The Wither is quite possibly the worst side-quest in Minecraft. All of it.
The Problems (There are a LOT)
Let's start with the actual boss fight itself. The Wither is a really awesome-looking skeleton-type mob of ultimate destruction. That's where the positives end for this whole quest. In order for a player to fight the Wither, they have to summon it themself. Once the Wither is spawned, it... flies around and fires an endless barrage of explosive skulls at you that inflict you with the Wither effect. Endlessly. There is no cool-down, no other attack.... just endless bullet spam. Your options are basically to hide and shoot it with arrows until the thing dies. Except after you've taken it down half its health, it loses the ability to take projectile hits. In some contexts, this would be a really good thing. But in the case of a boss that just flies around shooting endless projectiles at you without cooldown, it's TERRIBLE. It is PURELY a gear-check, and just testing whether or not your gear can tank a certain amount of hits in the time it takes you to melee-kill the Wither to death. It's a terrible race against time before your health or totems or golden apples run out. And with good gear, the Wither dies in seconds and it's not really much of a fight at all.
The Wither fight on Java is a terrible boss fight. Either you don't have a hope in hell, or you gear up and with no skill just slice the thing to death in a race against time. The outcome of the fight is almost ENTIRELY dependent on how good your gear is.
The Bedrock wither fight is a lot better, but still suffering from the gear-check issue. The Wither has additional attacks such as a dash attack and summoning Wither Skeletons. This definitely makes the fight more interesting and more strategic, but there is still no cooldown on the Wither's constant firing of skulls.
But let's backtrack a bit. Before you even GET to the point where you fight this lacklustre boss, you have to grind. A LOT. You had better make a home for yourself in a Nether Fortress, because you're going to be there for a LONG time, even with Looting. Your days are going to be spent dodging blaze fireballs and trapping Wither Skeletons... and 90% of the time sitting and waiting for a Wither Skeleton to spawn. Wither Skeletons, even WITH Looting III, only have a 5.5% chance of dropping a Wither Skull. Prepare to spend literally HOURS sitting and waiting and occasionally spotting a Wither Skeleton and killing it just to get nothing. And the best part? You need THREE to summon the Wither.
As with a lot of Minecraft, it's all RNG. You could kill 4 Wither Skeletons and get 3 skulls. Or you can be as unlucky as me and manage to kill 75 Wither Skeletons with Looting III and not get a single god-damned skull.
Needless to say, there is NOTHING fun about killing the same enemy over and over again for hours on end. The game is basically begging you to set up a farm. And that is bad design in any books. We've all just accepted this as part of the experience of getting a beacon, but seriously, it shouldn't have to be.
Oh yeah, the beacon. The reward for all of this effort. It's a complete and utter JOKE.
Oh so you thought grinding hours for Wither Skeletons then beating a hellfire barrage with no cooldown boss was bad? Oh hahahaha that was just the START.
The Wither drops a Nether Star, which is used to craft a beacon. But you're not done yet. You have to build a pyramid. Of mineral BLOCKS. Each layer of the pyramid unlocks a new ability and increases the range of the beacon's effects. The maximum level is going to cost you 164 mineral blocks, or ONE THOUSAND, FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX resources to make!!! There it is again, the game basically forcing you to make an iron farm, or spend DAYS mining that amount of iron/gold/diamond/emerald!! Seriously!!! HOW did this system ever come to be in Minecraft??? There is no skill in ANY of this. Just do the same thing until you have the INSANE amount of resources it takes to summon the Wither, kill it, and build this stupid pyramid!
And what do you get after ALLLLLLLLL of that grinding? A couple of permanent potion effects. Oh cool! That's worth it... right? NOPE. Fifty blocks away and your potion effects run out.
Jesus H Christ. You do all that just to make yourself a little stronger, but only when in your base. The beacon has far more flexing power than any actual benefit to the player. By the time the player has DONE all that grinding bullshittery, they probably already have total conquest of the area their base is located. It's completely pointless and this whole quest is a total farce!!
The Solutions... at least the ones I can think of.
I don't normally get this angry at a game, but every part of this quest STINKS. And it has only gotten progressively worse with time. But enough destroying this quest like the grind for Wither Skeletons destroyed my desire to keep playing. This quest CAN be great. It has the potential to be. Here is how I would improve this quest.
Right off the bat, I'd replace the Java Wither with the Bedrock Wither, and I would introduce a brief cooldown period. Maybe the player can induce the cooldown period by aiming an arrow or trident right at the Wither's middle skull. This would test the player's projectile skills. The Wither would be dazed for a few seconds, allowing the player to get some hits in. The player could also build an iron golem as a folly, as the Wither would go for the Iron Golem instead of the player, allowing the player to get a few more hits in. In the second half of the fight, instead of becoming immune to all projectiles, the Wither could become immune to ARROWS, but not TRIDENTS. Therefore, the player, if equipped with a Trident, could still stun the Wither and get some melee hits in. But naturally, hitting a moving target is hard, especially when being constantly barraged with death projectiles and dash attacks that deal HUGE damage. It's not much, but it would at least add SOME strategy to the fight.
The grind for the Wither Skeletons, I'd make it far less of a chore. Wither Skeletons would be able to spawn anywhere in the Nether, albeit at a lower spawnrate than in the Fortress. I also don't want to make summoning the wither too EASY, so if I were to increase the drop rate of the skulls, it would only be slightly. I really don't know why Mojang added the mechanic where Piglins hunt Wither Skeletons unless they were planning on having Wither Skeletons spawn anywhere in the Nether (below a certain light level). And yes, more Wither Skeletons in the Nether WOULD make the Nether considerably more dangerous.... but the Nether IS hell is it not?
But there should be other ways to get these Wither Skulls even outside of Wither Skeletons. As I mentioned, Piglins kill and hunt Wither Skeletons. I'm going to come right out and say it - Bastions should have a chance of having a Wither Skull somewhere in it. Either in a chest, or as part of the scenery. As I've said before, Bastions don't really offer any unique loot other than a music disc. I think this could be a really good incentive for a player to visit Minecraft's most dangerous structure. There could even be a VERY low (~0.8%) chance that a Piglin can actually BARTER a Wither Skull.
And now for the actual beacon itself...
I know this has been suggested MANY times before, but I feel each mineral that you use should give the beacon different effects and different strengths. Currently, it does not matter if you make a beacon pyramid of Iron or Netherite, it does exactly the same thing. I will even suggest a beacon can be made out of coal, copper, lapis, redstone and coal. The beacon as it is basically requires you to farm iron or mine endlessly for loads of resources to build the pyramid. As such, ALL resources should count.
Firstly, I feel whatever level the beacon is should give you an increase in level of that ability. The top layer which only consists of 9 mineral blocks should give you level I of that ability. The 2nd layer, requiring more resources, naturally gives you a better level - level II. The 3rd layer gives level III and the bottom layer, requiring the most resources, gives level IV. The top layer has a "layer value" of 1, the next layer is layer value 2, then 3, then 4 is the bottom.
The effect given depends on the mineral. This does mean this entire layer will need to be made entirely of the same mineral. The effect the mineral gives is dependent on the RARITY. Rarer minerals give better effects. Each mineral gives the following effect:
LEAST POWERFUL
Copper/Coal - Jump Boost
Redstone - Luck (seriously, use this effect Mojang!)
Lapis Lazuli - Strength
Iron - Haste
Gold - Resistance
Emerald - Speed
Diamond - Health Boost
Netherite - Regeneration
MOST POWERFUL
If you build multiple layers of the same effect, it will pick the level of the pyramid that used the most resources (e.g. if layers 2 and 3 are made of Iron, it will give Haste III), and the range of effect will be multiplied by the "layer value" e.g. layer 2 multiplies the base range of layer 3 by 2. If the other layer is layer 1, it will multiply by 20%. So if layers 1, 2 and 3 are all iron, it will have a range of (40*2*1.2) = 96 blocks. If the whole beacon is made of iron, you will have Haste IV over (50*3*2*1.2) = 360 blocks. If the pyramid is made of 4 different layers, you can have 4 different effects but the range of the effects will be tied to what layer the effect is with no range bonus. E.g. whatever effect is layer 1 will have a 20-block range. Layer 2 will have 30 blocks etc., but you get four different effects, with the bottom layer having a 50-block range and being level IV.
In addition, if you make any layer out of Amethyst, it will stop hostile mobs spawning within the range of the layer you built it! This applies vertically too, so mobs will not spawn up to 50 blocks under your feet if you build the 4th layer out of Amethyst!
A full Netherite beacon will make you almost unstoppable within 360 blocks, as you will have Regeneration IV! But a Netherite beacon takes over 100 hours to make, so good luck!
Now I KNOW this doesn't remove the grinding aspect for the minerals to make the pyramid - but what this DOES do is give you a LOT more bang for your buck, and really offers a much better REWARD for having so many minerals and beating the Wither!
Final Words
I've said it all really. Every stage of this side quest is in dire need of an update and a rebalancing!
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