Potion of Harming: Two Recipes and How Much It Hurts
Corrupt a Potion of Healing or Poison with a fermented spider eye to brew Harming. Splash Harming II deals 12 damage, ignores armor, heals the undead.
A Potion of Harming deals instant damage: 6 points (3 hearts) at level I and 12 points (6 hearts) at level II. You can’t brew it straight from an Awkward Potion. Make a Potion of Healing or Poison first, then add a fermented spider eye to corrupt it.
Nobody drinks this one on purpose. Harming is a weapon, and almost always a splash potion.
Two ways to brew it
| Starting potion | Add | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Potion of Healing | Fermented spider eye | Potion of Harming |
| Healing II | Fermented spider eye | Harming II |
| Potion of Poison | Fermented spider eye | Potion of Harming |
| Poison II | Fermented spider eye | Harming II |
| Any Harming | Gunpowder | Splash Harming |
| Splash Harming | Dragon’s breath | Lingering Harming |
The Poison route is cheaper. A spider eye costs nothing if you have a spider farm, while Healing needs a glistering melon slice made with eight gold nuggets. Both end in the same potion. You can also corrupt Harming I into Harming II later with glowstone.
A fermented spider eye is a spider eye, a brown mushroom and sugar, shapeless on a crafting table. Witches drop spider eyes too, along with glowstone and the occasional potion.
Redstone has no effect. Harming is instant.
Why it’s so strong
The damage ignores armor. A player in full diamond takes the same 12 damage from splash Harming II as one in leather. Only the Protection enchantment and the Resistance effect cut it down. Splash potions are also strongest at the center of the splash, so a direct hit on the target’s feet does the full amount.
That makes Harming II the main damage potion for PvP and for clearing living mobs at a distance: witches, Evokers in raids, and anything you’d rather not hit with a sword.
Where it backfires
Undead mobs are healed by Harming. That includes zombies, husks, drowned, skeletons, strays, wither skeletons, phantoms, zoglins, zombified piglins and the Wither. Throw Healing at those instead. Splash Healing II hits an undead mob for the same 12 damage that Harming II does to a living one.
Lingering Harming makes a damaging cloud, and it’s also how you craft Arrows of Harming: surround one lingering potion with eight arrows. Each tipped arrow does a smaller dose of the effect on hit.
See our brewing guide for how the fermented spider eye corrupts other potions too.
Common questions
How do you make a Potion of Harming?
Add a fermented spider eye to a Potion of Healing or a Potion of Poison. Then add glowstone for Harming II and gunpowder to make it throwable.
How much damage does Harming do?
Harming I deals 6 damage (3 hearts) and Harming II deals 12 damage (6 hearts) instantly. Armor does not reduce it, but the Protection enchantment and Resistance do.
Does Harming work on skeletons?
No, it heals them. Undead mobs like zombies, skeletons, drowned, phantoms and the Wither are healed by Harming and hurt by Healing.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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