Mob of the Month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Enderdragon!!!
Information
The Ender Dragon is the first official boss mob to appear in Minecraft (with the second being the Wither, introduced in pre-release 12w34a). It only naturally spawns in The End. This mob uses the dragon model Notch created, but utilizes a texture more reminiscent of an Enderman, being black and scaly with purple eyes.The Ender Dragon is a large, black dragon with glowing purple eyes. It is the largest mob in the game. It has a few dark gray features, such as the wings and various other parts of its body. Similar to Endermen and Spiders, the Ender Dragon's eyes are visible through darkness, so you can see it coming from anywhere in the End.[edit]StrategyBefore entering the End, it is very strongly advised that the player first sleep in a bed near the End portal or taking a backup in case they die during the battle. It is strongly recommended that the player should have a full set of iron armor or higher, as any lower will get you easily knocked offThe End by the Ender Dragon. Also have a diamond sword along with a bow and 2 to 4 stacks of arrows, or a bow with the Infinity enchantment, but note that the sword enchantment fire aspect and the bow enchantment flame do not work on the Ender Dragon.
Upon entering the End, a purple "boss health" bar appears at the top of the player's screen. This bar indicates the remaining health of the resident Ender Dragon. Each End dimension houses a single Ender Dragon whose health is periodically charged by nearby Ender Crystals. These crystals can be found at the top of Obsidian pillars that dot the landscape. As the healing effect of the Ender Crystals can reverse hard-won damage rather quickly, it is recommended that they be destroyed before the player engages the Ender Dragon.
Destroying an Ender Crystal while the Ender Dragon is being charged by it (indicated by a series of circles appearing between the Ender Crystal and the Ender Dragon) will cause the Ender Dragon to take additional damage instead of being healed. If the player repeats this method for all of the Ender Crysals, then the Ender Dragon will become weak and can be killed with no chance of it regaining health. Even after taking so much damage, it is still stronger than an average mob. Players can destroy an Ender Crystal by either as they would a regular block or by attacking it with a sword, a bow and arrow,snowballs, etc. When destroyed, the Ender Crystal explodes, leaving behind a block of Bedrock.
Defeating the Ender Dragon in creative mode is quite easy, as the player can fly around and easily snipe or attack the dragon with melee attacks without having to worry about getting killed. But you MUST destroy the Ender Crystals as they will continue to heal the dragon even in creative mode. You have to worry about possibly getting knocked off the island because even in creative mode you can still die if you are knocked off the edge into the void.
The most common and easiest strategy to defeat the Ender Dragon is to destroy all of the Ender Crystals before attempting to fight the Ender Dragon, as any damage done to the dragon can be quickly undone by the crystals. Since Ender Crystals explode, an advisable strategy is to shoot arrows or to throw snowballs from a distance so the player does not take damage, then climb up the Obsidian towers with a ladder. This ensures that if the player falls off the tower due to exploding Ender Crystals, that player will be able to grab onto the ladder and not die. (However, it should be noted that the Ender Dragon can and will destroy the player's ladders).
If at all possible, the player should attempt to destroy the Ender Crystals while the Ender Dragon is too far away to detect or charge them. The player can wait for the Ender Dragon to fly near to the edge of the map, then run the other way until the boss's health bar disappears. The player can then safely destroy the Ender Crystals on that end of the map, taking care not to get close enough for the Boss's health bar to reappear. By repeating this strategy a few times, the player should be able to clear out the crystals from all parts of the map.
When the Ender Dragon charges the player, it is directly facing the player. This gives the player a good chance of attacking its head to deal extra damage. But if the player decides to attack it, he/she will have less time to try to avoid its attack. The Ender Dragon will also destroy any block it comes into contact with except Obsidian, End Stone, and Bedrock. Instead of destroying them, the Ender Dragon passes through them. This makes TNT strategies difficult, if not impossible, to successfully execute. The Ender Dragon's swooping melee attacks have a significant amount of knockback if a player is hit by them, often knocking the player off of the platform in the End. The impact of the Ender Dragon's body and wings cause damage to the player, as well as knock back. Because of the Ender Dragon's speed and flight, projectiles are favored over melee approaches. The Ender Dragon's immense health and evasive nature necessitate a large ammunition stockpile. At least 2 full stacks of arrows are recommended since most will miss. Lava is useless, as it is immune to fire damage. Water is also useless, as it will take no damage from water and will destroy the block, however it can be used to make a "safe zone" which Endermen will teleport out of. Knockback enchantments are useless unless the enchantment is on grade 8 or higher (this is possible in SMP with modifications). Snowballs have the potential to stun-lock an Ender Dragon as its recovery time is slower than the firing rate of snowballs. Snowballs can also damage the Ender Dragon along with other thrown entities, such as Ender Pearls and Eggs. The Ender Dragon will take more damage from a melee attack than a ranged attack. Therefore, the player should wait for it to charge, sidestep, and then attack. Beds, which explode in the End, can be detonated when the Ender Dragon is nearby, causing considerable damage to it. This seems to almost be an exploit and should be avoided. TNT works the same without exploitation.
A dying enderdragon. (Animated)
Once killed, the Ender Dragon will appear to have beams of light spontaneously erupting from its body. It will then explode, dropping enough experience to bring a player from no experience to level 78 (20000 - 10 drops of 1000 experience, one drop of 10000 experience).
It will also spawn an exit portal with a Dragon Egg on top. (The egg is just a trophy, but retrieving it can be non-trivial, see its wiki page for tips on how to do so.) Entering the portal will activate a text cutscene that lasts for an average of 8 minutes, 30 seconds. You can customise what this scene says in your minecraft.jar. After the cutscene, the player will be teleported to his/her spawn point in The Overworld. The cutscene can be skipped by pressing the Esc key, and will instantly send the player to his/her spawn point/Bed in The Overworld. The player may return to the End after defeating the Ender Dragon, however there will be no new dragon.
[edit]Ender Dragon in the Overworld or NetherUsing the export-import feature of an editor like MCEdit, it is possible to place one or multiple Ender Dragons into an Overworld map or Nether map.
An Ender Dragon destroys almost any block it comes into contact with replacing the said block with air and displaying the white shock wave animation in the process. The only blocks not destroyed are those which occur naturally in the End: Endstone, Obsidian, and Bedrock. The Ender Dragon simply passes through these blocks without replacing them with air.
In the Overworld the Ender Dragon employs much the same attack strategy, flying and wheeling and recoiling if hit by arrows. Generally the Dragon remains above the player, making holes in any hills it may encounter and when charging the player it can plough a track across the terrain launching any mobs or entities it may encounter into the air in much the same manner as when striking the player.
If the player retreats underground, the dragon continues to attack, mainly from above the horizontal plane the player is in, and in the process gouging large tunnels through the landscape and doing a lot of damage to the terrain.
In the Nether the effect is much the same, the Dragon carves tunnels through both netherrack and nether fortresses, and over time can carve out quite a large volume. If the Dragon flies through water or lava, like most other blocks, they are replaced by air and do no apparent damage to the Dragon. In essence, the Dragon can pass through the landscape with impunity.
If multiple Dragons are present, only one health bar shows in 1.2. The state of health seems to indicate that of the closest/last attacked Dragon, and if this Dragon is killed the bar reverts to another Dragon. If a Dragon's flight path takes it over the edge of the map, over unloaded chunks, it glitches and its animation becomes "stuck". If the player approaches the glitched Dragon, loading chunks beneath it, it resumes normal behavior. If the player tries to create distance between himself and the group of Dragons, generally one Dragon will do the majority of the attacking and the others will remain in the original area. Killing the attacking Dragon on a chunk that is far enough away from the others such that they are now over unloaded chunks will free the player from attack and clear the "Boss Health" bar from the screen. The portal created by killing a Dragon in the Overworld or Nether will lead to the End when used. If the player enters chunks on a large map where Ender Dragons have been placed with an editor, the "Boss Health" bar will appear, initially empty, but will fill as it "acquires" the nearest Dragon which will commence attacking in the normal manner.
If the player encases himself inside an obsidian or end stone structure (in Peaceful Setting), and allows multiple Dragons to repeatadly attack over the space of half an hour playing time or so, one or more of the Dragons can be observed to have changed their attack strategy, and repeatedly wheel and turn at close range and continually charge the player without much long distance flying between wheels and turns. A Dragon exhibiting this type of behavior can be rapidly killed with arrows.
It is advised that Ender Dragons should not be hacked onto any maps of value because of the damage they can cause.AchievementsMain article: AchievementsIconAchievementIn-game descriptionPrerequisitesActual requirements (if different)Version restrictionXbox points earned
The End.Defeat the Ender DragonThe End?Enter the End exit portalwhich appears after the dragon's death. Entering End Portal block hacked to the game via world editor software also counts even before killing the dragon.PCN/A[edit]HistoryOriginally, dragons were a possible planned mob, hinted at byNotch during the Spider Jockey update.[1] He also mentioned that dragon lairs may be an addition.[2] They remained a potential work-in-progress until the Ender Dragon was announced.
Notch has stated in the past that if dragons are added, they will not be mountable as it would put too much pressure on SMPservers.[3]
In September 2011, Notch stated that "dragons will be added eventually."[4]
On October 7th 2011, Notch revealed the existence of the Ender Dragon.
On October 10th 2011, Notch released a video showing a small clip of the End that also shows the Ender Dragon fly into the top of the frame. [1] [2]
On October 11th 2011 A player named stropping_notch asked Jeb if Dragon riding is an idea, to which he replied it is. It is not clear whether this means it is an idea under consideration or not, however, or whether it would apply to the Red Dragons or the Ender Dragon.[5]
On October 12th 2011, in a Reddit post Notch also said, "They will be different dragons. The Ender Dragon will probably become larger, and the ones in the main world will be this size, won't go through terrain, and will be red because dragons are red."[6]
On October 12th 2011, Notch stated in a twitter post that "Dragons have 6 limbs",[7] consisting of 2 wings, and 4 legs.
On April 28th 2012, Jeb mentioned that he wouldn't be adding any more boss mobs until he makes the Ender Dragon "more fun first". Despite this, the Wither was added before any changes were made to the Ender Dragon.[8] Therefore, we may be able to expect more boss mobs in Minecraft before the Ender Dragon is changed.
[edit]Version historyBeta1.9pre4Added Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon existed in the code, mostly functional, however the dragon had not been enabled ingame yet and players were unable to damage it. Certain mods would allow the spawning of the Ender Dragon, but again, no physical interactions were available.1.9pre5Added the ability for players to damage Ender Dragons. They required mods or a mob-spawner to be brought into the game however.1.9pre6Officially implemented Ender Dragons into the game. This includes a single Ender Dragon as a boss battle, spawning naturally when the player first enters the End.Official release1.3Fixed the bug where after being damaged once, Ender Dragons would do no contact damage.12w34b"Boss Health" now says "Ender Dragon".1.4preAdded new sounds for the Ender Dragon.
Upon entering the End, a purple "boss health" bar appears at the top of the player's screen. This bar indicates the remaining health of the resident Ender Dragon. Each End dimension houses a single Ender Dragon whose health is periodically charged by nearby Ender Crystals. These crystals can be found at the top of Obsidian pillars that dot the landscape. As the healing effect of the Ender Crystals can reverse hard-won damage rather quickly, it is recommended that they be destroyed before the player engages the Ender Dragon.
Destroying an Ender Crystal while the Ender Dragon is being charged by it (indicated by a series of circles appearing between the Ender Crystal and the Ender Dragon) will cause the Ender Dragon to take additional damage instead of being healed. If the player repeats this method for all of the Ender Crysals, then the Ender Dragon will become weak and can be killed with no chance of it regaining health. Even after taking so much damage, it is still stronger than an average mob. Players can destroy an Ender Crystal by either as they would a regular block or by attacking it with a sword, a bow and arrow,snowballs, etc. When destroyed, the Ender Crystal explodes, leaving behind a block of Bedrock.
Defeating the Ender Dragon in creative mode is quite easy, as the player can fly around and easily snipe or attack the dragon with melee attacks without having to worry about getting killed. But you MUST destroy the Ender Crystals as they will continue to heal the dragon even in creative mode. You have to worry about possibly getting knocked off the island because even in creative mode you can still die if you are knocked off the edge into the void.
The most common and easiest strategy to defeat the Ender Dragon is to destroy all of the Ender Crystals before attempting to fight the Ender Dragon, as any damage done to the dragon can be quickly undone by the crystals. Since Ender Crystals explode, an advisable strategy is to shoot arrows or to throw snowballs from a distance so the player does not take damage, then climb up the Obsidian towers with a ladder. This ensures that if the player falls off the tower due to exploding Ender Crystals, that player will be able to grab onto the ladder and not die. (However, it should be noted that the Ender Dragon can and will destroy the player's ladders).
If at all possible, the player should attempt to destroy the Ender Crystals while the Ender Dragon is too far away to detect or charge them. The player can wait for the Ender Dragon to fly near to the edge of the map, then run the other way until the boss's health bar disappears. The player can then safely destroy the Ender Crystals on that end of the map, taking care not to get close enough for the Boss's health bar to reappear. By repeating this strategy a few times, the player should be able to clear out the crystals from all parts of the map.
When the Ender Dragon charges the player, it is directly facing the player. This gives the player a good chance of attacking its head to deal extra damage. But if the player decides to attack it, he/she will have less time to try to avoid its attack. The Ender Dragon will also destroy any block it comes into contact with except Obsidian, End Stone, and Bedrock. Instead of destroying them, the Ender Dragon passes through them. This makes TNT strategies difficult, if not impossible, to successfully execute. The Ender Dragon's swooping melee attacks have a significant amount of knockback if a player is hit by them, often knocking the player off of the platform in the End. The impact of the Ender Dragon's body and wings cause damage to the player, as well as knock back. Because of the Ender Dragon's speed and flight, projectiles are favored over melee approaches. The Ender Dragon's immense health and evasive nature necessitate a large ammunition stockpile. At least 2 full stacks of arrows are recommended since most will miss. Lava is useless, as it is immune to fire damage. Water is also useless, as it will take no damage from water and will destroy the block, however it can be used to make a "safe zone" which Endermen will teleport out of. Knockback enchantments are useless unless the enchantment is on grade 8 or higher (this is possible in SMP with modifications). Snowballs have the potential to stun-lock an Ender Dragon as its recovery time is slower than the firing rate of snowballs. Snowballs can also damage the Ender Dragon along with other thrown entities, such as Ender Pearls and Eggs. The Ender Dragon will take more damage from a melee attack than a ranged attack. Therefore, the player should wait for it to charge, sidestep, and then attack. Beds, which explode in the End, can be detonated when the Ender Dragon is nearby, causing considerable damage to it. This seems to almost be an exploit and should be avoided. TNT works the same without exploitation.
A dying enderdragon. (Animated)
Once killed, the Ender Dragon will appear to have beams of light spontaneously erupting from its body. It will then explode, dropping enough experience to bring a player from no experience to level 78 (20000 - 10 drops of 1000 experience, one drop of 10000 experience).
It will also spawn an exit portal with a Dragon Egg on top. (The egg is just a trophy, but retrieving it can be non-trivial, see its wiki page for tips on how to do so.) Entering the portal will activate a text cutscene that lasts for an average of 8 minutes, 30 seconds. You can customise what this scene says in your minecraft.jar. After the cutscene, the player will be teleported to his/her spawn point in The Overworld. The cutscene can be skipped by pressing the Esc key, and will instantly send the player to his/her spawn point/Bed in The Overworld. The player may return to the End after defeating the Ender Dragon, however there will be no new dragon.
[edit]Ender Dragon in the Overworld or NetherUsing the export-import feature of an editor like MCEdit, it is possible to place one or multiple Ender Dragons into an Overworld map or Nether map.
An Ender Dragon destroys almost any block it comes into contact with replacing the said block with air and displaying the white shock wave animation in the process. The only blocks not destroyed are those which occur naturally in the End: Endstone, Obsidian, and Bedrock. The Ender Dragon simply passes through these blocks without replacing them with air.
In the Overworld the Ender Dragon employs much the same attack strategy, flying and wheeling and recoiling if hit by arrows. Generally the Dragon remains above the player, making holes in any hills it may encounter and when charging the player it can plough a track across the terrain launching any mobs or entities it may encounter into the air in much the same manner as when striking the player.
If the player retreats underground, the dragon continues to attack, mainly from above the horizontal plane the player is in, and in the process gouging large tunnels through the landscape and doing a lot of damage to the terrain.
In the Nether the effect is much the same, the Dragon carves tunnels through both netherrack and nether fortresses, and over time can carve out quite a large volume. If the Dragon flies through water or lava, like most other blocks, they are replaced by air and do no apparent damage to the Dragon. In essence, the Dragon can pass through the landscape with impunity.
If multiple Dragons are present, only one health bar shows in 1.2. The state of health seems to indicate that of the closest/last attacked Dragon, and if this Dragon is killed the bar reverts to another Dragon. If a Dragon's flight path takes it over the edge of the map, over unloaded chunks, it glitches and its animation becomes "stuck". If the player approaches the glitched Dragon, loading chunks beneath it, it resumes normal behavior. If the player tries to create distance between himself and the group of Dragons, generally one Dragon will do the majority of the attacking and the others will remain in the original area. Killing the attacking Dragon on a chunk that is far enough away from the others such that they are now over unloaded chunks will free the player from attack and clear the "Boss Health" bar from the screen. The portal created by killing a Dragon in the Overworld or Nether will lead to the End when used. If the player enters chunks on a large map where Ender Dragons have been placed with an editor, the "Boss Health" bar will appear, initially empty, but will fill as it "acquires" the nearest Dragon which will commence attacking in the normal manner.
If the player encases himself inside an obsidian or end stone structure (in Peaceful Setting), and allows multiple Dragons to repeatadly attack over the space of half an hour playing time or so, one or more of the Dragons can be observed to have changed their attack strategy, and repeatedly wheel and turn at close range and continually charge the player without much long distance flying between wheels and turns. A Dragon exhibiting this type of behavior can be rapidly killed with arrows.
It is advised that Ender Dragons should not be hacked onto any maps of value because of the damage they can cause.AchievementsMain article: AchievementsIconAchievementIn-game descriptionPrerequisitesActual requirements (if different)Version restrictionXbox points earned
The End.Defeat the Ender DragonThe End?Enter the End exit portalwhich appears after the dragon's death. Entering End Portal block hacked to the game via world editor software also counts even before killing the dragon.PCN/A[edit]HistoryOriginally, dragons were a possible planned mob, hinted at byNotch during the Spider Jockey update.[1] He also mentioned that dragon lairs may be an addition.[2] They remained a potential work-in-progress until the Ender Dragon was announced.
Notch has stated in the past that if dragons are added, they will not be mountable as it would put too much pressure on SMPservers.[3]
In September 2011, Notch stated that "dragons will be added eventually."[4]
On October 7th 2011, Notch revealed the existence of the Ender Dragon.
On October 10th 2011, Notch released a video showing a small clip of the End that also shows the Ender Dragon fly into the top of the frame. [1] [2]
On October 11th 2011 A player named stropping_notch asked Jeb if Dragon riding is an idea, to which he replied it is. It is not clear whether this means it is an idea under consideration or not, however, or whether it would apply to the Red Dragons or the Ender Dragon.[5]
On October 12th 2011, in a Reddit post Notch also said, "They will be different dragons. The Ender Dragon will probably become larger, and the ones in the main world will be this size, won't go through terrain, and will be red because dragons are red."[6]
On October 12th 2011, Notch stated in a twitter post that "Dragons have 6 limbs",[7] consisting of 2 wings, and 4 legs.
On April 28th 2012, Jeb mentioned that he wouldn't be adding any more boss mobs until he makes the Ender Dragon "more fun first". Despite this, the Wither was added before any changes were made to the Ender Dragon.[8] Therefore, we may be able to expect more boss mobs in Minecraft before the Ender Dragon is changed.
[edit]Version historyBeta1.9pre4Added Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon existed in the code, mostly functional, however the dragon had not been enabled ingame yet and players were unable to damage it. Certain mods would allow the spawning of the Ender Dragon, but again, no physical interactions were available.1.9pre5Added the ability for players to damage Ender Dragons. They required mods or a mob-spawner to be brought into the game however.1.9pre6Officially implemented Ender Dragons into the game. This includes a single Ender Dragon as a boss battle, spawning naturally when the player first enters the End.Official release1.3Fixed the bug where after being damaged once, Ender Dragons would do no contact damage.12w34b"Boss Health" now says "Ender Dragon".1.4preAdded new sounds for the Ender Dragon.