Minecraft: Ender Dragon vs. Wither, Who Is Stronger?

The Wither and the Ender Dragon are fan favorites in Minecraft, and it’s hard to pick between just one. Some say the Ender Dragon is Minecraft’s final boss, but others say that the Wither is the true final boss of Minecraft. Without getting into subjective opinions, can we answer who is stronger between the Ender Dragon and the Wither?

Ender Dragon Backstory

Not much is known about the Ender Dragon. Mojang keeps its lore very well hidden, the lore may not even exist, or Mojang wants players to create their own stories within their Minecraft worlds. Thanks to Minecraft Story Mode, here’s what we know about the Ender Dragon.

The Ender Dragon is a legendary lonesome beast that lives in the End dimension. The beast is a female dragon and goes under the name Jean. Markus Peerson, the original creator of Minecraft, gave her this nickname. If you’re not convinced that Jean is, in fact, a female, she does lay eggs, and with the exception of a few animals in the real world, only females can lay eggs.

Jean isn’t hostile but turns this way to anyone who enters her domain, the End. Any creature native to the End can stay, but if you force your way into the End, she will kill you or at least try to. In Minecraft Story Mode, The Order of the Stone killed Jean. It’s a team of legendary heroes comprised of Soren, Gabriel, Magnus, Ellegaard, and Ivor. They were an architect, warrior, griefer, Redstone engineer, and alchemy and potions expert.

The Order killed the dragon led by Soren, but Soren used foul play and killed the dragon using a command block, leading to Ivor leaving the team. Could they have defeated her without command blocks? I guess we’ll never find out.

Wither Backstory

The Wither is considered an undead mob and shows no mercy to the living or the undead, passive or hostile. It has no soul and will destroy anything in its path. The Wither doesn’t exist on its own; it has to be summoned, which, in a way, makes it have a master that not even the master can control.

In the game, Wither is considered the true final boss of Minecraft, stronger even than the Ender Dragon, but we’ll put it to the test to truly reveal why and if that’s the case. Many people believe it’s the final boss of Minecraft because you can only get the achievement for killing the Wither after you’ve defeated the Ender Dragon.

If you consider that the Wither Storm is also considered a Wither, Ivor, the former member of the Order, spawned it using command blocks, 3 Wither Skeleton skulls, and souls sand. It was a mutated, overpowered version of the Wither that could be destroyed but would surely take someone down with it.

Some say the Wither is a force to be reckoned with, and you can only hide from it, never defeat it; some say it’s an alien artillery being that was transported to the Overworld after a malfunctioning nova bomb was deployed in space. We can theorize all we want, but the Wither remains a mystery. Hopefully, it will change in the future.

Physiology

The Wither is 3. blocks tall and 0.9 blocks wide, whereas the Ender Dragon is eight blocks tall, 16 blocks wide, and 16 blocks long. From a pure size perspective, Jean is stronger, but it doesn’t consider that bigger isn’t always better, and those larger creatures are often not so agile.

Part of Jean’s large physique is her tail and wings, meaning that she can fly. If you consider her hollow bones enabling her to fly and the strength of her muscles because she can fly, Jean, a female dragon around 20ft, would weigh approximately 7 tons in real life. Maneuvering 7 tons in mid-air quickly would be a difficult task, and it’s clear that Jean is a bit slower even though she’s described as very agile, considering her size.

The Wither, on the other hand, almost seems to be as light as a feather. Skulls aren’t heavy and make up most of the Wither’s body. Once you consider that the Wither’s torso is a chest made of bones, we can conclude that the Wither is no flesh and only bones, making it pretty light.

Due to this fact and proven by the rapid spins forward, the Wither can perform; the Wither is more agile than the Ender dragon, which gives it a slight advantage. Still, purely based on size, Jean could easily crush the Wither using only her weight, taking little to no damage in the process as she will heal herself rapidly.

Point: Wither (0:1) Ender Dragon

Health

If the achievement you get for killing the Wither only after you’ve killed the Ender Dragon doesn’t prove the Wither is the true final boss of Minecraft, it might just be that how much health the Wither has proves it. The Wither has 300 health, unlike the Ender Dragon, which only has 200 health.

That doesn’t say much about the Wither’s strength, but it would take you a lot more to kill the Wither than it would to kill the Ender Dragon. This doesn’t take into account both their healing abilities.

Jean regenerates health thanks to the End Crystals on top of the Obsidian towers, while the Wither regenerates passively and by killing other targets. You can’t stop the Wither from regenerating health, but you can stop the Ender Dragon from regenerating by destroying the End Crystals.

Point: Wither (1:1) Ender Dragon

Powers

When the Wither spawns, it creates a delayed explosion after 11 seconds that deals up to 99 damage in an area. Once it takes damage, it spins rapidly and destroys all blocks in a 3x4x3 area, including Obsidian. Other than that, it throws Wither skulls that deal eight wither damage while its Wither attack gives you Wither II for 10 seconds, dealing one damage per second. It also has a dash attack that deals 15 physical damage. It also passively regenerates one health every second and instantly heals five health after killing a target.

Jean, on the other hand, has four different attacks. One is a melee attack that deals ten damage, her wings deal five damage, dragon’s breath is a magical damage ability that deals three damage per second, and lastly, the dragon fireball deals six damage per second. As previously mentioned, she also regenerates health thanks to the End Crystals, but how much she regenerates is not specified.

Point: Wither (1:2) Ender Dragon

Ender Dragon vs. Wither: Who would win in a fight and why?

The Wither can’t take damage from undead mobs and has four armor points, but the Ender Dragon is the most resilient mob in the game. It can only take damage from players and explosions, which would make the Wither beyond the first explosion that deals up to 99 damage utterly useless against the Ender Dragon. It would deplete her health to about half, and then the Wither wouldn’t be able to damage her anymore.

Additionally, Jean is so resilient because she takes only 1/4 of damage +1 if you hit her anywhere that is not her head. Even though she’s big, if you only count in her head as a weakness, she’s smaller than the Wither. You could argue that she would only defeat the Wither if they were to fight in the End because of the End Crystals that regenerate her health, but it’s been proven that she regenerates health anywhere as long as she has Crystals near her.

The only way a Wither would win in a fight against Jean is if multiple spawned at the right height, rapidly dealing damage to her with their spawn explosion. If we also consider that Wither Storm is a Wither, then yes, a Wither could defeat the Ender dragon simply because it would suck her in and grow bigger with her, but it wouldn’t actually kill her; she would just become a part of the storm.

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