Ender Dragon
bossOurs, not the game's own: where it turns up, how an ender dragon behaves. Same on Bedrock v1.26.40.05 for health. Checked 2026-08-22, and here is how we check.
Added InOverview
An Ender Dragon is a boss: a rare, high-health encounter with its own boss health bar and unique mechanics.
What sets it apart is its behaviour: flies around the central island, swooping to attack.
It carries 200 health points, 100 hearts, and yields 500 to 12000 experience when it dies.
Players have been encountering the Ender Dragon since the 1.0.0 update.
One thing worth knowing: Dragon Egg appears on first kill only.
Beating the Ender Dragon is a milestone: it gatekeeps progression and the reward it leaves behind is worth the effort of preparing for the fight.
Damage by Difficulty
Spawning
In the wild, the Ender Dragon is generated in The End.
One Ender Dragon spawns when the player first enters The End. Can be respawned by placing 4 End Crystals on the exit portal.
You do not stumble across one while exploring: it is waiting in the End the first time a player arrives there, and no amount of Overworld travel will produce a second.
Because it does not respawn the way ordinary mobs do, every Ender Dragon encounter is effectively a one-off event you should prepare for in advance.
The EndIt shares the End with the enderman.
Drops
The Ender Dragon leaves behind nothing collectable on death; you gain experience but no loot.
Because there is nothing to harvest from its corpse, the reason to engage an Ender Dragon is almost always the experience or simply clearing it out of the way, not farming a resource.
If you are after specific items, the Ender Dragon is not your source for them; look to mobs with populated drop tables or to mining and trading instead.
Experience is where this mob really pays out: defeating it grants 500 to 12000 XP, an enormous amount compared with ordinary enemies.
Since there is nothing to pick up, you do not need to worry about a hopper or collection system for ender dragons; they leave the ground exactly as they found it.
The game rolls nothing for it when it dies, so it leaves nothing behind at all.
Ender Dragon attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
 Size | 16 x 8 blocks |
 Tracking range | 10 chunks |
 Experience | 500 to 12000 |
 Health | 200 points |
| Follow range | 16 blocks |
Experience: the dragon hands out its own experience as it dies: 12000 the first time it is beaten in a world, 500 every time after that.
Where the Ender Dragon lands, it has company: the wither, whose 300 health has nothing we list nearer than this 200 and the ravager at 100 health, the nearest we list to its 200.
Ender Dragon: 2 values straight out of Minecraft Java 26.2
Nothing in the biome spawn lists and nothing in the rolls on death names the ender dragon, so the numbers on this page come from one place only: the game's own entry for it in Minecraft Java 26.2sets 200 health and 16 blocks follow range.
| Weapon | Attack damage | Full swings |
|---|---|---|
 golden sword, wooden sword | 4 | 50 |
 stone sword | 5 | 40 |
 iron sword | 6 | 34 |
 diamond sword, golden axe, wooden axe | 7 | 29 |
 netherite sword | 8 | 25 |
 diamond axe, iron axe, stone axe | 9 | 23 |
 netherite axe | 10 | 20 |
Coming the other way, an ender dragon hit is 50% of a player's 20 health, 2 of them a full bar, all out of the ender dragon's 10 damage on Normal. On Easy the same ender dragon hit is 30%, on Hard 75%, so 4 hits against 2.
Behavior & Combat
In the field, flies around the central island, swooping to attack. Healed by End Crystals on obsidian pillars. Breath attack creates lingering damage. Destroys most blocks on contact.
Its 200 health is 3rd of 80, well over the 100 of the iron golem, and no mob sits closer.
Expect a long battle: with 200 health (100 hearts) and attacks dealing 6 on Easy, 10 on Normal and 15 on Hard, the Ender Dragon punishes underprepared players hard.
To deal with one efficiently, exploit its weaknesses: it is vulnerable to Destroy End Crystals first, Beds (explode in The End), Arrows while perched, and Melee when perched on portal.
In short, do not wander into an Ender Dragon fight casually: plan the encounter, bring the right gear, and the rewards make it worthwhile.
Ender Dragon commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| /summon minecraft:ender_dragon | Puts an ender dragon on the block you are standing on. |
| /give @p minecraft:ender_dragon_spawn_egg | Hands you the ender dragon spawn egg, so you can place ender dragons where you want them. |
| /kill @e[type=minecraft:ender_dragon] | Removes every ender dragon that is loaded around you. |
Entity id minecraft:ender_dragon, spawn egg minecraft:ender_dragon_spawn_egg.
Ender Dragon farm
There is no platform that produces ender dragons. One Ender Dragon spawns when the player first enters The End. Can be respawned by placing 4 End Crystals on the exit portal. Anything you build has to feed that source instead of a dark floor.
500 to 12000 experience per killEnder Dragon version history
Minecraft 1.0.0 brought the ender dragon in on 17 November 2011, 14 years of ender dragon by now.
4 other mobs here came with it: the mooshroom, the magma cube, the blaze and the snow golem. 17 of our 88 mobs are older than the ender dragon, 66 are younger.
The ender dragon numbers here come from Java 26.2, the version running now, and not from the one that introduced it.
What Ender Dragon sounds like
Turn subtitles on and every ender dragon sound names itself in the corner of the screen. These are the 6 lines a ender dragon can put there, and you can play any of them yourself with /playsound minecraft:entity.ender_dragon.ambient master @p.
| Sound | What you hear |
|---|---|
| entity.ender_dragon.ambient |  Dragon roars |
| entity.ender_dragon.growl | Dragon growls |
| entity.ender_dragon.hurt | Dragon hurts |
| entity.ender_dragon.death | Dragon dies |
| entity.ender_dragon.shoot | Dragon shoots |
| entity.ender_dragon.flap | Dragon flaps |
Advancements that need Ender Dragon
5 advancements ask for ender dragon by name, 3 of them about the ender dragon alone.
- Free the EndGood luck
- Is It a Plane?Look at the Ender Dragon through a Spyglass
The End... Again...Respawn the Ender Dragon- Monster HunterKill any hostile monster
- Monsters HuntedKill one of every hostile monster
