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For the mob in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Witch.

Witches are uncommon hostile mobs that use harmful splash potions as ranged weapons and beneficial potions on themselves defensively. While dangerous, they are a source of valuable potion ingredients.

Spawning

Natural generation

Solitary witches spawn in the Overworld at a light level of 7 or less OR when a villager is struck by lightning. It spawns in all land biomes except mushroom fields.

Spawn rate

Witches are the least common within the usual monsters, using a weight of 5.

Swamp huts

Every swamp hut spawns a witch and a black cat inside during world generation, they never despawn. Otherwise, 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.

Bedrock Editon

Witches respawn on only one block within the swamp hut.

Villagers

When lightning strikes within 4 blocks of an adult villager or baby villager, it transforms into a witch. Witch spawned this way can't despawn.

Raids

Witches can spawn starting at wave 3 as part of raids.

Drops

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.

They drop 5 when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Potions

Witches have an 8.5% chance to drop a potion as an equipment drop. They do not have to be drinking the potion to drop it, because there is a delay between when they choose to drink a potion and when they actually are shown drinking it.

They drop one of the following:

Looting increases the chance by 1% per level. To make a witch drink a potion that can then be dropped, the player can:

  • Hurt it to make it drink a Potion of Healing
  • Catch it on fire to make it drink a Potion of Fire Resistance

Farming

Behavior

Despite being humanoid mobs, witches cannot open doors.

They are passive toward villagers and wandering traders.

Witches use potions in combat, throwing splash potions offensively and drinking normal potions defensively. These potions are the same as obtainable through brewing, meaning they have the same effect duration. They attempt to remain up to 10 blocks away from players. They have a search radius of 16 blocks.

Offense

Each potion is thrown in a 2 seconds interval.

Defense

On each tick (0.05 second) 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 and slows down its walking speed. It does not attack during this time.

  • When 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, 15% chance of drinking a potion of Fire Resistance.
  • If damaged, 5% chance of drinking a potion of Healing, which heals 4♥♥.
  • When 11 or more blocks from a target and lacking Swiftness, 50% chance of drinking a potion of Swiftness.

Witches are 85% resistant to some types of magical damage, including Poison, Instant Damage, evoker fangs, and the Thorns enchantment.

Raids

Witches that participate in a raid heal illagers that have low health (11♥ × 5.5 and below) with Regeneration (45 seconds) and healing splash potions.

If raiding witches or other mobs kill all the villagers in a village, they celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing.

In Java Edition, witches do not retaliate when attacked by evoker fangs or illager-inflicted arrows. Instead, they drink a healing potion.

Bedrock Edition

WitchesMagic

Their purple particles

Witches are immune to Poison and Fatal Poison. Witches can locate targets even if they are behind blocks and are hostile to iron golems.

They are the only mobs that fight back against ghasts when hit by their fireballs. Witches can be attacked by undead mobs if they accidentally provoke them using splash potions of poison, weakness, slowness, and healing.

During raids, they spawn at wave 4.

Particles

Witches rarely (1.5% each second) spawn from 10 to 45 purple magic particles above their heads. These particles are named "Witch"‌[JE only] or "Witchspell".‌[BE only]

Sounds

SoundSubtitlesSourceDescriptionResource locationTranslation keyVolumePitchAttenuation
distance
Witch giggles??entity.witch.ambientsubtitles.entity.witch.ambient??16
Witch cheers??entity.witch.celebratesubtitles.entity.witch.celebrate??16
Witch dies??entity.witch.deathsubtitles.entity.witch.death??16
Witch drinks??entity.witch.drinksubtitles.entity.witch.drink??16
Witch hurts??entity.witch.hurtsubtitles.entity.witch.hurt??16
Witch throws??entity.witch.throwsubtitles.entity.witch.throw??16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

NameIdentifierTranslation key
Witchwitchentity.minecraft.witch

Bedrock Edition:

NameIdentifierNumeric ID Translation key
Witchwitch45entity.witch.name

Entity data

See also: Chunk format

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
Taste of Your Own MedicinePoison a witch with a splash potion.Throw a splash potion of poison at a witch (by facing the witch and pressing the use key).20GSilver

Advancements

Icon Advancement In-game description Parent Actual requirements (if different) Resource location
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

History

Java Edition
1.4.2September 13, 2012Dinnerbone hints that the witch mob would be added in the Pretty Scary Update,[1][2][3] and that the witch's texture would be some variation of the villagers'.[4]
September 21, 2012Dinnerbone confirmed a suggestion made by Reddit user Mr_Pennybags in the r/Minecraft subreddit that witches are to live in witch huts.
12w38aWitch Revision 1 Added witches.
Witch drinking potion 12w38a 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, Damage 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.
12w38bWitches now have common drops, including glass bottles, sticks, redstone dust, glowstone dust, gunpowder, spider eyes and water bottles.
Witches can no longer hurt themselves.
Witch Revision 2 The texture of witches has been changed slightly. Their skin color is now darker.
Witch drinking potion 12w38b With the texture change of the witch's skin color, witches drinking are now also darker.
12w39aThe texture size for the witch has been changed from 64x126 to 64x128.
12w40aWitches can now spawn in witch huts.
Witches no longer drop water bottles.
1.6.1?The witches' regeneration rate has been decreased by 2/3.
1.7.213w37aWitches can now drink and drop potions of Water Breathing.
Witch drinking potion 1.7.2 The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
13w42aWitches now spawn anywhere where the light level is 7 or less, including any biome at night and in caves.
13w42bThe spawn rate for the witch has been decreased.
1.814w03aVillagers struck by lightning now turn into witches.
14w11aWitches now run away from creepers that are about to explode.
14w25aWitch drinking potion 14w25a The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
14w29aWitch drinking potion 14w29a The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
14w30aWitch drinking potion 14w30a The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
14w34dThe witch hut's spawning zone has been decreased or eliminated, depending on the altitude of the hut.
1.8.1pre1Witches no longer run away from creepers that are about to explode.
The witch hut's spawning zone height has been increased by 2.
1.915w31aWitches now have a 50% chance of choosing a potion of Swiftness when relevant, instead of a 43.75% chance.
Witch drinking potion 15w31a The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
15w47bAdded sounds for witches idling, taking damage, dying, drinking and throwing potions.
1.10pre1Witches now drink a potion of Fire Resistance, if they don't already have the effect and the most recent damage taken (within the past 2 seconds) was fire damage.
1.1116w32aThe entity ID has been changed from Witch to witch.
1.1418w43aWitch The texture of witches has been changed.
Witch drinking 1.14 With the texture change of witches, witches drinking has now also been changed.
18w47aWitches can now spawn as part of the new raids.
18w50aWitches are now neutral mobs. This was confirmed by Slicedlime to be an unintentional change.[5]
18w50a witch The appearance of witches have been changed, adding a purple hood. This was confirmed by Jasper Boerstra to be an unintentional change.[6]
19w02aWitch The texture changes of the witch from 18w50a have been reverted.
19w13aWitch celebrating If raiding witches killed all the villagers in the village or the beds were destroyed, witches celebrate their victory by laughing and jumping.
1.1519w42aWitch drinking potion 19w42a The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
19w44aWitch drinking potion 19w44a The drinking potion position of witches has been changed. The potions now float above their arms.
19w45aWitch drinking The drinking potion position of witches has been changed.
1.1620w22aWhen a villager that was traded with is struck by lightning, the witch it becomes no longer despawn.
Pre-release 1When any villager is struck by lightning, the witch it becomes no longer despawn.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.14.0build 1Witch BE Revision 1 Added witches. The hat model and head position are different from Java's witches.
build 2Witch BE Revision 2 The model of witches has been changed.
build 3Witches now avoid water, unless they have a target.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0beta 1.2.0.2Witches now have a 8.5% chance to drop a potion when drinking. Prior to this, they would always drop a potion when drinking.
1.10.0beta 1.10.0.3Witch BE The texture of witches has been changed.
1.11.0beta 1.11.0.1Witches can now spawn during raids.
1.13.0beta 1.13.0.9Witch celebrating If raiding witches killed all the villagers in the village or the beds were destroyed, witches celebrate their victory by laughing and jumping.
Legacy Console Edition
TU19CU7 1.12 Patch 11.0.1Witch Revision 2 Added witches.
TU31CU19 1.22 Patch 3Witches can now drink and drop potions of Water Breathing.
TU43CU33 1.36 Patch 13Sounds for witches have been added.
1.90 18w50a witch The texture of witches has been changed. They use the texture from 18w50a.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0Witch Added witches.

Issues

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

Trivia

  • If a witch hits another witch with a potion, the witch who is hit becomes angry and targets the other witch, however it is impossible for either witch to kill the other (without help from a player), due to their use of Healing potions and their resistance to each other's splash potions.
  • Witches do not use the equipment in their swamp huts, but they can be used by players.
  • The odds of a witch dropping the maximum amount of drops possible (6 items total) without a Looting enchantment are 1 in 81 (1.2%).
  • Witches throw healing potions at illagers.
  • Witches are extremely difficult to kill via suffocation or cacti (though not impossible), due to their frequent use of healing potions.
  • When drinking a potion, a witch's nose lifts up and points forward.
  • The player can see the short mouth of a witch from the side, only if they are drinking a potion and lifting their nose.
  • When the subject of witches dropping sticks was brought up, Dinnerbone jokingly replied that it's because witches are made of wood.[7] He later explained [8] that it was a reference to this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • The witch is based on Slavic folklore called Baba Yaga, which is why it lives in a swamp hut.[9]
  • A witch's nose slightly waves when idle.
  • Despite being physically similar and appearing to be allied with them, witches are not considered illagers.[10]
  • Witches have an unused purple hat layer in their texture file, similar to the illusioner's hat.
  • In the Village and Pillage update artwork banner, the Witch in the picture appears to have it's arm's unfolded like a Pillager, however this is not the case in game.

Gallery

References

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