Wither Skeleton Skull

Placement and wither construction

The skull can be placed on top of or beside blocks, with 16 orientations on top and four on the side. A wither is formed by placing three skulls atop soul sand or soul soil arranged in a T; the final block placed must be one of the skulls. A dispenser can place the final skull, unless the difficulty is Peaceful.

Wearing and note-block sound

The skull equips in the head slot and overlays the second layer of the player's skin. In Java, wearing a wither skeleton skull hides the player's location from the locator bar, but does not reduce wither skeleton detection range. When placed above a note block, it causes the block to play a wither skeleton ambient sound when activated.

Java acquisition

A wither skeleton killed by a player or tamed wolf has a 2.5% base chance to drop a skull; Looting increases the chance by one percentage point per level, up to 5.5% with Looting III. A wither skeleton killed by a charged creeper always drops a skull. If one charged-creeper explosion kills multiple mobs in Java, only one randomly selected mob drops its head. A skull also drops itself when broken, and an explosion always drops it as an item.

Other uses and limits

The skull is an ingredient in a firework star. It can receive Curse of Binding or Curse of Vanishing only through an anvil. It is destroyed when pushed by a piston and cannot be pulled by a sticky piston. Component data lists the head slot and a stack size of 64 but does not establish armor points.

Limitations and tradeoffs

• It has decoration, crafting, note-block, wearable, and wither-summoning uses.
• Wearing it does not reduce wither skeleton detection range.
• A piston destroys it when pushed; a sticky piston cannot pull it.