Mob Guide ② Enderman — The Mob That Attacks When You Look at It, Holding the Key to the End
This story was machine-translated from Korean.
Most mobs in Minecraft attack when they see a player. The Enderman is the opposite. When a player looks at an Enderman, it attacks. With just this one rule about eye contact, the Enderman creates a tension that's completely different from other mobs. It can teleport, pick up and move blocks, and it suffers when it touches water. It also drops an Ender Pearl, opening the way to the End.
Episode 2 of the "Mob Guide" is about the Enderman. It covers everything from its appearance when it was introduced in 2011 to the actual rules of eye contact, block picking, weaknesses, and how Enderman farms work. All the stats are based on Java Edition.
In 2011, with the Adventure Update.
The Enderman was added to the game on September 14, 2011, with the Beta 1.8 'Adventure Update'. According to Minecraft the Wiki, Notch introduced the Enderman in a post from July that year as a mob that is "calm unless you look directly at it." During the PAX demo in August, it didn't drop Ender Pearls yet and instead dropped diamonds as a placeholder.
The design's starting point was revealed by Mojang. In a 2017 minecraft.net article titled 'Meet the Enderman', Jens explained that the Enderman was based on the Slender Man meme that was circulating on the internet, created by Notch. He also shared a story about the eye color.
"Originally, the eyes were green. That's why the 'Ender' item is green. Then one morning, Notch said, 'I changed the eye color; it should be purple,' and I said, 'Okay.' I still wonder why that was. I think it was because the portal particles and the portal are purple." — Jens Bergensten
When it first came in, the Enderman had green eyes and temporarily used zombie sounds. The current purple eyes and portal particles were refined later. According to the same article, the End dimension was conceived after the Enderman. The overlapping names were a coincidence. The End was first introduced in the same year's Beta 1.9 pre-release.
| Version | Changes |
|---|---|
| Beta 1.8 (2011) | Enderman added. Green eyes, temporary zombie sounds. |
| Beta 1.9 pre-release | No longer takes damage from projectiles, limited to certain blocks it can pick up, health increased from 20 to 40. |
| 1.9 (2016) | Drops blocks it was holding upon death. |
| 1.16 | Spawns in the Soul Sand Valley and Warped Forest in the Nether. |
| 1.18 | Only spawns in the Overworld at light level 0. |
Eye contact rules — what counts as 'looking'?
There are three ways to anger an Enderman: attack it, look at it for about 0.25 a second (5 ticks) within 64 blocks, or make it look at an Endermite. The detailed rules are as follows.
- If there is a block between you and the Enderman, it doesn't count as eye contact. Transparent blocks like glass also block it.
- Looking at its head will anger it regardless of direction. The same goes for looking at the back of its head.
- Wearing a carved pumpkin on your head prevents it from getting angry even if you look at it.
- Crouching or using invisibility reduces the detection range.
An angry Enderman will scream and shake. If you maintain eye contact within 16 blocks, the Enderman will freeze in place. If you get within 4 blocks, it will teleport away. If you look away, it will teleport closer and attack. Its attack damage is 4 on Easy 4.5, 7 on Normal, and 10 on Hard 10.5, and it has 40 health.
A mob that picks up blocks.
Endermen can pick up blocks. In Java Edition, they have a 1/20 chance each tick to pick up a block within a 4×3×4 area. The blocks they can pick up are limited to a specific list, such as dirt, sand, and flowers (#minecraft:enderman_holdable tag). The chance of placing a block down is much lower at 1/2000 each tick.
As a result, the fields where Endermen have passed through have holes, and dirt blocks are placed in odd locations. Endermen holding blocks do not despawn. If you don't want terrain damage on your server, you can mobGriefingturn off the game rule. In this case, Endermen won't pick up or place blocks. Starting from 1.9, if you kill an Enderman holding a block, that block will drop.
Weaknesses — Water, Rain, and Close Combat
Endermen take damage when they touch water. The same goes for rain; when it rains, they will keep teleporting until they find a dry spot. Splashing water bottles also hurt them. On the other hand, projectiles like arrows barely affect them. They will teleport away just before getting hit, and snowballs are simply absorbed.
How to deal with Endermen — ① Since they are 2.9tall, entering a 2-block high space will prevent them from following you. ② Stand near water or pour a water bucket. ③ Fight with melee weapons instead of ranged ones. ④ In the End, wearing a carved pumpkin means you don't have to worry about eye contact (though your field of view will be narrower).
Endermen don't only target players. Since version 20w46a, Endermen also attack all Endermites within 64 blocks. This behavior is key to the farms that will be discussed later.
Ender Pearls and the End — The Key to the End of the Game
When you kill an Enderman, it has a 50% chance to drop an Ender Pearl. With the Looting enchantment, the average number increases to 1-2. Throwing a pearl teleports you to the location it lands but deals 5 damage and has a 5% chance to spawn an Endermite.
The real use of the pearl is as an Eye of Ender. This item, made from an Ender Pearl and Blaze Powder, is necessary to find strongholds and open the End portal. Hunting Endermen is essentially a required step to reach the Ender Dragon. You can also obtain pearls through bartering with Piglins or trading with Cleric villagers.
In the End, Endermen are everywhere. They are the only mob that naturally spawns in all three dimensions in Java Edition. They are rare in the Overworld, common in the Warped Forest in the Nether, and appear in groups in the End. In the End, you have to be careful of eye contact while fighting the dragon, as Endermen are standing all around.
How does an Enderman farm work?
Enderman farms, which allow you to obtain both Ender Pearls and experience, are popular facilities on Survival servers. There are various designs, but the principles are similar. Here's a brief overview based on the strategy documents from Minecraft Wiki.
- Build it on the outskirts of the End. Create a spawn platform at least 128 blocks away from the central island or other spawn points in the End, so that Endermen only spawn on the platform.
- Attracts Endermites. If you throw an Ender Pearl to spawn an Endermite and name it with a name tag, it won't despawn if you put it in a minecart. Endermen will come to attack this Endermite.
- Weakens with fall damage. If an Enderman falls about 43 blocks, it will be left with half a heart.
- Finishes in one hit. The player deals the final blow, so they get the experience points.
The Endermite calls in the Endermen, fall damage reduces their health, and the player just needs to swing their sword. This setup takes advantage of the Enderman's behavior.
Summary
- Added in the 2011 Beta 1.8. According to Jeb, Notch created it based on the Slender Man meme.
- If you look at it for about 0.25 seconds within 64 blocks, it will get angry. A carved pumpkin blocks its gaze.
- It carries blocks and stops when you turn off
mobGriefing. - Weak to water and rain, and it avoids projectiles. Close combat and spaces 2 blocks high are the way to go.
- Ender Pearls are the key to getting to the End. The farm uses Endermite attraction and fall damage.
Next time, I'll cover the Warden, a mob designed to avoid fighting.
References
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