Boss Mobs
Extremely powerful mobs with unique mechanics and valuable rewards.
4 mobsElder Guardian
80 HPLarger guardian variant. Inflicts Mining Fatigue III on nearby players every 60 seconds. Powerful laser attack.
Warden
500 HPBlind but detects vibrations and smell. Sonic boom ranged attack bypasses armor and shields. Most powerful non-boss mob. Meant to be avoided, not fought.
Ender Dragon
200 HPFlies around the central island, swooping to attack. Healed by End Crystals on obsidian pillars. Breath attack creates lingering damage. Destroys most blocks on contact.
Wither
300 HPShoots Wither Skulls that inflict Wither effect. Creates massive explosion upon spawning. Second phase (half HP): gains Wither Armor, immune to arrows, charges at players.
Which of these the game treats as a boss
The ender dragon and the wither are bosses in the game's own sense: both put a boss bar across the top of the screen. The elder guardian and the warden are regular hostile mobs in the code, but they hit hard enough to belong on this list, and Mojang's blog post for the Pocket Edition update that added elder guardians called them boss mobs too.
- Ender dragon
- 200 health, and the End crystals on the obsidian pillars heal it while they stand, so break those first. The first kill drops 12,000 experience; a respawned dragon drops 500.
- Wither
- You build it yourself from four soul sand or soul soil blocks and three wither skeleton skulls, and the last block placed has to be a skull. It charges for 12 seconds, then explodes with a power of 7. It has 300 health in Java; in Bedrock that ranges from 300 on Easy to 600 on Hard. Below half health some projectiles stop hurting it, and it is the only source of nether stars for a beacon.
- Warden
- 500 health and a melee hit of 16, 30 or 45 depending on difficulty. When it cannot reach you it fires a sonic boom that ignores armor and Protection for 6 to 15 damage. It only appears after sculk shriekers are set off, so the best fight is the one you avoid by sneaking.
- Elder guardian
- 80 health and a laser of 5, 8 or 12. Three live in every ocean monument, and they give Mining Fatigue to players in a large radius around them.
Each mob page lists drops, spawn rules and damage per difficulty, and how we check explains where those numbers come from.