How to Summon the Wither in Minecraft Safely

To summon the Wither, place four blocks of soul sand or soul soil in a T shape (three across the top, one centered underneath), then place three wither skeleton skulls on top of the three upper blocks. The last skull you place brings it to life. Choose your arena first: the Wither explodes 11 seconds after it spawns and then attacks everything nearby.

What to bring before summoning the Wither

• 3 wither skeleton skulls. These only drop from wither skeletons in Nether fortresses, at 2.5% per kill (Looting III raises it to 5.5%). A charged creeper explosion guarantees a skull.
• 4 soul sand or soul soil, mostly from soul sand valleys.
• Gear for a boss fight. See below.

Collecting the skulls is usually the slow part. Expect to clear a fortress or two.

Building the Wither

1. Place one soul sand block on the ground. This is the base.
2. Place three soul sand blocks in a row on top of it, centered, so they form a T.
3. Make sure the blocks on either side of the base block are empty (air).
4. Place the three skulls on the three top blocks. The last block placed must be a skull.

The structure can also be built lying sideways or upside down. Skull direction doesn’t matter, and a dispenser can place the final skull if you want to trigger it from a distance.

The first 11 seconds

As soon as the last skull goes down, the Wither appears and its health bar fills up. It’s invulnerable during this phase and doesn’t move. After 11 seconds it lets out a blast of power 7, stronger than a charged creeper, that destroys the blocks around it and hurts anything nearby. Be at least a few blocks back, behind cover.

Picking an arena

• Underground. A tunnel deep below the surface limits how far the Wither can fly and keeps the damage out of your base. It breaks blocks when hurt, so expect the tunnel to grow.
• Under the End’s exit portal (Java). The bedrock of the exit portal can’t be broken, and players build the Wither beneath it so it gets stuck and suffocates. It’s the safest method, but it means leaving the End’s dragon island a mess.
• Never near your base or a village. The Wither attacks every non-undead mob, including your villagers, animals and pets.

Gear for the fight

• Diamond or netherite armor with Protection or Blast Protection.
• A sword with Smite, since the Wither is undead.
• A bow with Power for the first half. Below half health it gets wither armor and arrows stop working, so switch to melee.
• Milk buckets to cure the Wither effect from its skulls.
• Splash potions of Healing hurt the Wither, since it’s undead. Drink your own healing or eat golden apples.
• A totem of undying from an evoker in your offhand.

Edition differences

Bedrock’s Wither is a harder fight. It has more health on Normal (450) and Hard (600), dashes through blocks, and when it reaches half health it explodes and summons three wither skeletons (not on Easy). Java’s Wither stays at 300 health on every difficulty.

The reward

Every Wither drops one nether star and 50 XP. The nether star is the key ingredient for a beacon, and the star never despawns in Bedrock (it lasts ten minutes in Java instead of five). For the Wither’s full attack patterns, see the Wither mob page.