Blaze

Blaze (a.k.a. Nether Guard, Guardian) is a type of mob found in The Nether. In their searching state they are confined to the ground and do not blow smoke. They will not start flying unless they spot the player. When pursuing, they catch fire for a short while before making their attack in the form of a three round burst of fireballs. After the attack they have a short cool down and then they will catch fire and attack again. 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. They drop Blaze Rods, and can only spawn in Nether fortresses, often from Mob Spawners. The triple fireballs they shoot set players and mobs alike on fire. Despite appearing exactly like a Ghast fireball, Blaze Fireballs are not explosive, and cannot be deflected.

Combat
Blazes are one of the most 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, Blaze have a much shorter attack range, which makes it more feasible to snipe them from afar. Blaze can only spawn in light level 12 or lower. 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.

Blaze spawners occur in Nether Fortresses, and will start spawning Blazes once the player gets within 16 blocks. The spawners have a chance of spawning 1-3 Blazes at once. '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. A Blaze suffers damage upon contact with water 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, aswell 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 the golem trails 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 resouce requirement being pumpkins for new golems, making the Blaze killing process almost selfsustaining, a pumpkin farm would make the tactic consume only the resources needed for the shovels since snow would allready come in a steady flow from the paths of the golem army, and pumpkins would grow out anew from the stems in the farm.

History
Blazes were introduced in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 1. Starting from Beta 1.9 Pre-release 4 they only drop items when they aren't on fire (about to attack); as of Beta 1.9 Pre-release 6 this no longer seems to matter.

Trivia

 * The light level of an area to disable a spawnable area has to be 13 or higher. That means you have to place torches everywhere in the spawner's spawn radius to prevent them from spawning. As torches only have one light level more, this makes it very difficult but still possible to disable a spawner.
 * This mob takes damage over time from standing in water similar to the Enderman; by placing ice obtained with the "Silk Touch" enchantment and a roof over the spawning room it may be possible to create a blaze grinder.
 * Blaze cannot shoot if trapped in a Cobweb.
 * Blaze do not have a body, unlike other mobs. They are simply floating heads over a cloud of smoke surrounded by spinning rods.
 * Unlike Ghasts, projectiles fired by a Blaze cannot be deflected, so hitting the projectiles would be pointless.
 * Blaze projectiles 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.
 * It takes 7 snowballs to kill one Blaze.
 * As of 1.9 pre-release 5, Blazes no longer drop anything if they are killed by water, rendering Blaze grinders useless.
 * As of Version RC2, Blazes now have their own sounds. They have a firey "breath" noise and make metal-like noises when hit.
 * Blaze could possibly be mechanical mobs. When hit, they make a metalic bang, and when they die, a sound like an engine shutting down is played.
 * Blazes, despite their almost alien physiology, 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.
 * The Blaze's fireball has an infinite range.

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