When playing Minecraft, there are two bosses – the Ender Dragon and the Wither. The Wither is the more deadly of the two, but to make up for this, the player can spawn it wherever they want. This includes the Nether, any biome in the Overworld, and even the End. Upon killing it, the Wither drops a nether star. This is used to craft beacons, which give a status effect to anyone nearby. The wither is spawned with soul sand in a T shape with one sand on the bottom and three crossing the top. The player must then put three wither skeleton skulls on top of the T. When spawned, the wither turns bright white and flies up. It then creates a massive explosion around itself, bigger than any other explosion in the game.

When fighting the wither, the player must stay away from the skulls that it shoots from its head, as they inflict the wither effect on normal and hard difficulty, and that is a poison that will kill the player. On easy difficulty, the Wither will not inflict the wither effect, and with armor enchanted with blast protection, the damage can be minimal. When above half health, the wither will fly to a spot directly above the player, animal, or mob it is targeting and fire black skulls rapidly at them. These skulls have an explosion that is around the size of a creeper explosion, but on normal and hard they can be way more deadly because they are coupled with the wither effect. The wither will eventually stop firing the black skulls and fire a bright blue one. This travels slower, but has a bigger explosion radius and deals more damage. Any of these skulls can be knocked back at the wither, though, which helps when trying to run.

Upon reaching half health, the wither drops to the ground and creates another massive explosion around itself. It also has a shield that deflects arrows, meaning the player must attack it with a sword or other non-projectile weapon to kill it. The wither also adopts a new strategy when at half health. It will fire skulls as normal, but after firing the blue skull, instead of flying to a spot over the player/mob/animal, it will tilt forward and fly toward them, making a  3-5 block trench below its path. This new attack will not inflict the wither effect, but the skulls still will on normal and hard difficulty.

When you spawn the wither, you can choose to do it anywhere, and the best place to do it is underground. You can fire at the wither from a 1×2 tunnel, and retreat if you get the wither effect. When it gets to half health, take care of the wither skeletons and then eat an enchanted golden apple and rush the wither. The enchanted golden apple will have enough regeneration to counter the wither II effect, and you won’t take much damage, if any.

When spawning the wither outside, you may want to leash animals that have no significance to you nearby (but outside the birth explosion). This will sometimes distract the wither, giving you a chance to fire at it. You will also want to spawn it somewhere that is far away from your base/home because the land around it will get destroyed. When it flies above you, you just need to run. It will fire skulls very rapidly and you will not last long. If you get far enough away, you can turn and fire at a skull to knock it back at the wither or fire directly at the wither.

When the wither gets below half health, make sure to land a few hits quickly so that it doesn’t regenerate health and get back to above half health. Also, watch out for the wither skeletons it spawns on normal and hard. It will regenerate health slowly, but if you have the wither effect, it will regenerate faster. With the shield around it, you cannot throw tridents at it or shoot arrows at it, so you will have to attack it with a melee attack from a trident or with a sword. A diamond sword enchanted with Smite V will to 20 damage to the wither, and will kill it in 8 shots. If you have a smite V diamond sword and an enchanted golden apple, you can rush the Wither and hit it 8 times. You could also wait for it to use its dash attack and hit it 8 times then.