Note: Witch concept from Minecraft Mobestiary.
| Health points |
26 |
|---|---|
| Behavior |
Hostile |
| Attack strength |
Splash Potion of Harming: |
| Hitbox size |
In Java Edition: In Bedrock Edition: |
| Speed |
0.25 |
| Spawn |
Light level of 0. |
A witch is a hostile mob neither considered an illager nor a villager that uses harmful splash potions as ranged weapons and positive potions on itself. Witches spawn in the darkness, in swamp huts, during raids and when lightning strikes villagers.
Contents
Spawning[]
A witch may spawn in the Overworld above opaque blcoks at a light level of 0. They can spawn in all biomes except mushroom fields and deep dark[upcoming: 1.19]. Witches always spawn as part of raids starting from wave 4 in Bedrock Edition, or wave 3 or 4 in Java Edition depending on the world difficulty. When lightning strikes within 4 blocks of a villager, it transforms into a witch. A witch transformed from a villager cannot despawn or be changed back into a villager. This witch attacks the player with its potions, even if the player traded with it before. Additionally, every swamp hut spawns a witch and a black cat inside during world generation, they never despawn. Otherwise, in Java Edition only witches (which may despawn) spawn in the 7×7×9 (x×y×z) volume that is the hut. This is the size of the roof and one block over the porch, from one level below the floor of the hut to two blocks above the roof.
Shows the top of a swamp hut, shows the scale of it, as well as the spawning zone. The spawn area matches the roof, plus the porch.
In Bedrock Edition, witches respawn on only one block within the swamp hut.[more information needed]
Shows the side of a swamp hut, also shows the scale of it and proper height.
Witches despawn instantly in peaceful difficulty.
Drops[]
Witches have the largest loot table of any mob in the game, making 1–3 drops of 0–2 items each, for a maximum of 6 items total. A witch drops:
- Glass bottles (12.5% chance)
- Glowstone dust (12.5% chance)
- Gunpowder (12.5% chance)
- Redstone (12.5% chance)
- Spider eyes (12.5% chance)
- Sugar (12.5% chance)
- Sticks (25% chance)
The odds of a witch dropping the maximum amount of items possible (6 items total) without a Looting enchantment are 1 in 81 (1.2%).
Each level of Looting increases the maximum items dropped by one for each of the 1–3 drops, leading to a maximum of 5 items per drop and a maximum of 15 items total. No Looting averages 2 items per kill, Looting I averages 3, Looting II averages 4 and Looting III averages 5.
Potions[]
If a witch is killed while drinking a potion, the potion has a 8.5% chance of dropping, increased by 1% for every level of Looting. A witch drops one of the following:
Farming[]
Behavior[]
Witches are passive toward villagers and wandering traders although their potions can hit one by accident. Despite being similar in appearance to villagers, witches cannot open doors or use cauldrons. A witch fits through two block tall gaps, despite being taller than two blocks with its hat.
Witches pursue players within 64 blocks. They use potions in combat, throwing splash potions offensively and drinking normal potions defensively. These potions are the same as ones obtainable through brewing, with the same duration. Witches have infinite potions in their stock, ready to be thrown or drunk. They never run out of potions, even when transformed from a villager via lightning and not having had any potions equipped in their inventory. Because they have infinite potions at their disposal, witches require a long time to die in lava or fire. Witches are extremely difficult to kill via suffocation or cacti (though not impossible), due to their frequent use of healing potions as well.
In Java Edition, they don't attack each other, even if hit accidentally by another witch's potion. A witch damaged by another witch's potion drinks a healing potion instead, same as damaged by an illager.
In Bedrock Edition, witches locate targets even if they are behind blocks, are hostile to snow golems and iron golems and attack each other if damaged by another witch's potion.
Magic[]
Offense[]
Each potion is thrown in a 3-second interval within 10 blocks.
- Witches throw a splash potion of slowness if the player is 8 or more blocks away and does not already have the slowness status effect.
- Witches throw a splash potion of poison if the player's health is at least 8
and is not already poisoned. - Witches have a 25% chance of throwing a splash potion of Weakness if the player is 3 or less blocks away and does not already have the weakness status effect.
- If none of the above conditions are true, witches default to using a splash potion of harming, which does 6 magical damage.
Defense[]
On each 0.05 second or tick, when the witch is not already drinking a potion, it may choose to equip and drink a potion. Drinking the potion takes 1.6 seconds[1] and slows down its moving speed. It does not attack during this time.
- When 80% under water and lacking water breathing, there is a 15% chance of drinking a potion of Water Breathing.
- When on fire or the last damage taken in the past 2 seconds was fire damage, there is a 15% chance of drinking a potion of Fire Resistance.
- When not at full health, 5% chance of drinking a potion of Healing, which heals 4.[2]
- When 11 or more blocks from a target and lacking Swiftness, 50% chance of drinking a potion of Swiftness.
In Java Edition, witches are 85% resistant to magic: Poison, Instant Damage, evoker fangs and the Thorns enchantment. In Bedrock Edition, witches are immune to poison, Fatal Poison and to their own thrown harming potions.
Particles[]
The witch's purple particles.
For decoration, witches have a 1.5% chance every second to spawn 10 to 44 purple particles above their heads, named “witch” in Java Edition or “witchspell” in Bedrock Edition.
Riding[]
In Java Edition, witches can ride any mob via commands, including boss mobs. In Bedrock Edition, witches cannot ride ravagers, as the witch is not considered an illager.
Like other villager-like mobs, witches don't stick their legs forward when riding a minecart, a boat or another mob. Their legs seem to sink in these entities visually.
Patrols[]
In Java Edition, any witch can join a patrol if sufficiently near a patrol captain. Unlike non-patrolling or raiding witches, witches that are part of a patrol are hostile towards villagers, wandering traders and iron golems if in their sight.
Raids[]
In Java Edition, witches that participate in a raid seek out illagers and ravagers and throw splash potions of Regeneration (45 seconds) or Instant Health if they have 4
or less. In Bedrock Edition, witches participating in a raid do not heal other illagers, but still attack the player, iron golems and snow golems.
If the raiders kill all the villagers in a village, witches celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing.
In Java Edition, witches do not retaliate when attacked by evoker fangs, illagers or harming potions from other witches. Instead, they drink a healing potion. In Bedrock Edition witches throw negative splash potions at any mob that attacks it, including illagers, which leads to vicious fights if an illager hits the witch by accident.[3]
Sounds[]
Note: additional celebrate sounds
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Witch giggles | Hostile Creatures | ? | entity.witch.ambient | subtitles.entity.witch.ambient | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Witch cheers | Hostile Creatures | ? | entity.witch.celebrate | subtitles.entity.witch.celebrate | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Witch dies | Hostile Creatures | ? | entity.witch.death | subtitles.entity.witch.death | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Witch drinks | Hostile Creatures | ? | entity.witch.drink | subtitles.entity.witch.drink | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Witch hurts | Hostile Creatures | ? | entity.witch.hurt | subtitles.entity.witch.hurt | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Witch throws | Hostile Creatures | ? | entity.witch.throw | subtitles.entity.witch.throw | ? | ? | 16 |
Data values[]
ID[]
| Name | Identifier | Entity tags (JE) | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Witch | witch | raiders | entity.minecraft.witch |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Witch | witch | 45 | entity.witch.name |
Entity data[]
Witches have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.
- Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- Tags common to all mobs spawnable in raids
Achievements[]
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other platforms | |||||
| Taste of Your Own Medicine | Poison a witch with a splash potion. | Throw a splash potion of poison at a witch (by facing the witch and pressing the use key). | 20G | Silver | ||
Advancements[]
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Adventure | Adventure, exploration, and combat | — | Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity. | adventure/root
|
| Monster Hunter | Kill any hostile monster | Adventure | Kill one of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_a_mob
|
 | Monsters Hunted | Kill one of every hostile monster | Monster Hunter | Kill each of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_all_mobs
|
History[]
The specific instructions are: Render in Java Edition 22w17a.
| Java Edition | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4.2 | September 13, 2012 | Dinnerbone hints that the witch mob will be added in the Pretty Scary Update,[4][5][6] and that the witch's texture will be some variation of the villager’s.[7] | |||
| September 21, 2012 | Dinnerbone confirmed a suggestion made by Reddit user Mr_Pennybags in the Minecraft Reddit community that witches are to live in witch huts. | ||||
| 12w38a |  Added witches. | ||||
 Witches protect themselves from damage by drinking potions. | |||||
| Witches do not naturally spawn, and can be spawned only in Creative mode using spawn eggs. | |||||
| Witches use splash potions, such as Poison, Weakness, Harming, and Slowness, to fight the player. | |||||
| Though witches are modeled after villagers, they do not share any attributes of villagers, such as utilizing housing, and are unable to open doors. | |||||
| 12w38b | Witches now have common drops, including glass bottles, sticks, redstone dust, glowstone dust, gunpowder, spider eyes, and water bottles. | ||||
| Witches can no longer hurt themselves. | |||||
 The texture of witches has been changed slightly. Their skin color is now darker. | |||||
 With the texture change of the witch's skin color, witches drinking are now also darker. | |||||
| 12w39a | The texture size for the witch has been changed from 64x126 to 64x128. | ||||
| 12w40a | Witches can now spawn in witch huts. | ||||
| Witches no longer drop water bottles. | |||||
| 1.6.1 | ? | The witch’s regeneration rate has been decreased by 2/3, because the healing instant status effect heals less. This was reverted in the Java Edition Combat Tests | |||
| 1.7.2 | 13w37a | Witches can now drink and drop potions of Water Breathing. | |||
 The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | |||||
| 13w42a | Witches can now spawn anywhere where the light level is 7 or less, including any biome at night and in caves. | ||||
| 13w42b | The spawn rate for the witch has been decreased. | ||||
| 1.8 | 14w03a | Villagers now turn into witches when struck by lightning. | |||
| 14w11a | Witches now run away from creepers that are about to explode. | ||||
| 14w25a |  The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | ||||
| 14w29a |  The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | ||||
| 14w30a |  The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | ||||
| 14w34d | The witch hut’s spawning zone has been decreased or eliminated, depending on the altitude of the hut. | ||||
| 1.8.1 | pre1 | Witches no longer run away from creepers that are about to explode. | |||
| The witch hut's spawning zone height has been increased by 2. | |||||
| 1.9 | 15w31a | Witches now have a 50% chance of choosing a potion of swiftness when relevant, instead of a 43.75% chance. | |||
 The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | |||||
| 15w47b | Added sounds for witches idling, taking damage, dying, drinking, and throwing potions. | ||||
| 1.10 | pre1 | Witches now drink a potion of fire resistance if they don't already have the Fire Resistance effect and the most recent damage taken (within the past 2 seconds) was fire damage. | |||
| 1.11 | 16w32a | The entity ID has been changed from Witch to witch. | |||
| 16w42a | Witches that spawn upon generation of witch huts no longer despawn. | ||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | The texture of witches has been changed.
| |||
 With the texture change of witches, the witch’s drinking animation has now also been changed. | |||||
| 18w47a | Witches can now spawn as part of raids. | ||||
| Witches no longer attack each other.[8] | |||||
| 18w50a | Witches are now neutral mobs. This was confirmed by Slicedlime to be an unintentional change.[9] | ||||
 The appearance of witches have been changed, adding a purple hood. This was confirmed by Jasper Boerstra to be an unintentional change.[10] | |||||
| 19w02a | Witches are once again hostile mobs. | ||||
| The texture changes of the witch from 18w50a have been reverted. | |||||
| 19w13a |  If a raid kills all the villagers or destroys all the beds in a village, raiding witches celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing. | ||||
| 1.15 | 19w42a |  The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | |||
| 19w44a |  The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. The potions now float above their arms. | ||||
| 19w45a | The potion-drinking position of witches has been changed. | ||||
| 1.16 | 20w22a | When a villager that has been traded with is struck by lightning, the witch it becomes no longer despawns. | |||
| Pre-release 1 | When a villager is struck by lightning, the witch it becomes no longer despawns. | ||||
| 1.18 | Pre-release 5 | Changed the texture, to remove its hood. | |||
| Upcoming Java Edition | |||||
| 1.19 | 22w17a | 32px Changed its models, now the last two rows of pixels on its robes can render. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.14.0 | build 1 |  Added witches. The hat model and head position are different from Java Edition’s witches. | |||
| build 2 |  The model of witches has been changed. | ||||
| build 3 | Witches now avoid water unless they have a target. | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.2.0 | beta 1.2.0.2 | Witches now have an 8.5% chance to drop a potion when drinking. Prior to this, they would always drop a potion when drinking. | |||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | The texture of witches has been changed. | |||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.1 | Witches can now spawn as part of raids. | |||
| 1.13.0 | beta 1.13.0.9 | When a raid kills all the villagers or destroys all the beds in a village, raiding witches celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing. | |||
| ? | Witches can see enemies from up to 64 blocks instead of 16. | ||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU19 | CU7 | 1.12 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | Added witches. |
| TU31 | CU19 | 1.22 | Patch 3 | Witches can now drink and drop potions of water breathing. | |
| TU43 | CU33 | 1.36 | Patch 13 | sounds for witches have been added. | |
| 1.90 | The texture of witches has been changed. They now use the texture from 18w50a. | ||||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added witches. | ||||
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Witch" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia[]
Witches being descripted as female mobs. Witches were referred with female pronouns in an action figure box, making witches one of the few mobs to have a confirmed gender.
- The witch is based on Baba Yaga, a witch from Slavic folklore who also lives in a swamp hut.[11]
- When the subject of witches dropping sticks was brought up, Dinnerbone jokingly replied that it's because witches are made of wood.[12] He later explained [13] that it was a reference to this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Witches do not use the equipment in their swamp huts, but they can be used by players.
- When drinking a potion, a witch's nose lifts and points forward. A witch's nose slightly wiggles when idle.
- Witches have small mouths hidden under their noses. During their potion-drinking animation, this mouth becomes visible from the side.
- Before the Java 1.18 update, witches have an unused purple hat layer in their texture file, similar to the illusioner's hat.
- The same hat layer is also present in the vindicator and evoker's texture files, where it is also unused.
- These hat models also used to exist in the nitwit, librarian, and priest's textures before the Village and Pillage Update.
- In the Village and Pillage Update artwork banner, the witch in the picture has its arms unfolded like a pillager, despite this being impossible in-game.
Gallery[]
Video[]
Witches before the Village & Pillage and Texture Update update:
Screenshots[]
Witches drank potions with transparent textures before The Update that Changed the World.
A witch throwing a potion at the player.
A witch in its witch hut.
7 witches fighting in a thunderstorm.
Witches fighting in a witch farm.
The witch with a cowl in 18w50a.
Three witches holding items.
Witch and villager difference.
The particle effect that witches emit.
A witch with a cowl from 18w50a on PlayStation 4 Edition.
Witch with a black cat.
A top view of the top of a witch farm where the mobs are raised up by the water and sign tube, then pushed off the edge with water.
In other media[]
Witch in promotional artwork for the Pretty Scary Update.
The Witch seen in the Village and Pillage banner.
Witch artwork in Minecraft Earth.
Lego Minecraft witch.
In 1.15 Buzzy Bees update official trailer, a witch held a honey bottle besides a bee nest with an arrow on it.
References[]
- ↑ In the current java combat test, it drinks in 1 second.
- ↑ In the current java combat test, it heals 6.
- ↑ Witches also attack other witches that accidentally threw a negative potion at the witch, despite them being the same mob
- ↑ "While talking with @jeb_ about some stuff he's doing, I realized the perfect mob to add for halloween; it'd be our second ranged one too!" – @Dinnerbone (Nathan Adams) on Twitter, September 13, 2012
- ↑ "Uhh. Second overworld ranged mob!" – @Dinnerbone (Nathan Adams) on Twitter, September 13, 2012
- ↑ "How do you even draw a witch anyway? Pointy nose? In a blocky world it'd look like Pinocchio!" – @Dinnerbone (Nathan Adams) on Twitter, September 18, 2012
- ↑ "I decided to go for a less traditional witch look and have an "offshoot villager" kinda thing. It has a magical nose that wiggles, too." – @Dinnerbone (Nathan Adams) on Twitter, September 18, 2012
- ↑ Witches no longer attack each other after 1.14 - Work As Intended
- ↑ Comment by Slicedlime on his 18w50a update video
- ↑ "The cowl on the witch is not intended. The cowl was always in the texture map but it just wasn't rendered. Due to the new villager model system now it does." – @JasperBoerstra (Jasper Boerstra) on Twitter, December 13, 2018
- ↑ "The Last Ten Years: Ten Things You Probably Didn't Know About Minecraft" – Minecraft on YouTube, May 31, 2019
- ↑ "Don't you know that witches are made out of wood?" – u/Dinnerbone on Reddit
- ↑ "You almost got the joke!" – u/Dinnerbone on Reddit
