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 briefly before shooting a three round burst of fireballs. A short cool down period occurs between attacks. 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. Their fireballs set players and mobs alike on fire. Despite similar to 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 (at the lower half of their body). 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 1-6 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. You can also build a doorway, 2 blocks tall and 1 block wide, where you can camp and kill the blazes as they come down. This strategy is extremely effective if you cover up the roof of the spawner room and camp in the doorway with a diamond sword.

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, as well 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 dead snow golems 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 resource requirement being pumpkins for new golems, making the Blaze killing process almost self-sustaining. A pumpkin farm could produce unlimited pumpkins, making it fairly sustainable, although the snow would run out if the dead golems' snowballs weren't collected.

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);

Trivia

 * The light level of an area to disable a spawnable area has to be 12 or higher. This means that torches have to be placed on at least half of the blocks within a Blaze Spawner's spawn radius, since they emit light level 13.
 * 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.
 * Each snowball deals damage, so it takes 7 snowballs to kill one Blaze.
 * As of Beta 1.9 Pre-release 5, Blaze only drop a Blaze Rod when killed by the player.
 * As of Version RC2, Blaze now have their own sounds. They make "breath" sounds and make metallic clunks when hurt.
 * Blazes, despite their almost 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.
 * Once fired, the Blaze's fireball has an infinite range. However, The Player still needs to be within 'attack range' of the Blaze to attack.

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