The Ender Dragon is the first official boss mob to appear in Minecraft (with the second being the Wither). It only naturally spawns in The End. This mob uses the dragon model Notch created, but utilizes a texture more reminiscent of an Enderman, being black and scaly with purple eyes. It is widely acknowledged as the main antagonist of the game, with the Wither being more of a "special" boss.
Health points-200 ( × 100)
Attack strength-Peaceful: 0
Easy: 6
Normal: 10
Hard: 15
Spawn-The End
First appearance-1.0.0 (Beta 1.9-pre4)
Experience-12,000
Appearance- The Ender Dragon is a large, black dragon with purple eyes and four big, black legs with three toes on each one. It is by far the largest mob in the game, about 20 times as long as a pig, and is made of 61 cuboids, more than any other model. It has a few light gray features, such as the wings and various other parts of its body. Similar to endermen and spiders, the Ender Dragon's eyes are visible through darkness, so you can see it coming from anywhere in the End. However, it does not emit particles like Endermen, and cannot teleport.
Behavior- The Ender Dragon will destroy any blocks it comes into contact with, except obsidian, end stone, bedrock, command blocks and barriers. Instead of destroying them, the Ender Dragon passes through them. When hit, an Ender Dragon makes roaring, growling and snarling noises. The flapping of its wings can also be heard as the dragon moves. Unlike Endermen, Ender Dragons don't take damage from water.
The Ender Dragon has a purple health bar that appears at the top of the player's screen. This bar indicates the remaining health of the resident Ender Dragon. Each End dimension houses a single Ender Dragon whose health is periodically healed by nearby Ender Crystals. Destroying an Ender Crystal while the Ender Dragon is being healed by it (indicated by a series of circles appearing between the Ender Crystal and the Ender Dragon) will cause the Ender Dragon to take additional damage instead of being healed.
The Ender Dragon attacks by periodically charging toward the player. This charge can be interrupted by hitting the dragon with arrows. If the player is heavily armored the dragon will not cause tremendous damage directly. However, the dragon can fling the player very far into the air, sometimes to fatal heights or off of the map entirely. Therefore, although you can damage the dragon with a sword, the safest way to fight is with a bow and arrow.
Once killed, the Ender Dragon will appear to have beams of light spontaneously erupting from its body. It will then explode, dropping enough experience to bring a player from no experience to level 78 (12000 - 10 drops of 1000 experience, one drop of 2000 experience).
It will also spawn an exit portal with a Dragon Egg on top. Entering the portal will activate a text cutscene that lasts for an average of 8 minutes, 30 seconds. After the cutscene, the player will be teleported to their spawn point/Bed in The Overworld. The cutscene can be skipped by pressing the Esc key, (B on Xbox 360 and O on PS3), and will instantly send the player to their spawn point/Bed in The Overworld. The player may return to the End after defeating the Ender Dragon, however there will be no new dragon.
When spawned in the Overworld, using the new /summon command, as of snapshot 13w38c, the Ender Dragon exhibits the same behavior when killed, however, the End Portal spawned leads to the End, where another Ender Dragon still resides, and no text cutscene plays. Also, it seems to orbit around the origin when not attacking a player. Command: /summon EnderDragon.
The Ender Dragon will only attack the player normally, however it can accidentally attack an Enderman causing it to turn hostile towards the Ender Dragon, chase after it, and attack it, akin to when it is attacked by a player.
On both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 Editions, the Ender Dragon's behavior is slightly different. While flying, the Ender Dragon fires projectiles at the player. After flying for approximately 30 seconds, the Ender Dragon will come down and hover over the unfinished bedrock portal, and remain there for another 30 seconds. The Ender Dragon will spew out "Ender acid" on nearby players, which deals damage. Players may continually strike it with a weapon at this time. The Ender Dragon also fights Endermen during this time, implying the reason for returning to the "nest" is to stop the growing clusters of Endermen from stealing the egg.
Console Edition- Ender Acid Fire Charge
As of the Console Edition TU9 version, the Ender Dragon spits out "Ender Acid". The Ender Acid is purple, much like the particles around the Enderman. They also fire a type of Acid Ball similar to Ghasts, Blazes and Fire Charges, but with a more purple texture, which cannot be deflected. Like the PC version, they can also destroy/grief blocks placed by the player.
Also, instead of the portal being spawned underneath the Ender Dragon's death, it is spawned in the middle of the island as soon as you enter the End. However until the Ender Dragon is defeated, it will remain deactivated, and the Dragon Egg will not be on its podium. Until it has been killed, this is used by the Ender Dragon as a nest, where it will hover over it and attack the player with "ender acid".
One final difference between the Console and PC versions is that some of the Obsidian Pillars have iron bars surrounding the crystal. This prevents the player from shooting it from a distance with a bow, ensuring the player has to climb some of the Pillars.
Health points-200 ( × 100)
Attack strength-Peaceful: 0
Easy: 6
Normal: 10
Hard: 15
Spawn-The End
First appearance-1.0.0 (Beta 1.9-pre4)
Experience-12,000
Appearance- The Ender Dragon is a large, black dragon with purple eyes and four big, black legs with three toes on each one. It is by far the largest mob in the game, about 20 times as long as a pig, and is made of 61 cuboids, more than any other model. It has a few light gray features, such as the wings and various other parts of its body. Similar to endermen and spiders, the Ender Dragon's eyes are visible through darkness, so you can see it coming from anywhere in the End. However, it does not emit particles like Endermen, and cannot teleport.
Behavior- The Ender Dragon will destroy any blocks it comes into contact with, except obsidian, end stone, bedrock, command blocks and barriers. Instead of destroying them, the Ender Dragon passes through them. When hit, an Ender Dragon makes roaring, growling and snarling noises. The flapping of its wings can also be heard as the dragon moves. Unlike Endermen, Ender Dragons don't take damage from water.
The Ender Dragon has a purple health bar that appears at the top of the player's screen. This bar indicates the remaining health of the resident Ender Dragon. Each End dimension houses a single Ender Dragon whose health is periodically healed by nearby Ender Crystals. Destroying an Ender Crystal while the Ender Dragon is being healed by it (indicated by a series of circles appearing between the Ender Crystal and the Ender Dragon) will cause the Ender Dragon to take additional damage instead of being healed.
The Ender Dragon attacks by periodically charging toward the player. This charge can be interrupted by hitting the dragon with arrows. If the player is heavily armored the dragon will not cause tremendous damage directly. However, the dragon can fling the player very far into the air, sometimes to fatal heights or off of the map entirely. Therefore, although you can damage the dragon with a sword, the safest way to fight is with a bow and arrow.
Once killed, the Ender Dragon will appear to have beams of light spontaneously erupting from its body. It will then explode, dropping enough experience to bring a player from no experience to level 78 (12000 - 10 drops of 1000 experience, one drop of 2000 experience).
It will also spawn an exit portal with a Dragon Egg on top. Entering the portal will activate a text cutscene that lasts for an average of 8 minutes, 30 seconds. After the cutscene, the player will be teleported to their spawn point/Bed in The Overworld. The cutscene can be skipped by pressing the Esc key, (B on Xbox 360 and O on PS3), and will instantly send the player to their spawn point/Bed in The Overworld. The player may return to the End after defeating the Ender Dragon, however there will be no new dragon.
When spawned in the Overworld, using the new /summon command, as of snapshot 13w38c, the Ender Dragon exhibits the same behavior when killed, however, the End Portal spawned leads to the End, where another Ender Dragon still resides, and no text cutscene plays. Also, it seems to orbit around the origin when not attacking a player. Command: /summon EnderDragon.
The Ender Dragon will only attack the player normally, however it can accidentally attack an Enderman causing it to turn hostile towards the Ender Dragon, chase after it, and attack it, akin to when it is attacked by a player.
On both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 Editions, the Ender Dragon's behavior is slightly different. While flying, the Ender Dragon fires projectiles at the player. After flying for approximately 30 seconds, the Ender Dragon will come down and hover over the unfinished bedrock portal, and remain there for another 30 seconds. The Ender Dragon will spew out "Ender acid" on nearby players, which deals damage. Players may continually strike it with a weapon at this time. The Ender Dragon also fights Endermen during this time, implying the reason for returning to the "nest" is to stop the growing clusters of Endermen from stealing the egg.
Console Edition- Ender Acid Fire Charge
As of the Console Edition TU9 version, the Ender Dragon spits out "Ender Acid". The Ender Acid is purple, much like the particles around the Enderman. They also fire a type of Acid Ball similar to Ghasts, Blazes and Fire Charges, but with a more purple texture, which cannot be deflected. Like the PC version, they can also destroy/grief blocks placed by the player.
Also, instead of the portal being spawned underneath the Ender Dragon's death, it is spawned in the middle of the island as soon as you enter the End. However until the Ender Dragon is defeated, it will remain deactivated, and the Dragon Egg will not be on its podium. Until it has been killed, this is used by the Ender Dragon as a nest, where it will hover over it and attack the player with "ender acid".
One final difference between the Console and PC versions is that some of the Obsidian Pillars have iron bars surrounding the crystal. This prevents the player from shooting it from a distance with a bow, ensuring the player has to climb some of the Pillars.