How to Kill the Ender Dragon in Minecraft

Written by Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: January 4, 2023 Tested

This wikiHow article will teach you how to kill the Ender Dragon in Minecraft. The Ender Dragon is a boss in The End, which is a dimension brimming with Endermen and other hazards. The Ender Dragon fight consists of two main parts: destroying the Ender Dragon's health-regenerating end crystals, and facing the Ender Dragon itself.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Preparing for the Fight

1
Gather the necessary materials. There are a few things that you'll need in order to make it to The End and defeat the dragon successfully:
- 12 Eyes of Ender - You can make an Eye of Ender by combining Ender Pearls and Blaze Rods (found in The Nether). You'll need at least 12 to activate the End Portal, though you'll need more if you don't know the location of a nearby Stronghold.
- Ender Pearls - Ender Pearls drop when you kill Endermen. Aside from being necessary components of Eyes of Ender, these items can also be thrown to cause the player to teleport to wherever they land. If you aren’t too interested in killing loads of endermen or if you are playing on peaceful difficulty, you can still get ender pearls by bartering with piglins, trading with cleric villagers, or raiding naturally generated chests.
- A bed - Once you reach the Portal room in the Stronghold, you can place the bed in a safe place in order to save your game before going through the End Portal. Trying to sleep in a bed in the End will cause a large explosion(skilled enough players and speed-runners may use that to one’s advantage while taking down the dragon, though), so resetting your spawn point here is crucial.
- Cooked food - This will serve as your healing source. Place some raw meat in an oven to cook the meat. You should have enough food to restore your entire health bar several times over. Consider bringing golden apples and, if you are lucky enough to find it, enchanted golden apples as well.
- Armour - Strong armour, like diamond or netherite, will help you survive Ender Dragon and Endermen attacks. It is recommended to enchant your armour.
2
Make sure that you have the proper weapons and tools. Ideally, you'll have a diamond or netherite sword with a level V Sharpness enchantment, but you'll probably also want to have a bow and some arrows with you in case you need to fend off the Ender Dragon's early attacks. You'll also need a pickaxe (preferably diamond)—there is a chance that you spawn underground, and if that is the case for you, you need a pickaxe to mine a way out.

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3
Equip armor. The Ender Dragon can do a staggering amount of damage, so having armor on is crucial. You can equip armor by opening your inventory and selecting the armor from there.
- If you haven't yet created armor, make some out of the strongest material you have.
4
Find or build an End Portal. You'll find End Portals in Strongholds, which can be located by throwing an Eye of Ender in the air and then following it until it stops over a certain point. End Portals are usually in their own room in the Stronghold.
- If you build the End Portal in creative mode, you won't be able to get an achievement for killing the Ender Dragon (even if you switch to Survival Mode after building it).
5
Place your bed and set your spawn point before proceeding. This will save your game, meaning that if you die in the Ender Dragon fight, you'll respawn just outside of the End Portal area.
- This is easiest if you first clear the Stronghold of all enemies and loot it as needed.
- You may have to section off a part of the Portal room to serve as a safe space.
6
Add the Eyes of Ender to the End Portal. Once you've added one Eye of Ender to each square of the End Portal's frame, you should see the Portal light up.
- If the End Portal is already lit up, you don't need to add any Eyes of Ender. The chance for getting a 100% fully lit end portal is very, very rare though—1 in a trillion statistically.
7
Hop into the End Portal. Once you're ready to go to The End and face the Ender Dragon, jump into the End Portal to enter The End. This will trigger a loading screen, after which point you'll appear in The End.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Destroying the End Crystals

1
Avoid the Endermen during this part. Upon reaching The End, you might be dismayed to see countless Endermen milling around the arena. Thankfully, Endermen won't attack you unless you look at them for an extended period of time, so just ignore them for now.
- If you do end up in a fight with an Enderman, try to kill it before the next part of the fight.
- Wearing a pumpkin on your head will prevent Endermen from attacking you if you look at them. However, doing so will make your field of vision smaller in the game and in a "pumpkin" like shape.
2
Mine some End Stone. End Stone is one of two blocks that won't break when the Ender Dragon flies through it (the other is Obsidian); for this reason, you'll use End Stone to create a platform from which you can actually reach the End Dragon once you get to the next part.
- You'll need at least 12 End Stone, but mine as much as possible without attracting the attention of the Ender Dragon.
3
Find the shortest pillar. Since obsidian pillars differ from seed to seed, the shortest pillar's location will vary. This is the pillar on which you want to start your End Crystal rampage.
4
Teleport onto the top of the pillar. Equip the Ender Pearls, then throw one onto the top of the pillar to teleport onto it.
- This may take some practice, so be patient.
- On Minecraft PE, you'll tap and hold the screen to throw an End Pearl, while console players will press the left trigger.
5
Break the End Crystal. Hit the glass End Crystal on top of the pillar until the Crystal breaks and causes a small explosion.
- The Ender Dragon will most likely fire off an attack toward you after you break an End Crystal, so be prepared to dodge.
- End Crystals cause the Ender Dragon's health to regenerate. Once you break all of the End Crystals, the Ender Dragon will cease to be immortal.
- If your Ender Pearl teleported you into the End Crystal, the End Crystal will break automatically.
6
Heal if necessary. End Crystals explode with roughly the same force as a Creeper, so you may need to heal before proceeding to the next pillar.
- You can also use a bow to destroy subsequent End Crystals if preferred.
7
Teleport onto the next-highest pillar. Be sure to aim a little bit above the End Crystal before throwing your Ender Pearl when you do this.
8
Repeat destroying the End Crystals until you reach a caged one. The last two End Crystals have cages around them, so they'll require a little bit more effort to break.
- If you don't want to climb up and hit the End Crystal, try to shoot an arrow through the gap in one of the corners.
9
Use your pickaxe to make a hole in the cage. This will allow you to access the End Crystal inside.
- Caged End Crystals explode violently when broken.
10
Destroy the End Crystal inside. Since the End Crystal will explode and knock you back, you may want to do this by equipping an Ender Pearl, hitting the Crystal until it breaks, and then immediately teleporting back onto the pillar with the Ender Pearl to avoid getting knocked off of the pillar.
- If you are knocked off of the pillar, you will most likely die if you hit the ground.
11
Destroy the other two caged End Crystals. Once you've teleported to and destroyed each of the remaining End Crystals, the Ender Dragon's health will no longer regenerate unchecked. At this point, you're free to take on the Ender Dragon on the ground.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Fighting the Ender Dragon

1
Return to the ground level. Toss an Ender Pearl onto the ground at the base of one of the pillars to do so. The Ender Dragon will most likely be flying around erratically by this point, so keep an eye on her.
2
Find the empty portal. This grey stone shrine-like structure is in the middle of the arena; you'll be able to fight the Ender Dragon here.
3
Build quickly at least two three-step End Stone staircases. The staircases will need to be at least three blocks high in order for your attacks to be able to reach the Ender Dragon.
- Building four staircases will give you multiple platforms to transition between when the Ender Dragon attacks.
4
Stand on top of one of the staircases. From this height, you'll be able to hit the dragon with your sword.
- As previously mentioned, bow-and-arrow attacks are useless in this stage.
5
Wait for the dragon to attack. When she swoops down to hover over the portal, she's preparing to fire an attack at you.
- The Ender Dragon will randomly fly down and perch on top of the portal, and you should be able to take out a third of her health with your sword during this time.
6
Dodge the attack if necessary. The Ender Dragon will fire an Ender Charge—a fireball which results in a purple mist—at your location, meaning that you'll need to run over to your other staircase and wait for the purple mist to dissipate.
- If you like, you can collect the mist in the bottle to make the cloud dissipate faster and obtain dragon's breath
- You can collect the purple mist by using a glass bottle to get Dragon's Breath. It can be used to create lingering potions.
- If the Ender Dragon doesn't attack immediately, attack her with your sword until she does attack.
7
Hit the dragon with your sword. You should be able to get several hits in on the Ender Dragon before she flies away.
8
Heal yourself as soon as the dragon flies away. If you were harmed at all, eat as much cooked food as is necessary to heal you. The Ender Dragon will circle a few times (she may also launch an attack from afar during this stage) before returning to hover over the portal.
9
Repeat waiting, dodging, and attacking until the Ender Dragon is dead. If you have a diamond sword with the Sharpness V enchantment, you should only need to repeat this process two or three more times before the Ender Dragon is slain.
- The Ender Dragon's health bar is represented by the purple bar at the top of the screen.
10
Collect your rewards. The Ender Dragon drops enough XP for your character to level up from 0 to 68, as well as a dragon egg that can be collected.^{[1]
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- To get the dragon egg, first hit it so that it teleports onto endstone. Put a torch two blocks below it and break the block in between so that the egg drops onto the torch and breaks into a collectable item.
- Don’t worry if the dragon egg teleports into the portal! If that happens, go to your world spawnpoint (the world generation point, NOT the last bed you slept in) and collect it there just like how you would otherwise do in the end.
11
Return to the Overworld. Upon defeating the Ender Dragon, you'll notice that the portal in the middle of the island lights up. You can hop into this portal to return to Minecraft's main world, now armed with the confidence which accompanies slaying a dragon.

Community Q&A

Question

How do I get the egg in 1.9 after I've killed the dragon?

Community Answer

You can push the egg with a piston, or you can place a torch underneath the block that the egg is on, then break the block, and the egg will fall on the torch and drop down.
Question

In my no-cheat survival world, I have been exploring the stronghold for a long time now, but can't find the actual portal. What's the best way to locate it?

Community Answer

Look for silverfish as there is a silverfish spawner next to the actual portal. If you find silverfish, then you are close.
Question

How do I find a stronghold in Minecraft?

Community Answer

Follow the Eyes of Ender until they stop in the same place. Then shovel down

Warnings

Even with the proper preparation, equipment, and timing, the Ender Dragon can be incredibly difficult to kill due to its high speed and maneuverability.

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On console editions of Minecraft, the Ender Dragon's attacks come from the sky rather than from the dragon itself.

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