All 4 Minecraft Bosses Ranked by Strength
It’s hard to feel that any Minecraft bosses are actual bosses in a game that rewards creatives and has an open-world concept. Unlike other games, you can easily avoid every single one by either not spawning them, not going to dimensions where they are, or something else entirely. What if we put them in a head-to-head battle against each other? Who would win? How do the four bosses of Minecraft rank in strength?
4. Raid
Appearance
A raid will spawn in multiple waves depending on the potency of the Bad Omen effect. Each level of Bad Omen adds an extra wave to the Raid depending on your playing difficulty. Additionally, the Bad Omen effect level determines whether or not the Raid will spawn with enchanted weapons. It consists of Ravagers, Pillagers, Evokers, Vindicators, and Witches.
Behavior
At the start of each wave, you’ll hear a horn sound indicating that the new wave has started. Each raid wave spawns more mobs than the one before it. The other waves will always spawn the last level of mobs. Illagers and Witches won’t spawn as part of the Raid but will join the Raid if they are close by. Raids can be lost if there are no Villagers or claimed beds in the village anymore. Raids can also expire if you haven’t defeated the Raid in over 40 real-life minutes.
Health
Each wave has its health bar and is the sum of all the raid participants. Killing raid participants lowers the overall health until you’ve killed every one of them. It comes back to full with each new wave that comes in.
How to defeat a Raid
To defeat raids, it’s recommended you focus on the Evokers first and use Iron Golems to your advantage. You can create them by forming four iron blocks into a T-shape and adding a carved pumpkin head in the center. Make sure you have a ranged weapon and preferably enchanted armor. You can also set traps in the village or surround it with high walls where you can station yourself to shoot down the bad guys.
Drop
Each raid participant will drop their loot when you kill them, but after you’ve won the Raid, you’ll get the hero of the village effect, which will make all villagers drop presents for you in their chosen profession. Each villager can only give one gift before going into cooldown, lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
Reason for the ranking
Naturally, the Raid with other types of illagers, including both the Evoker and Vindicator, comes second on the list. I would easily argue that raids are sometimes the hardest mini-boss to beat because there’s never one boss; there are multiple bosses, including ravagers, pillagers, and witches, each having their strength in battle. Not all raids are created equally, though, and you can choose to play out an easy raid or a hard one, so they’re ranked 4th on the list because of this.
3. Elder Guardian
Appearance
Appearance-wise, Elder Guardians look a lot like regular Guardians but are much larger. They have a set of spikes on their head and an eye in the center. They are pale in color, unlike their smaller counterparts, and will always stare directly at you, even with invisibility potions. If an Elder Guardian is not within an ocean monument, it will path find its way to it.
Behavior
Elder Guardians have three attacks. Two are aimed at aggressive play, while one is a defensive one. They shoot lasers they need to charge, causing mining fatigue that will greatly reduce your mine and attack speed, and the last defensive attack is the spike defense that will damage anyone trying to hurt it while the spikes are extended.
Health
Elder Guardians have 80 health making them one of the toughest mini-bosses to beat. Their attack damage changes with the difficulty you’re playing at. On normal, they deal four hearts of damage, while on hard, they deal 6. The spikes deal one damage on normal and 1.5 on hard mode.
How to defeat the Elder Guardian
To defeat the Elder Guardian, it’s best to have a trident on you that you can get from Drowned. The recommendation is to enchant it as well, but if you’re out of luck, a bow will do just fine, except it’ll have to be used as a melee weapon. Use the sponges to your advantage to dry out the area and a conduit to help you deal damage and eliminate the constant need for potions.
Don’t forget to bring a ton of water-breathing potions, so you don’t drown. Keep your distance from the Elder Guardian since the laser attack will always hit you unless you’re 15 blocks away or separated by a solid block.
Drop
Upon killing, you’ll get 10 XP, a chance of getting prismarine shards, crystals, and raw or cooked cod. The real power of defeating an elder guardian isn’t the loot it drops but the fact that you can then use the monument to make Guardian farms which will then drop prismarine, sponges, and sea lanterns only available in the ocean monument.
Reason for the ranking
In terms of strength, the Elder Guardian is the largest and strongest aquatic mob in the game. The breathing limitations you have while in the water make it all the more difficult, even though these can be avoided with a water-breathing potion and a turtle helmet. Defeating the Elder Guardian is no joke. It’s also worth mentioning that you’ll encounter 3 of them if you enter an ocean monument. Let’s not forget the Guardians you’ll also have to deal with along the way.
2. Wither
Appearance
Withers are a player-constructed hostile mob consisting of 3 wither skeleton heads, a ribcage body, and a tail. You can make it by creating its body out of soul soil or sand, forming the letter T, and placing the three wither skeleton heads on each of the blocks of soul sand or soil.
Behavior
Each time a Wither is attacked, it spins rapidly, producing sounds, and destroying blocks near it. When it’s first spawned, it charges up, grows bigger, and creates an explosion that deals 49 damage to all nearby mobs and players. The Wither is the only mob in the game that can break obsidian blocks. It’ll attack all mobs except for undead mobs and other Withers.
Health
The Withers’s health exceeds the Ender Dragon’s health, the game’s final boss. The Wither also passively heals one health every 20 seconds, but if it kills a target, it instantly heals five health. Wither’s attacks deal withered heart damage similar to poison status effects, except the effect lasts longer and deals damage slowly. The problem with this effect is that it’s hard to see how much health you have left because your HP bar turns black. In Bedrock Edition, the Wither also has a dash attack that deals 15 damage.
How to defeat the Wither
You will have a hard time fighting the Wither with traditional means. Still, since you can choose to spawn it wherever you’d like, you can use this to your advantage and either spawn it in the End below the Bedrock fountain or dig a 3×3 tunnel very deep, block only one part of the tunnel with blocks, spawn around five iron golems, tempt the wither and release the golems to defeat it.
Drop
Wither drops are by far the most valuable drops in the game. Upon killing the Wither, you’ll get a Nether Star which can be used to craft a beacon. It also drops 50 XP points, far more than any other mini-boss we have ranked. It’s worth noting that looting enchantments don’t increase the drop rate of Nether Stars.
Reason for the ranking
If you come unprepared, the Wither will kill you faster than any other mini-boss. Apart from this, it also has the highest health bar in the game, making killing it a long process. It’s also one of the scariest looking and sounding mobs out there, and you have to give credit where credit is due.
1. Ender Dragon
Appearance
The Ender Dragon is the largest and the final boss of the game. Once you’ve killed it, you’ve officially beaten Minecraft. It is eight blocks high, 16 blocks wide, and 16 blocks long. You can respawn the dragon using end crystals and the exit portal that spawns when the dragon first spawns.
Behavior
The Ender Dragon has four attacks, each dealing different amounts of damage. The melee attack deals ten damage on normal difficulty, wings deal 5, dragon’s breath deals 3 per second, and the fireball deals 6 per second. She regenerates health using end crystals located on the obsidian towers.
Health
In terms of health, the Ender Dragon is weaker than the Wither, having 200 health as opposed to the 300 the Wither has. This doesn’t look like it makes it hard to kill Jean but keep in mind that she rapidly regenerates health unless you destroy the towers first.
How to defeat the Ender Dragon
The easiest way to kill Jean is to take advantage of beds and the Bedrock fountain. Jean will perch frequently, and when it’s close enough to the fountain, you can place a bed on the tallest block and try to sleep in it to explode the bed. I suggest you destroy the end crystals first so the process goes much quicker.
Drop
After killing Jean, you’ll get 12000 XP points, a dragon egg spawn, and access to End gateway portals which can be used to find End cities to get an Elytra finally.
Reason for the ranking
The reason for this ranking is obvious; it’s the final boss of the game, it gives you the most experience points the first time you kill it, and she deals the most damage out of all bosses found in Minecraft if you count in the fact that she has a total of 4 attacks, some deal magic damage. It also counts the effort you put in to locate the stronghold to get a chance to fight her.
Honorable Mention: The Warden
The Warden is technically not a mini-boss in Minecraft, which leaves him out of the ranked list, but he deserves an honorable mention because it’s so powerful. The Warden’s lore is shrouded in mystery. Hence, you can find it in the most mysterious of biomes, the Deep Dark. It’s not easy finding the Deep Dark biome, but when you do, you better not try and fight the Warden.
Mojang said that the Warden is meant to introduce a new type of boss into the gameplay, requiring sneaking to ”defeat”. If you tried to beat it, you would likely die instantly. Out of all the mob bosses, the Warden, by far, has the highest health and the most serious attack damage. He has 500 health and ten damage on normal difficulty. It’s not even worth fighting it because it only drops five experience points and a sculk catalyst, so avoid it at all costs. If I had to rank it, I’d put him in the number one spot, even before the Ender Dragon.
Newer tests, however, show that the Warden would not win in a fight against Jean but would win in a fight against the Wither, so objectively, it would take 2nd place in our ranking.
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