Minecraft Wiki:Projects/Wiki videos/Wither

Picture a flying three-headed monster with hundreds of health points that shoots deadly skulls at any player it sees. Well, that is exactly what the wither is! Originally introduced in Java Edition 1.4.2, the Pretty Scary Update, the wither is one of two boss mobs in the game, the other being the ender dragon. It is the only hostile mob that you can, and must, directly create, being constructed with soul sand or soul soil placed in a T shape and three wither skeleton skulls on top. One of the skulls must be the last block placed in its creation and the blocks on either side of the base soul sand must be air in order for it to spawn properly.

So why bother going through all this? Well, once you successfully kill the wither, it will drop the valuable nether star, which can be used to craft a beacon. The nether star is unique in that it cannot be destroyed by explosions and takes 10 minutes to despawn, twice as much time as for most items. The wither also drops 50 experience if you or your pet wolf kills it, or hits it up to 5 seconds before its death.