn" for a few seconds, then fire three, and only three fire charges. If the player is not in line of sight, the Blaze will delay its attack until they are, and eventually the Blaze will itself move into line of sight and fire. After firing, they need to wait a few seconds before they can fire again.
 * If the player can find a corner to hide behind, they can wait until it "should" fire, then peek out to draw the fire, and dodge back in so the shots hopefully miss. Then it's the player's turn to kill the Blaze with a sword while it can't attack.  If facing multiple Blazes, they can be taken out one at a time.
 * Alternatively, the player can simply hide one block below and to the side of a Blaze and strike his "legs". Most, if not all, of the Blaze's attacks simply hit the block above the player or below the blaze. This method is best used next to staircases right below the spawners using a door to block them in, so that the player may quickly enter the danger area to access to any blaze rods that might have fallen out of reach. If set on fire, the player can just retreat and recover.  This method has been successfully used with nothing but the player's fist, though of course swords are much faster.
 * Other mobs, including other blazes, can be used as a shield from the blazes attacks. If the player somehow happens to lack any structure to hide behind, this is very useful. (This is even more useful when the mob used as a shield is a skeleton because the skeleton will then attack the blaze, drawing its fire and giving the player an opportunity to kill the blaze while it is distracted. This method is also useful for eliminating the skeleton.)
 * If the player has no mobs, terrain or structures, moving perpendicular to the blazes line of fire, at somewhat long range(6-12 blocks) can also be used to dodge the fireballs.

Although the blaze has a near infinite attack range, it can't start attacking until you get within 16 block of it. The rate that the blazes fireballs hit is also limited by long range. A blazes firing precision is about +-7 degrees horizontally and its vertical precision is about +-2 degrees. Put in perspective, at 16 blocks, the fireball hits will go up to 2 blocks to either side and about a half block up or down. At 16 blocks, player standing still, about 1 out of 8 fireballs will hit the player.

Blazes are 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 65 experience per minute.

Trivia

 * The name "blaze" refers to the light of burning fire.
 * This explains why Blazes shine bright in the dark.
 * Sometimes on peaceful difficulty, if a player stands near the blaze spawner in a nether fortress, a blaze may spawn, give you damage from touch, and despawn.
 * Blazes will not shoot if trapped in a Cobweb, since the web blocks the Fire Charge path.
 * Unlike Ghasts, projectiles fired by a Blaze cannot be deflected. Blaze projectiles also do not cause explosions on impact with blocks.
 * Fire Charges will set whatever they hit on fire, including 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 completely neutralized, including their knockback effect. However, they are able to hit players when up close with a melee attack.
 * The player and Snow Golems can kill a blaze with snowballs, although Snow Golems will melt in the Nether. Even outside of the Nether, they will be killed quickly by the Blazes' attacks.
 * Each snowball deals damage, so it takes 7 snowballs to kill one Blaze.
 * It takes more than one Snow Golem to kill a Blaze in the Overworld.
 * Blazes will take damage from rain and snowy weather if spawned into The Overworld.
 * Blazes, despite their 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.
 * Blazes drop the most experience aside from the boss mobs (the Ender Dragon and the Wither). (A large Slime or Magma Cube can produce more experience in total, but that includes killing all the smaller cubes it splits into.)
 * Blazes, when not in pursuit of the player, are affected by gravity but they, like a chicken, will fall slowly and take no fall damage.
 * If a blaze is struck by lightning it will disappear inside the lightning, then reappear as soon as the lightning finishes.
 * Their texture is called "fire.png." This likely refers to their ability to shoot fireballs or that they light on fire when ready to attack.
 * Blazes make a metallic sound when hit, and also make metallic breathing sounds.
 * Blazes in the Xbox Edition can drop 0-2 Glowstone Dust because Glowstone is very limited in the Xbox Edition.
 * If a Witch (or other two-block-high mob) rides a Blaze, the Blaze will set the witch (or foreseen mob) on fire when attacking.
 * The Witch will also attack the blaze.
 * When throwing a Potion of Invisibility on a Blaze the smoke will stay visible.
 * For maximum Blaze Rod drops cover the floor with pressure plates (or any other non-solid block), so the floor doesn't catch on fire and the Blaze Rods don't burn up.
 * Blazes are the only Nether mob that takes damage from water, rain, and snow (similar to an Enderman).
 * A Blaze shoots its Fire Charges with roughly the same lack of accuracy as a Dispenser. However, the Blaze's shots maintain the same speed all the way to the target, unlike a Dispenser whose Fire Charges start out slow and accelerate.
 * If it is hit directly by a Ghast fireball and survives, a Blaze may counterattack. While they are better able to reach Ghasts than other mobs, however, they are also unable to damage them.
 * If The Player hits a Blaze in Creative Mode, it may retaliate with a fireball, even though all hostile mobs act neutral in Creative Mode.
 * As of 1.8, blazes will shoot fireballs even if a wall us between them and the player, thus, if the wall is flammable, it makes them the only non-boss mob that destroys a barrier to reach the player. Note creepers will not blow up walls, since it would be pointless with its suicidal attack. They can do it by accident though.

Gallery
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