Potion of Weakness: Recipe and Curing Zombie Villagers
Weakness is the one potion brewed without nether wart: add a fermented spider eye to a water bottle. Java vs Bedrock damage penalty, and curing villagers.
A Potion of Weakness lowers melee damage for 1:30, or 4:00 with redstone. It’s the only standard potion you brew without nether wart: put a fermented spider eye straight into a water bottle. Almost everyone makes it for one reason, which is curing zombie villagers.
Potion of Weakness recipe
- Water bottle in the brewing stand.
- Fermented spider eye in the top slot. That’s your Potion of Weakness (1:30).
- Gunpowder to make it a splash potion. You need the splash version for curing.
- Optional: redstone for 4:00 before the gunpowder.
A fermented spider eye is a spider eye, a brown mushroom and sugar, shapeless. Because you skip nether wart, you can brew Weakness before you’ve ever been to a Nether fortress, as long as you have a brewing stand and some blaze powder for fuel.
| Version | Duration |
|---|---|
| Weakness | 1:30 |
| + redstone | 4:00 |
| Lingering | 0:22 / 1:00 |
There’s no Weakness II.
Curing zombie villagers
Throw a splash Potion of Weakness at a zombie villager, then right-click it with a regular golden apple. It starts shaking and making noise, and a few minutes later it’s a villager again. Cured villagers give big trade discounts to the player who cured them, which is the whole point of doing it.
Keep it out of the sun while it converts, and protect it from other zombies. Our zombie villager curing guide walks through trapping one first.
What it does to damage
On Java, Weakness removes 4 points from every melee hit. On Bedrock, it cuts a percentage of your damage instead. Either way, fist and wooden-tool hits can drop to nothing. That makes Weakness nasty when a witch throws it at you close up, which they do.
It doesn’t affect bows, crossbows or thrown tridents. If you’re stuck with Weakness, switch to ranged weapons or drink milk. Drinking Strength partly offsets it on Java.
See our brewing guide for every potion the fermented spider eye can corrupt.
Common questions
How do you make a Potion of Weakness?
Put a fermented spider eye into a plain water bottle. No nether wart or Awkward Potion is needed. Add gunpowder to make it a splash potion.
How do you cure a zombie villager?
Hit the zombie villager with a splash Potion of Weakness, then feed it a golden apple. It shakes and turns back into a villager after a few minutes.
What does Weakness do?
It lowers your melee damage. On Java Edition it removes 4 damage from every hit; Bedrock uses a percentage reduction instead.
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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