Key Takeaway
Wardens spawn if you trigger a total of four Sculk Shriekers, regardless of where they are. Afterward, a Warden will track down players and mobs who make the most noise. Due to their high maximum health, Wardens are difficult to defeat in combat—especially since their melee and ranged attacks deal a lot of damage. Their ranged attacks also ignore Shields, armor, and all effects except for Resistance. If a Warden doesn’t sense anyone nearby for 60 seconds, they will burrow back underground.
Before you descend into Minecraft‘s Deep Dark biome, you should prepare yourself for encounters with Wardens. These hostile mobs are dangerous and will hunt you down wherever you go. Thankfully, there are some ways of dealing with them.
Table Of Contents
How Wardens Spawn
Wardens can only be summoned by Sculk Shiekers (outside of Creative Mode). When a player triggers a total of four Sculk Shriekers, a Warden will always spawn near the fourth one. It doesn’t matter where the Sculk Shriekers are or how far apart they are from each other.
Moreover, Wardens will always spawn when a fourth Sculk Shrieker is triggered (unless there is another Warden within 24 blocks). It takes a Warden just under seven seconds to fully emerge from the ground when it is summoned, which gives you some time to begin your escape.
Unlike many other hostile mobs, Wardens can spawn regardless of the light level of the area they are within. This means you cannot prevent one from spawning by simply illuminating your surroundings.
How Wardens Will Hunt You Down
Since Wardens cannot see, they use their hearing and sense of smell to find you. In regards to their hearing, these mighty foes will sense vibrations that come from various sources up to 16 blocks away.
They can smell entities up to 24 blocks away, although will prioritize pursuing players who make the most noise. Everything you do will create vibrations unless you are sneaking.
Every time a Warden hears you, it will get progressively angrier. It also has a dedicated anger meter which affects its behavior. The range of this anger meter goes from zero to 150.
What Causes Vibrations That Can Be Detected
All types of vibrations you cause will increase a Warden’s anger meter by 35—with the partial exception of ranged attacks. A single projectile being launched from less than 30 blocks away will increase the anger meter by 10. However, if two projectiles are fired within a span of five seconds, the anger meter will instead increase by 35. If a projectile is fired from more than 30 blocks away, its vibrations will not register.
Being silent will help you avoid detection if you’re far away. However, if you’re horizontally within six blocks or vertically within 20 blocks of a Warden, it will perform a sniffing animation. When it does this, and it smells you, its anger meter will increase by 35.
When 80 points have been added to the anger meter, a Warden will roar and begin chasing you relentlessly. Furthermore, if you attack a Warden, its anger meter will immediately jump up to 100 and it will begin attacking you right away.
While these underground fiends will attack anything that makes enough noise, it especially hates players. It will focus more on players than mobs or other sources of vibrations.
All Warden Attacks
These deep-dwelling adversaries have two types of attacks: melee and ranged. Both are very dangerous, but for different reasons. If you intend to fight a Warden, be sure to prepare for their powerful assault.
Melee Attack
If you’re within melee range, a Warden will try to hit you with its huge fists. How much damage this does depends on what difficulty you’re playing on.
- Easy Difficulty: 8 Hearts of damage
- Normal Difficulty: 15 Hearts of damage
- Hard Difficulty: 22.5 Hearts of damage
These dark blue beasts can make a melee attack about every second. What’s worse is that these blows will disable your Shield for five seconds.
Ranged Attack
If a Warden cannot reach you, it will use its ranged attack to assault you. This will look like bluish-green sound waves that home in on you. Similar to the melee attacks, the exact amount of damage you’ll take depends on the difficulty you’re playing on.
- Easy Difficulty: 3 Hearts of damage
- Normal Difficulty: 5 Hearts of damage
- Hard Difficulty: 7.5 Hearts of damage
It takes just under two seconds for the ranged attack to be charged. However, when it is charged, there’s no escaping it. The sound waves can go through blocks and will ignore the effects of your Shield, armor, and most enchantments. Between each ranged attack, there is a cooldown of just over one second. The range of the sound waves is 15 blocks horizontally and 20 blocks vertically.
How to Deal With Wardens
Whether you choose flight or fight is up to you. However, for the most part, running from a Warden is often the safer choice. Before you decide to attack a Warden, you should know that it has 250 Hearts of health and is immune to fire, lava, and knockback effects.
How to Flee Safely
If a Warden does not detect any vibrations for 60 seconds, it will burrow back underground and despawn. Since the monster cannot hear you when you’re sneaking, your best bet is to crouch and walk as far away from the threat as possible. If done correctly, your pursuer will lose track of you and will despawn.
Ranged Battle
When you are more than 30 blocks away from a Warden, they won’t be able to sense you—even if you attack them with a Bow or use another type of projectile. However, due to the confined space within a Deep Dark biome, you’ll be unlikely to line up a shot from that far away.
The ideal place to do a ranged battle against this fiendish enemy is within an Ancient City, as this structure will grant you the most open space.
Melee Battle
Only the bravest adventurers will face a Warden head-on. For the best odds, you’ll want to don your best Netherite armor and wield a Netherite Sword with Sharpness V. As for which effects you’ll want to have active, Resistance is the only one that will help.
The way to get Resistance IV (the highest possible tier that can be acquired without cheating) is to use the effect of a Potion of the Turtle Master II. Each level of Resistance will decrease the damage you take by 20%. As such, Resistance IV will decrease damage taken by 80%.
Here are all the ways to get Resistance IV:
- Consume a Potion of the Turtle Master II (effect lasts 20 seconds)
- Stand in an effect cloud created by a Lingering Potion of the Turtle Master II (effect lasts 5 seconds)
- Get hit by a Splash Potion of the Turtle Master II (effect lasts 20 seconds in the Java Edition and lasts 15 seconds in the Bedrock Edition)
- Get hit by Arrow of the Turtle Master II (effect lasts 2 seconds)
Additionally, you’ll want to have a lot of healing items, like Golden Apples. It will take a while to defeat a Warden, so you’ll need to replenish your health frequently.
What Wardens Drops When Defeated
If you’ve taken down a Warden, first of all, well done! However, the rewards for such a feat aren’t the best. They only drop a Sculk Catalyst and five experience orbs.
The only function of a Sculk Catalyst is to create Sculk when an entity dies near it. As such, you can use it to make a sinister dark blue lair reeking of death…but not much else.
