How to Beat the Wither in Minecraft

Minecraft features two major bosses currently. We covered the Ender Dragon in one of our previous articles, so make sure to check it out if you have not yet seen it, and if you would like to find out how you can defeat the Ender Dragon, as well as what equipment you should bring. This article will be revolving around the Wither. Unlike the Ender Dragon, you will have to summon the Wither. The summoning process is straightforward, but gathering the required resources can be time-consuming as you need to find a Nether Fortress and collect three wither skeleton skulls. Keep on reading to find out about the three most popular ways of defeating the Wither and about Minecraft Mods that you can use to make your experience more pleasant.

Gathering wither skeleton skulls

Gathering wither skeleton skulls, as well as soul sand, and, or soul soil, are the first tasks as you will require three wither skeleton skulls and four blocks of either soul sand, or soul soil. You can of course also mix them and use three blocks of soul sand and one block of soul soil, for example. All the resources that you will require to summon the Wither can be found in the Nether dimension, which can be accessed through a Nether portal that can be built from 10 obsidian. Arrange them in the following pattern, and you are ready to hop into the Nether dimension and start collecting resources.



The corner blocks do not have to be out of obsidian, they can be any block of your personal preference. The next step on your journey is to locate a fortress. Ideally, it should be one in the soul sand valley biome as more wither skeletons will spawn there that you can kill, however, you can also use any other fortress you come along to farm the wither skeleton skulls. If you do want to find a soul sand valley biome, then we can recommend the "Coordinates" Minecraft mod that is built into the Badlion Client. You can use it to receive real-time information on your current location, as well as the biome you are currently in, without having to use the F3 menu and hence sacrificing FPS.



If you have already defeated the Ender Dragon, then you can use an elytra that you can find in one of the ships on an end island to navigate through the nether more easily and faster. This way, you should be able to locate a soul sand valley biome faster. Just beware not to fly into any blocks as that may kill you and cause you to lose all of your items as getting there in time gets harder the further you travel. If you do want just a little bit of extra safety, then we recommend the "Waypoints" Minecraft Mod that also comes pre-installed with the Badlion Client, as well as Badlion Client Lite. Simply open the mod menu, search for the "Waypoints" mod, open the settings, and turn on "Death Waypoints".



You can also turn on the "Beam Marker" feature so that you can spot the location where you died more easily. We now know how to get into the Nether dimension, how to locate a nether fortress, as well as which biome you should look out for. But how do you exactly obtain wither skeleton skulls? Just like endermen, wither skeletons cannot walk through two-block-high spaces. You can use this to your advantage, build a safe spot and lure the wither skeletons to you so that you can safely kill them. If you do have good enough equipment, then you can also directly approach them without having to build a safe spot. Upon killing wither skeletons there is a 2.5% chance for them to drop a wither skeleton skull, with every level of looting you have, that percentage increases by 1% adding up to 5.5% with Looting 3. We highly recommend enchanting your sword as it can save countless hours of farming.

How to install Badlion Client

We have previously mentioned some Minecraft Mods that come pre-installed with the Badlion Client. But, how do you even install the Badlion Client? Installing the Badlion Client is easy and can be done within no time. All you have to do is download the Badlion Client and launch the Minecraft version that you would like to defeat the Wither on. Installing the Badlion Client and enabling the mods that we have mentioned prior can be done in just a few steps:

1. Download the Badlion Client from: https://client.badlion.net/.



2. Open the Badlion Client Launcher and select the Minecraft version that you would like to play on. You can also enable OptiFine in the Launcher, and it will automatically install the latest stable version for you.



3. As soon as you are in your Minecraft survival world, all you have to do is press "Right Shift." This will open the Mod Menu, where you can find over 100 Minecraft mods for you to play around with. You can use the search bar to search for the Minecraft Mods that we have previously mentioned and enable them by pressing the toggle switch button below the Minecraft mod icon.

What equipment should you bring to the fight?

What equipment you should bring to the Wither boss fight depends on how you are planning to beat the Wither. If you want to beat the Wither without using any exploits, then you should make sure to bring sufficient equipment. In this case, we also recommend summoning the Wither in the Overworld as summoning in the Nether, or the End dimension will make the fight much harder if you refrain from using any exploits.

Your sword should preferably either be a diamond sword or a netherite sword. If your sword is enchanted with Sharpness, then stick to that, if you, however, have a spare sword lying around, then enchant it with Smite as it is more effective against the Wither as it is an undead creature.

If you are summoning the Wither underground and have a tunnel layout, then you do not necessarily have to bring a bow to the fight. However, if you are summoning the Wither on the surface of the Overworld, then you should bring a bow to the fight, ideally enchanted with Power 5, Punch 1 or 2, as well as either Mending or Unbreaking. If you stick to Unbreaking, then you can also consider enchanting it with Infinity so that you do not have to carry a lot of arrows with you.

Now, let us take a look at the ideal armor. Keep in mind that the Wither is more powerful than the Ender Dragon, hence, we recommend bringing at least a full set of diamond armor enchanted with Protection 4. If you want to be extra careful, then make sure to bring an enchanted Netherite Armor. This is especially important if you are fighting the Wither on the surface of the Overworld.

Also, keep in mind to bring sufficient healing. Make sure to have a couple of golden apples with you, some strength potions, as well as some regeneration potions. Strength helps you beat the Wither quicker, and regeneration helps you combat the damage dealt by the wither. If you are fairly new to the game, then we of course recommend suiting you properly, you can even consider bringing swiftness, as well as health potions that instantly heal you. Milk buckets would help against the wither effect, however, would also negate your personal effects, which is why we do not recommend them. If you have some enchanted golden apples lying around, then now is the time to bring them, just to make sure that everything goes according to plan. This is what your equipment could look like:

Overworld, Nether, or End?

We have previously mentioned that there are different ways of beating the Wither. If you want to defeat the Wither without using any exploits, then you should stick to the Overworld. Summon the Wither either underground and build a tunnel system through which he will chase you so that you will be able to maintain a safe distance and at the same time deal damage with your sword. You can of course also summon the Wither on the surface and deal damage with your enchanted bow, however, keep in mind to bring better equipment for this type of fight, as we mentioned previously.

You summon the Wither by placing one soul sand on top of each other and then two adjacent to these. Then you place three wither skeleton skulls on top of the soul sand. You can of course also use soul soil as mentioned previously, it should look like the following once you have placed everything down but the last wither skeleton skull:



As you can see, we placed this one on the surface of the Overworld, this is what it would look like when you summon it underground in your tunnel system:



Make sure to keep the tunnels small enough so that the Wither cannot move through them. You can also use your strip mining tunnels for this method.

Trapping the Wither

Now let us take a look at the method that includes an exploit. For this method, you will either have to go close to the nether ceiling or under the bedrock structure in the center of the End island. You will additionally need 5 Obsidian. Place them down three blocks below the bedrock, and then place the soul sand on top of the obsidian. This method will not use the vertical summoning pattern but the horizontal one, it should look like this once you place down two of the three wither skeleton skulls:



Once you place down the last skull, the Wither will spawn and get stuck in the bedrock above it. This way you can kill it without having to bring much equipment besides your sword, as well as armor just in case. This method is ideal if you have already defeated the Ender Dragon and do not want to beat the Wither the "normal way". However, if you have not yet beaten the Ender Dragon, then we recommend you check out our recent article on how to beat it easily. You can of course also avoid the End dimension and summon the Wither below the Nether ceiling.

Let the gathering begin!

Now that you know how to beat the Wither, what are you waiting for? Download Badlion Client today and benefit from FPS improvements, countless Minecraft
mods for you to make your gameplay unique, and even Minecraft mods to help you beat the Wither or the Ender Dragon!