Top 5 hard to kill mobs in Minecraft

The dimensions of Minecraft are incredibly dangerous, all things considered. There are dozens of hostile mobs that will waste no time in attempting to kill any player they come across, to varying degrees of success depending on the particular mob. However, some mobs are noticeably harder to kill than the rest, either due to having more health, dealing more damage, or being hard to hit.

Detailed below are five of the hardest mobs in all of Minecraft to kill, along with what makes them so hardy against attack.

NOTE: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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Five of the hardest Minecraft mobs to kill

5) Shulkers

Closed Shulkers on the side of an end city (Image via Mojang)

Shulkers are the unique inhabitants of the lonely end cities found throughout Minecraft's underdeveloped End dimension. With 15 hearts of health, more than most common hostile mobs, they are surprisingly hard to kill.

Additionally, they can close their outer shell, which is used to craft Minecraft Shulker boxes. This grants them 20 armor, the equivalent of a full armor bar. To put that into perspective, an attack that deals four hearts of damage—a netherite sword on Java and a diamond sword on Bedrock—will only deal 2.72 damage to a closed Shulker. This is roughly a one-third reduction in damage.

Shulker attacks aren't deadly on their own, only dealing three hearts of damage. Their threat comes from the levitation they inflict on players. Each attack applies levitation for 10 seconds, which can lead to lethal falls without Minecraft god armor enchanted with feather falling.

And what's worse is Shulkers will teleport on taking damage, making them almost impossible to kill before they teleport away and start attacking again. This combination of factors is what makes them the fifth hardest mob to kill in the entire game.

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4) Ghasts

A Ghast found flying in the Nether. (Image via Mojang)

Ghasts are not a hard mob to kill if health is considered. In fact, they only have five hearts, which is quite low for one of Minecraft's hostile mobs. What makes them dangerous is their damage, range, and mobility. As flying mobs, they are almost impossible to hit without a bow. However, their maximum range is 64 blocks, making them hard to hit even with arrows.

They also deal considerable damage. The initial fireball deals up to 4.5 hearts of damage on contact and then explodes. This explosion deals damage depending on difficulty and distance but can deal up to 12.75 hearts of damage. This means that a direct shot would deal 17.25 hearts of damage, enough to take a chunk out of the HP of armored players.

Ultimately, what makes Ghasts one of the hardest mobs to kill is their long range, especially when combined with their ability to soar away from any potential damage.

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3) Ravagers

A dangerous Ravager up close. (Image via Mojang)

Ravagers are another incredibly hard mob to kill. This is in part due to their large health pool, especially when compared to other common hostile mobs. Ravagers have 50 hearts by default. For comparison, zombies have 10 hearts, and endermen have 20 hearts. So a single Ravager can tank as many sword hits as five zombies.

Ravagers are also able to deal considerable damage. They have a roar attack they can use at range that deals a flat three hearts of damage regardless of difficulty, and a bite that deals up to nine hearts of damage on hard. The evokers and vindicators, normally only found in elusive Minecraft woodland mansions, that ride them can also deal large damage to players, making the situation even worse.

To summarize, the Ravager ranks among the game's hardest mobs to kill thanks to its high health pool and ability to deal damage. The extra hostile mobs that ride Ravagers only make them harder to kill before falling, helping them rank so highly.

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2) Wither

The Wither is one of the deadliest bosses in the game. (Image via Mojang)

The Wither is deadly due to how much damage it can pump out in nearly no time at all. When first spawned, Minecraft's wither boss explodes in a huge area, dealing up to 51 hearts of damage on hard to those closest to it. Each wither skull it fires deals six hearts of damage, with an extra 2.5 hearts of damage from its explosion. It also inflicts Wither II on normal and hard.

Wither II is a Minecraft status effect that applies aggressive damage over time and can kill players, unlike regular poison. On normal, the effect lasts for 10 seconds, dealing half a heart of damage per second. On hard, the effect deals the same damage per second but lasts for 40 seconds in total.

The Bedrock Edition of the game's Wither also has a dash attack that can deal 7.5 hearts of damage. That's not the only difference between Bedrock and Java withers, however. Java Edition Withers have 150 hearts, while this depends on the difficulty for Bedrock. Easy Bedrock Withers have 150 hearts, normal ones have 225 hearts, and hard difficulty Withers have 300 hearts.

This combination of damage, health, and destructive potential puts the Wither multiple heads above the competition, making it the second hardest-to-kill mob that Minecraft has to offer.

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1) Warden

A deadly Warden bursting from the ground. (Image via Mojang)

The Warden is almost certainly the hardest hostile mob to kill. There are several different reasons for this. The first of them is just how much health the Warden has. It has a total of 250 hearts, more than any other Minecraft mob with health in the entire game other than Bedrock's Wither on hard, which has 300.

The main reason for the Warden being so hard to kill, however, is the huge amount of damage it can deal. On hard, a single melee strike will deal a massive 22.5 hearts of damage, enough to kill even reasonably well-armored players outright. The attack also disables shields for five seconds, making a follow-up attack likely to finish the job.

However, the threat doesn't stop there, as the Warden has a sonic boom attack it can use with a range of up to 15 horizontal blocks and 20 vertical blocks. This attack is capable of piercing through blocks, even blocks like Minecraft obsidian, which are normally resistant to all external effects, and even other mobs without damaging them, and deals up to seven hearts of damage on hard.

A full list of the warden's attacks and damage capabilities is as follows:

Attack Type	Difficulty	Damage (in Hearts)
Melee	Easy	8
Melee	Normal	15
Melee	Hard	22.5
Ranged	Easy	3
Ranged	Normal	5
Ranged	Hard	7.5

Ultimately, it's this combination of damage and health that makes the Warden the toughest mob to kill in the entire game.