Whither the Wither?

We have obtained sufficient wither skeleton skulls to create a wither. Now, the question is...how do we kill him safely?

The only blocks the wither can't destroy with his explosions or touch are bedrock. So we should probably fight him someplace down at bedrock level, with no lava for us to fall/get knocked into. Perhaps a mined-out area of the old mines would work. We should bring some iron golems to help us, and make sure there are at least a few of us available. We should go fully armored, although I don't think multiple sets of diamond armor are a good investment, so we'll have to make do with enchanted iron. Protection IV and Blast Protection IV are especially useful, Fire Protection not so much. Power IV bows are a must, as are some sort of enchanted swords, preferably diamond ones with high levels of Smite or Sharpness. Buff potions are also useful, both splash potions of Healing II (damage wither and heal ourselves at the same time) and potions of Regeneration to take ourselves. Strength II potions would not be wasted once the wither gets down to half health and loses the ability to fly (but gains the ability to be immune to arrows and potions). Going in having freshly eaten goes without saying.

Once preparations are made, we can schedule a time when several players will be available to take on the wither at once.

Snow golems? Good distraction apparently.
Also, what's more to my research? The good golden apples (with gold blocks) act as a good counterbalance to the wither effect and are VERY useful, but maybe at a cost? It may lag a bit when fighting the wither. Also a good enchanted diamond sword is much more effective than a bow. And I was watching some dude fight it just now, it looks like a cool idea to use tnt against the wither, and if we fight it in a small enough area, tnt we set off against it and it's own projectiles will damage it, I was thinking maybe make a cube of tnt around it then spawn it inside the tnt, as it would shoot the tnt to get out and get hurt(or we detonate it). That's all for now.
Alsoooo, if you walk towards the wither while attacking it, it cannot shoot you as it is constantly adjusting aim.

-Correct me if any of this information is wrong, hope it helps

In addition to the points thus far it is important to have extra gear lying at a checkpoint nearby so fallen comrades can hop right back into the carnage. I don't know the specific facts about the wither, but he seems to regenerate health slowly over time. Also, we are probably going to lose some nice equipment in the fight but that is unavoidable. Best to be over-prepared than have the wither rampaging through the world with us helpless to stop him.

It's regeneration is half a heart per 20 ticks. So that's half a heart every second. I agree with your points there.

Might wanna put important facts about it in main post also.

Yes. Everyone should do their research on the wither before we fight him. It is an extremely tough foe, and can be very hazardous to the city as a whole. If everyone knows the behaviors of the wither, what can damage him, and when, then we all stand a better chance of grinding him into the dust. I suggest that everyone brings their own armour, and doesn't make any diamond armour. A diamond sword we could perhaps consider, but a bow is a must.

As with all fights against tough enemies, iron and snow golems are great distractions, and not to be overlooked as useful. If we put all those pumpkins to good use and make us a good 20-30 snow golems around the guy, we will have a good head start.

I do like the idea of using the mine though

Great point there I reckon. We should probably plan the whole fight out before we start it, that way we are FULLY prepared. For example assign different roles: "Bob- you long range from here, Rob- you Slash the foo' to death with your battleaxe Sword". Planning would be good.

I'm happy to take up a bow. I much prefer to take a ranged position. Also, another thing to consider is friendly fire. We play without PvP, but, it is highly likely that if we turned it on, we would hit each other once or twice, making it a more interesting fight. Just an option to make it mroe of a challenge.

Oh, and I've got a small army of dogs breeding, so we could make use of those too, if dogs will attack it

Dogs WILL attack the wither. But until he's taken down to half health, the wither flies (and can blast his way through a solid-obsidian ceiling to do so, so keeping him in a confined area won't work for more than a few seconds). Dogs can't attack him while he's flying more than a couple of blocks off the ground.

Also, the wither gains health every time he damages another mob, so things like dogs and snow golems that don't do a whole lot of damage before dying are gonna be a net boost to the wither's health.

Once the wither is down to half health, he loses the ability to fly, but gains the "Wither Armor" effect, which looks like a charged-creeper aura and makes him invulnerable to arrows and potions. At that point, it's swords or nothing, pretty much. Nothing to be done but wade in with a sword and slash him as much as possible.

If that's the case, then we'll leave it at iron golems. I forgot about him healing from hitting us

Maybe we can abuse the wither. He could be a major contributor to the digging of the farm caves if ya know what I mean. Unfortunately if we do that we might as well be blasting with TNT. Only the wither would be more fun.

Also I thought of a possible arena that would give us the best chance for killing it without losing a ton of materials and armor what-nots, it is a one time use arena and it would require 6 dwarves to run properly. On the upside the fight would be very short and controlled with minimal losses.

I'll try not to butcher my explanation of this.

We dig a hallway that is 1 high and 4 wide and about 100 long, The wither is at one end we are at the other. It would be smashing its way through the hallway to us while we rained death from the other side. Along the sides behind a thin wall of stone Iron golems await for us to release them. We would dig shafts upwards from level 17 to place tnt and a wire connected to our base of operations during the fight. This tnt would be triggered once either the wither gets within 15 blocks of us or preferably when its shield goes up and can no longer fly. The purpose of the explosives is to blow out the hallway opening up a free route to the wither as well as to release the iron re-enforcement in the walls. once this happens we throw buffs at the floor and eat quickly then charge the weakened wither with our swords as 2 of the dwarves who were stationed behind the wither's original position(unlike the other 4 at the end of the hall) emerge and flank. The golems distract while the distance is closed and we smash the half dead wither quickly. This should produce minimal loss of material and minimal deaths.

This was all theory and I have tested NONE of it. for all I know the wither wont be aggro against us at that range I don't know. However if everything I assumed was correct this should work if it is well built and well executed. One way or another we will get that Nether

Supacreator wrote:
We dig a hallway that is 1 high and 4 wide and about 100 long, The wither is at one end we are at the other. It would be smashing its way through the hallway to us while we rained death from the other side.

Eh? The wither can see us through walls, it can smash its way through walls to get at us. How do we get 100 blocks away after building the wither (which can't be done with pistons)? If one of the guys "hiding" behind the wither makes him, the Wither will ignore the more distant dwarves to attack them instead.

And how do we rain death through a 1-high hallway? A 1-wide and 4-high at least might allow some long-distance arrow shots by one dwarf at a time. But if two dwarves try to use that same slit of a hallway to fire arrows, they'll mostly ensure they both get hit by the blast of the same wither skull.

Supacreator wrote:
Along the sides behind a thin wall of stone Iron golems await for us to release them.

And how do we release them? Switch mid-battle to picks and dig them out? Pistons, putting valuable resources in the way of wither explosions? TNT dropped from the ceiling, injuring the golems in the process and being very inexact in their timing?

Supacreator wrote:
We would dig shafts upwards from level 17 to place tnt and a wire connected to our base of operations during the fight. This tnt would be triggered once either the wither gets within 15 blocks of us or preferably when its shield goes up and can no longer fly.

I just had an idea. Right next to where we are going to build the wither, we build a column of alternating blocks and redstone torches. At the top, far above, are a bunch of tnt wired to the topmost torch, which is off. When the wither activates, he causes a large explosion around himself, severing the chain of torches, turning the top torch on, activating the TNT, which drops onto the newborn wither and blasts him at close range. A backup system with a switch will be available on the off chance that just the right number of torches are cut to leave the top torch somehow on. Just an idea.

We could do this the cheap way... 1 unarmoured dwarf, 1 room of TNT. Dwarf sacrifices his life by pulling a TNT trigger the moment he creates the wither, killing the wither in the process, or at least severely injuring him, allowing the other dwarves to come in a clear up the mess

TNT traps and suicide bombers, huh? I guess we could go that path, but I personally think we can take care of him with plain old swords and bows, no theatrics needed.

Actually, some TNT in the very beginning could be pretty useful. The blast along with some arrows should bring him down to his second stage and then we can all finish him off together. Basically we rush him so fast that he can only get a couple shots off before he dies. Using the experience from hunting down the skulls I enchanted myself a nice Power IV Flame I bow along with a full set of low enchantment iron armor.

We could consider having one person in the best gear possible as our juggernaut and kind of last resort if all else fails. Just some more thoughts of mine; plenty of tactics to explore here.

Starting off the fight with a large TNT explosion sounds like a must. We should then position archers on all sides around him so while he is focusing on one at a time (or possibly a cannon fodder dwarf in close range) the rest can rain arrows on him. Then at his second stage we all switch to swords and swarm him with relentless attacks until he drops.

We're in for quite a fight here, I better go dust off my trusty Power IV Flame I Infinity bow.

Honestly, between what? 5 of us? It should be an easy fight. Have arrows raining down on it and he'll be down to half health pretty quick. He might kill 2 of us in the process if we're unlucky. Charge in with swords to finish him off is probably the easiest part.

Does the wither take damage from explosions after his sheild goes up? because if so we have to be careful about how much we use. If we kill him and another explosions goes off the nether star will be lost.

Supacreator wrote:Does the wither take damage from explosions after his sheild goes up? because if so we have to be careful about how much we use. If we kill him and another explosions goes off the nether star will be lost.

Once he starts moving and blowing up blocks and such, it will be hard to get him into a pre-laid trap anyways. So I think we should restrict any TNT-related efforts to the moment immediately after he is formed, when we know where he will be, when we're all a ways back preparing to pepper him with arrows, and when we're not expecting the blasts to finish him off.

I have a proposition which most likely will revive this conversation. Beacons have the ability to give haste II which greatly increases the speed of mining operations. when combined with Eff IV diamond picks.... the result is fantastic. I think we really need to seriously consider getting a beacon for the farm caves. It should fracture the digging time needed. Especially when other speed digging methods are employed.

Fully agreed! Does anyone have experience with the wither? Do we still have the wither skulls, or do we need to find more?

Brendanan wrote:Fully agreed! Does anyone have experience with the wither? Do we still have the wither skulls, or do we need to find more?

No idea where they would be if we still have them. Or if we ever did. On my other server, I only ever collected a single wither skull, and that got left behind last time we reset the map. We're still dithering over when to kill the new enderdragon over there. Someone else there did manage to kill a wither, and I've got the beacon block to prove it. A few diamond swords of Smite V and some Power V bows, a few healing potions and some armor, plus some iron and snow golems to help out, and we should be able to kill the wither with a minimum of losses. But first we need wither skulls....

From the "So what did YOU do today?" thread:

" Arrowave on Sun Dec 16, 2012 7:20 pm
After countless hours in the nether fortress I finally found the last wither skeleton skull."


Our recently uploaded save was from january so the skulls should still be around, probably somewhere in the storage. Hopefully Arro remembers where he put them.

Alright guys, we DO have wither skeleton skulls. 3 of them, which is enough to make the wither. I left them in the "other rares" chest in the valuables hallway (Hall of riches?)

spectrumwars wrote:

Brendanan wrote:Fully agreed! Does anyone have experience with the wither? Do we still have the wither skulls, or do we need to find more?

No idea where they would be if we still have them.  Or if we ever did.  On my other server, I only ever collected a single wither skull, and that got left behind last time we reset the map.  We're still dithering over when to kill the new enderdragon over there.  Someone else there did manage to kill a wither, and I've got the beacon block to prove it.  A few diamond swords of Smite V and some Power V bows, a few healing potions and some armor, plus some iron and snow golems to help out, and we should be able to kill the wither with a minimum of losses. But first we need wither skulls....

I believe I have them in the enderchest for safekeeping. If not, they should be somewhere in the storage room.
EDIT: Whoops, I didn't read the post above.