#minecraft tutorial

So with that all out of the way, let's get into it!

I typically try to find a happy medium between the open world and a tiny room. Open world can be frustrating and drawn-out, since especially once he drops to half health, he's likely to keep floating up just out of melee range, which can make it difficult to hit him. This can be rectified with the new spears and an Elytra, but I know people have mixed opinions on them.

That said, I like to use either a medium-sized cave or a player-dug room around 25x25, with a ceiling of maybe 10-15 blocks. Obviously the Wither will be blowing it up bigger, but if you stay below it and it has something to hit its head on, it won't be trying to fly up into the sky like it did in Joel's video when he was trying to spear it.

If you're using a cave, I highly recommend scoping it out first and lighting it up. Wither's hard enough, you don't need rank-and-file hostile mobs complicating the process.

Once you've chosen your location, you want to gather your equipment. Here's what I recommend you bring:

A Diamond or Netherite sword with Smite IV or V, or Sharpness IV or V¹ ²

A bow with Power IV or V

Iron or Diamond armor³ with Prot IV on head and boots, Blast Prot IV on chest and legs

A bundle with 5-10 splash potions of healing, 2-5 potions (or splash potions) of strength, and 2-5 potions of regen

A stack of food; preferably steak, porkchops, or golden carrots

5-10 golden apples (not required but very helpful)

Friends! As many as you can rope into the horrid, arduous experience!

¹ As well as all the other enchants you would typically have on it, like Unbreaking

² Smite is better than Sharpness, because the Wither is an undead mob, so Smite will deal extra damage. However, higher Sharpness is better than lower Smite. So if you have to choose between Sharpness V and Smite III, take the Sharpness

³ Diamond is preferable, but I understand if you've only got one set of Good Gear and you don't want to lose it. Just don't do what the C-Team did and show up with five hundred sets of unenchanted Iron armour.

Optional items:

Healing arrows

A few buckets of milk

A totem or two

Wings & rockets

Now you're ready for the fight. Here's what you need to know:

The Wither explodes when its health bar charges up to full. If you're standing near him, you will take heavy damage and potentially die (this is what happened to Skizz and Ren in Mumbo's episode). Once you place the final skull, step back at least 20 blocks.

The Wither effect can be deadly, but there are a few ways to counter it. Firstly, eat. A lot. As soon as you're down a haunch, you want to eat again. This will keep your saturation up so you can regenerate. Secondly, regen pots can be very helpful, essentially canceling out Withered. Thirdly, if you bring milk, you can use that to get rid of the effect, especially if you're drawing aggro.⁴

At half health, the Wither becomes immune to projectiles and you'll have to fight him in melee. This is why you need both a bow and a sword.

Wither has a passive regen of half a heart per 20 game ticks, or one second. When he directly kills a mob or player (not through the Withered effect) he gains two and a half hearts back. (His total health is 150 hearts, if you were wondering.) This means you should pretty much always be dealing damage, cause if you go more than a few seconds without hitting him, you'll end up right back where you started.

⁴ An additional consideration here: even though Withered turns your health bar black, it doesn't eliminate the little white light reflection on the left half of each heart. This is a way that I've learned to keep track of my health when Whithered, to an accuracy of within half a heart. If you see the reflection, you still have that health. If it's not there, you don't. That way you can keep an eye on when you're getting dangerously low.