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Tom Stone Mojang avatar

At least they keep their eerie red eyes shut. Until the Ghast learns you're around, of course.

Tom Stone[1]

Ghasts are huge, floating hostile Nether mobs that shoot explosive fireballs at the player.

Spawning

To spawn naturally, ghasts require a solid block below them and 5×4×5 free space in order to spawn, and only spawn in the Nether, in any light level. In a single chunk only one ghast can spawn at once, although due to pack spawning the game tries to spawn up to four entities.

Drops

Ghasts drop 0-2 gunpowder and sometimes a ghast tear. They also drop 5 experience when killed by a player.

Behavior

Ghasts normally float around the Nether with their eyes and mouth closed and periodically make high-pitched, cat- or infant-like sounds. They open their red eyes and mouth when attacking. They make a screaming noise when shooting and scream pitifully when taking damage. The sounds that ghasts make have a minimum intensity regardless of their distance, meaning that they can sound closer than they actually are. They have a size of 4×4×4 blocks, as well as 9 tentacles about the size of a player, although longer and skinnier. However, the tentacles are not part of the ghast's hitbox.

Ghasts have an extreme attack range, explosive attack power, and mobility. Unlike most other aggressive mobs, the ghast does not have a pursuit mode - it does not attempt to draw closer to the player when at long range (and likewise is not particularly likely to float away). Ghasts can cause other mobs to attack it, but the ghast will never target other mobs; it will only target the player. Compared to other mobs, the ghast has a very long search range and can target a player from up to 100 blocks away.[2] When the player comes within about sixteen blocks, the ghast will turn to face the player, open fire and attempt to gain altitude but will fly away when hit in Creative.

Ghasts will not fire at the player without a line-of-sight, which can be blocked by solid transparent blocks.

If the player is able to fly inside an aggressive ghast, the mob may die of shooting fireballs at itself. They are also careless about shooting at short range where they will be hurt by the blast.

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Ghasts have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is ghast.

  • Entity data
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all mobs
    •  ExplosionPower: The radius of the explosion created by the fireballs the ghast fires. Default value is 1.

Ghast fireball

The ghast's fireball attack has a straight trajectory unaffected by gravity and a theoretically infinite range, though it will disappear after 1 minute.[3] Fireballs do not track the player once fired, are slow, and can be deflected if the player hits them with a projectile, fishing lure or melee attack. At close range, it is one of the most powerful mob attacks in Minecraft, fourth only to the explosion of a creeper, the melee attack of an iron golem, and the explosion of a wither. A direct hit will deal 6♥♥♥ projectile damage from the impact, and up to 9♥♥♥♥♥, 17♥ × 8.5, or 25♥ × 12.5 explosion damage from the blast, depending on difficulty. When two ghast fireballs collide, one is deflected to a random direction while the other explodes upon impact. Blocks are also set on fire by the explosion. If a ghast is killed, any fireball launched by that ghast will disappear. A fireball will deal 1,000 damage (500 hearts) to a ghast if the fireball was rebounded by a player.

The minimum blast resistance required to absorb all blast force of the ghast's fireballs is 20.17 (about the equivalent of a cobweb). Ghast fireballs therefore cannot damage cobblestone, which has a blast resistance of 30.

Data values

Ghast fireballs are also entities which have associated entity data. Their entity ID is fireball.

Ghast/ED1

Achievements

Icon Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different) Gamerscore earned Trophy type (PS4)
PS4 Other
Return to SenderDestroy a Ghast with a fireball.Kill a ghast using a ghast fireball.30GSilver


Advancements

Icon Advancement In-game description Parent Actual requirements (if different) Resource location
Advancement-fancy-rawReturn to Sender
Destroy a Ghast with a fireball NetherKill a ghast by deflecting a ghast fireball back into it via hitting or shooting a projectile at the fireball.nether/return_to_sender
Advancement-fancy-rawUneasy Alliance
Rescue a Ghast from the Nether, bring it safely home to the Overworld... and then kill it Return to SenderKill a ghast while the player is in the Overworld.nether/uneasy_alliance
Advancement-plain-rawAdventure
Adventure, exploration and combat Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.adventure/root
Advancement-plain-rawMonster Hunter
Kill any hostile monster AdventureKill one of these 34 mobs: Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.adventure/kill_a_mob
Advancement-fancy-rawMonsters Hunted
Kill one of every hostile monster Monster HunterKill each of these 34 mobs: Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.adventure/kill_all_mobs

Video

Note: At 0:39 in the video, it is stated that the player can only kill a ghast with an arrow, or with deflecting a fireball. However, this is not true. It is possible to kill a ghast with anything, as long as you can reach it. Usually, this would be when the ghast has spawned under a fairly low ceiling, so it can't fly away. It is also possible to use a fishing rod to pull a ghast in close, then hit it.

Ghast/video

History

alpha
v1.2.0October 11, 2010Notch tweets that he is working on "the most unfair mob ever," adding that "you will hate the Ghast."
October 22, 2010Originally, ghasts were intended to be able to spawn near Nether portals in the Overworld. However, this ability has not yet been implemented.[4]
October 29, 2010A preview of the Halloween Update was sent to two gaming companies; their articles[5][6] highlighted the behavior of the upcoming ghast mobs.
Halloween UpdateAdded ghasts along with the Nether.
beta
1.7Ghasts now aim towards the player and not the camera. Prior to this, pressing F5 (going into third person view) allowed one to easily send the fireball over their head instead of at the character.
release
1.0.0Beta 1.9 PrereleaseGhasts now drop ghast tears.
Ghasts are now affected by light and no longer appear with the same brightness anywhere.
Updated ghast fireball texture to a new fire charge (Fire Charge) texture. They previously used the snowball (Snowball) texture, set on fire.
Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5Ghasts can now be killed by their own fireballs, allowing the achievement "Return to Sender."
1.1?As heard in .minecraft/resources/newsound/mob/ghast, ghasts now have an unused "affectionate scream", which is a high pitched horn sound (like the classic cartoon tugboat sounds).
1.2.112w05aUpdated ghast hit box to incorporate their whole body. Prior to this ghasts could only be injured by hitting their tentacles and lower body.
1.3.112w19aGhasts now make their kill sound when killed rather than their pain sound.
1.814w06aGhasts' AI has been slightly changed. They cannot see the player unless their height comes to almost eye level with the player. When attacking, ghasts will now turn their whole body to face the player's direction, and repeatedly strafe left to right around the player while attacking. They now have perfect accuracy with their fireballs, shooting at the player's head, compared to earlier versions when the fireball was previously aimed slightly above the player's head.
1.1116w32aChanged entity ID from Ghast to ghast.
Changed projectile entity ID from Fireball to fireball.
16w40aTags xTile, yTile, zTile, inTile and inGround were removed from the fireball entity data.
The life tag is no longer used for anything, but still saved/read.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.11.0build 2Added ghasts. They are currently unobtainable in-game without editing.
0.12.1build 1Ghasts can now be spawned using spawn eggs.
Ghasts now spawn naturally in the Nether.
build 6Ghasts now hit the player more reliably.
build 7Ghasts now drop gunpowder and ghast tears.
build 8Ghast hitbox is now bigger.
build 13Ghasts now have sounds.
0.13.0build 1Increased the spawn rate of ghasts.
build 4Increased the spawn rate even more.
0.14.0build 1Open ghast eyes now glow.
Pocket Edition
1.1build 1The entity ID for the fireball is changed from largefireball to large_fireball.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1CU1 1.0 Patch 1Added ghasts.
TU9Reduced the volume of the ghast sound effects.
Increased the distance the ghast's sound effect for shooting a fireball can be heard from.
TU11Further reduced the volume of the ghast sound effects.

Issues

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

Trivia

  • You can go inside of a ghast by falling through the top of it or flying up underneath it. If you stand on top of the head, you will see inside of it.
  • If a ghast is trapped in a 1-thick cube, it will shoot fireballs through the cube. This is because all mobs that shoot spawn the projectile one block in front of it to prevent the projectile from hitting the mob.
  • On rare occasions, a ghast will spawn in such a way as to see through blocks (usually trapped on all sides in a tight area). When this happens and the ghast has “line of sight" through those blocks, it will launch a fireball in the player's direction.
  • Ghasts can be killed in one shot by any bow with at least Power I, if you charge the bow fully.
  • C418 revealed in an AMA on Reddit that ghast sounds are taken from his pet cat, which he makes when disturbed while sleeping.[7]
  • Two ghasts are featured in the LEGO set "Minecraft Micro World - The Nether", along with a Zombie Pigman.
  • Iron golems do not fight ghasts unless they are very close to them, even in this case it's rare.
  • When killed with its own fireball, the ghast will turn orange rather than red. This is because the ghast is set on fire.‌[Bedrock Edition only]
  • Splash potions will only affect ghasts when hitting them on their lower half.
  • Despite not having visible feet, ghasts are still capable of making footstep sounds.[8]

Gallery

References

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