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Arrows are ammunition for bows and dispensers. They can be modified to imbue status effects on players and mobs.

Obtaining

Skeletons

Skeletons may drop between 0 to 2 arrows upon death, and the maximum amount dropped can be increased by 1 per level of looting used. Strays may drop 1 arrow of Slowness when killed by a player, not increased by looting. Arrows shot by a skeleton or stray cannot be picked up.

Trading

Villager fletchers will sell 8 to 12 arrows for 1 emerald as part of their tier 1 trades.

Crafting

Name Ingredients Crafting recipe Description
Arrow Flint +
Stick +
Feather

4
Spectral Arrow Glowstone Dust +
Arrow
Computer edition only
Tipped Arrow Arrow +
Matching Lingering Potion
Computer edition only

Natural generation

Item Structure Container Quantity Chance
Java Edition
Arrow Bastion remnant Bridge chest 5–17 47.9%
Generic chest 5–17 44.1%
Hoglin stable chest 5–17 22.8%
Jungle temple Dispenser 2–7 100%
Pillager Outpost Chest 2–7 39.1%
Village Fletcher's chest 1–3 23.3%
Bedrock Edition
Arrow Bastion remnant Bridge chest 10–28 11.2%
Generic chest 5–17 44.1%
Hoglin stable chest 5–17 22.8%
Generic chest 10–22 11.2%
Bridge chest 5–17 47.9%
Treasure chest 12–25 33.7%
Jungle temple Dispenser 2–7 100%
Pillager Outpost Chest 2–7 39.1%
Village Fletcher's chest 1–3 23.3%

Retrieving

Arrows stuck in a block that were originally shot by dispensers or by players in survival without the Infinity enchantment may be collected. Arrows originally shot by skeletons, by players in creative, or by players using the Infinity enchantment cannot be collected.

Cauldrons

Tipped arrows can be obtained by using arrows on cauldrons that have potions.‌[Pocket Edition only]

Usage

See also: Bow

When fired, arrows will fly in a ballistic trajectory affected by gravity and drag in air, water, and lava and will travel approximately 3 blocks when fired parallel to a flat plane with no charge, 15 blocks average with medium charge, and 24 blocks average with maximum charge. Arrows in water get much more drag than in air: they will move less than 8 blocks before completely losing horizontal speed and starting to fall straight down, however the knockback of the arrow is not affected. They also leave a trail of bubbles in their wake. Arrows (with bow at full strength) can travel 120 blocks when fired from the optimal angle. The maximum height an arrow fired by a bow can reach is around 66 blocks.

An arrow's damage is determined by its speed. When fired from a fully-charged bow, arrows do about 9♥♥♥♥♥ of damage, with a small chance to damage for 10♥♥♥♥♥. They inflict about 6♥♥♥ damage from a medium-charged bow, and about 1♥ from a bow with no charge. Arrows fired from dispensers do about 3♥♥ of damage.

Immediately after hitting the target, there is a 0.5 second cooldown period during which the target will be immune to further damage. Arrows hitting the mob in this state will lose all speed and drop to the ground.

Arrows can be deflected by snowballs.

ArrowShotInTree

An arrow shot into a tree

WeGotShot

Two players with arrows sticking out of them.

Arrows will also stick into objects they come in contact with and will remain there for exactly a minute before disappearing; the distance from the object and the angle determine how far into the target the arrow will go. Such arrows may be retrievable.

The custom effects (NBT tag CustomPotionEffects) of tipped arrows will evaporate after the arrow has been stuck for 30 seconds, but the primary effect (NBT tag Potion) is not subject to evaporation.

If an arrow is stuck in a block and the block in which the arrow is stuck in is broken or disappears (e.g., leaves), then the arrow will fall straight down and damage entities below them.

Arrows can bounce off entities like minecarts and mobs immune to damage. The wither under the "wither armor" effect and a perching enderdragon are immune to arrows.

Arrows shot through lava (but not fire) will catch on fire and show an appropriate animation until they pass through water. Like arrows shot from a bow with the Flame enchantment, they can set other entities they hit on fire and ignite TNT.

Arrows shot at rails will stop a minecart from passing over that block until the arrow despawns or is collected.

An arrow shot at a boat or any kind of minecart will cause the vehicle to break, dropping any components (including container contents).

Redstone circuits

An arrow can activate a wooden button, wooden pressure plate, or tripwire. If the arrow sticks in the switch they will remain activated until the arrow despawns after one minute. Other switches are not affected by arrows.

When arrows are fired into the sides of blocks, they change their orientation to point more downwards than their original flight path might indicate. This can cause them to intersect and thus trigger switches above them that they didn't actually hit, or block rails above them.

Arrows shot into a repeater, comparator, or redstone lamp will shake when the redstone component goes from an off to an on state.

Explosions

Arrows are affected by explosions while they are in flight. Since explosions increase the speed of an arrow, they can also increase the damage dealt by them.

Tipped arrows

Tipped arrows‌[Computer and Pocket editions only] are arrows that imbue a potion effect when hitting a mob or player. The duration of the effect is 18 that of the corresponding potion, if applicable, and is not affected by the power of the arrow. The status effect is the same as the regular power effect for the potion. If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, tipped arrows will still be consumed.

The types of arrows are:

  • Arrow of Regeneration
  • Arrow of Swiftness
  • Arrow of Fire Resistance
  • Arrow of Healing
  • Arrow of Night Vision
  • Arrow of Strength
  • Arrow of Leaping
  • Arrow of Invisibility
  • Arrow of Poison
  • Arrow of Weakness
  • Arrow of Slowness
  • Arrow of Harming
  • Arrow of Water Breathing
  • Arrow of Luck[Computer Edition only]
  • Arrow of Decay[Pocket Edition only]

Spectral arrows

The spectral arrow‌[Computer Edition only] imbues the Glowing status effect for 10 seconds. The Glowing effect creates an outline of the target, which is visible through blocks, and colored based on the target's team (white by default). If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, spectral arrows will still be consumed.

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Normal and tipped arrows

Arrows have entity data which define various properties of the entity. Their entity ID is Arrow[upcoming] (arrow[upcoming: Lua error in Module:Version_link at line 112: attempt to concatenate local 'text' (a nil value).]) in the computer edition, and arrow[upcoming: Alpha 0.16.0] in Pocket Edition.

  • Entity data
    • Tags common to all arrows
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all projectiles
    • Note: An arrow entity is a tipped arrow if it has either the Potion or CustomPotionEffects tag.
    • Tags common to all potion effects
    •  Color: Used by the arrow entity, for displaying the custom potion color of a fired arrow item that had a CustomPotionColor tag. The numeric color code are calculated from the Red, Green and Blue components using this formula: Red<<16 + Green<<8 + Blue. For positive values larger than 0x00FFFFFF, the top byte is ignored. All negative values remove the particles.

Spectral arrows

Spectral arrows also have entity data which define various properties of the entity. Their entity ID is SpectralArrow[upcoming] (spectral_arrow[upcoming: Lua error in Module:Version_link at line 112: attempt to concatenate local 'text' (a nil value).]).

  • Entity data
    • Tags common to all arrows
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all projectiles
    •  Duration: The time in ticks that the Glowing effect persists.

Video

Note: This video is outdated. As of 1.9, there are 15 new arrows added to Minecraft: The Spectral Arrow and 14 Tipped Arrows

Arrow/video

History

classic
0.24_SURVIVAL_TESTArrows were added and were fired by pressing Tab ↹.
0.25 SURVIVAL TEST 2Arrows deal more damage.
You now only have a limited number of arrows.
Skeletons now fire arrows.
Arrows are dropped when a skeleton is killed.
0.26Skeleton arrows were purple. The purple arrow texture can still be found in the minecraft.jar file, in the same image as the normal arrows, but it is not in use.
0.29_01Arrows are no longer available in single player.
indev
January 24, 2010Arrows now have a sound effect.
January 30, 2010Arrows are now available in single player again and can only be shot with a bow.
Arrows are now craftable.
alpha
1.0.14The tip of an arrow in crafting is now made from flint rather than iron ingot.
beta
1.6Arrows used to stick in any block before this update, even some non-solid ones. For example, they could stick in torches, sugar cane, and nether portals.
1.81.8-pre1Arrows can no longer be rapid-fired from bows. Arrows (with bow at full strength) can travel 120 blocks when fired from the optimal angle, and stick to mobs.
Sound UpdateArrow firing sounds changed.
release
1.0.01.0.0-RC1Arrow landing sounds changed.
?Arrows no longer stick to mobs.
1.1Arrows which are on fire now set entities they hit on fire. Before, arrows could be on fire (like other entities), but they did not set what they hit on fire, and there was no enchantment to fire flaming arrows.
1.3.112w23aArrows can activate the tripwire switch and wooden pressure plates.
1.4.212w34aArrows can activate the new wooden buttons.
12w34bArrows on fire can ignite TNT.
1.4.4Arrows stick to players again, but not mobs.
1.814w25aAn underwater arrow will lose all velocity after a few blocks and slowly fall.
A flaming arrow underwater will be extinguished.
14w26aFire arrow can be used to detonate minecarts with TNT.
1.915w31aAdded 15 new arrow types, 14 of which are tipped with a different potion effect. However some of them don't function yet.
Added spectral arrows. They show mob and player outlines in their team color when hit.
15w33cAdded shields; though they fully blocked damage from arrows, arrows would still visually stick into the player.
15w37aArrows now ricochet off of shields.
15w44bAdded the initial method for obtaining tipped arrows, which lasted until snapshot 16w06a – firing arrows into a lingering potion cloud.
15w47bArrows now ricochet off of creative mode players, whereas before they would pass straight through.
15w49aTipped and spectral arrows are no longer affected by the Infinity enchantment.
16w06aTipped arrows are given a crafting recipe, and are no longer obtained by shooting them into a lingering potion cloud.
1.1016w20aArrows of slowness may drop from strays when killed by a player.
upcoming
1.1116w32aThe entity IDs are changed from Arrow and SpectralArrow to arrow and spectral_arrow.
16w32aTipped Arrows of instant healing and instant damage now function. Previously the fact that tipped arrows have 1/8th the duration was reducing 1 game tick to zero game ticks.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.3.3Added arrows.
0.12.1build 1Arrows which are on fire now set entities they hit on fire. Before, arrows could be on fire (like other entities), but they did not set what they hit on fire, and there was no enchantment to fire flaming arrows.
Arrows on fire can ignite TNT.
An underwater arrow will lose all velocity after a few blocks and slowly fall.
0.13.0build 1Arrows now update sand and gravel.
0.15.0build 1Added tipped arrows, which are made by using cauldrons filled with potions.
pocket upcoming
0.16.0build 4As a version exclusive, added Arrows of Decay.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1CU1 1.00 Patch 1Added arrows.
TU31CU19 1.22 Patch 3An underwater arrow will lose all velocity after a few blocks and slowly fall.
A flaming arrow underwater will be extinguished.

Gallery

Commands

Issues

Issues relating to "Arrow" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • If an arrow is lodged in a block which has multiple states, it will dislodge itself when the block updates. This causes the arrow to shift slightly, and to replay the impact sound effect.
  • Arrows fired at Nether Portals will often skip through the portal block completely and fail to collide, thus continuing through to the opposite side of the block.
  • A tipped arrow with no potion effect (obtained via commands) will be called "Arrow of Splashing".
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