Zombie

Zombies lack defense and can be taken out with simple melee attacks. Their attacks are on par with other creatures found in the early game. Zombies are the most common Undead, and you will even still run into them regularly as you progress in levels. They tend to attack in hordes, making them good fodder for the Cleric.

## Spawning

### Natural generation

In the Overworld, zombies can spawn in groups of 4 on any solid block at a light level of 0, except in mushroom fields and deep dark biomes.

In deserts, all zombies exposed to the sky have an 80%‌ chance to be replaced by husks. Zombies that are not husks or drowned have a 5% chance to spawn as zombie villagers.

Zombie variants have a 5% chance to spawn as babies. The baby zombies also have a 5% chance of spawning as a chicken jockey.

All zombie variants (including babies) require a 2-block tall space to spawn.

A zombie can also spawn from a husk that drowns in water, but converts to a drowned if its head remains submerged.

Zombies spawn with up to 5% of knockback resistance.

When a zombie spawn egg is used on a zombie, it spawns a baby zombie.

### Sieges

If a player is near a village at midnight, up to 20 zombies may be spawned in the village in accordance with mob spawning rules. The spawning can even happen in Mushroom Fields biome, if the triggering player is in an adjacent biome. Zombies spawned as a part of a siege are always normal zombies; zombie villagers, husks and drowned never spawn as a part of a siege.

### Spawners

Zombies spawn from spawners inside 50% of dungeons.

## Variants

### Baby zombies

#### Behavior

Baby zombies make up 5% of zombie spawns. They behave similarly to regular zombies, with the following differences:

* They are much faster than normal zombies, yet they have the same health.
* The noises they make are higher-pitched than adult zombie sound effects.
* Baby zombie villagers turn into baby villagers if cured.
* Worn armor shrinks to fit their body size.
* They are able to fit through 1×1 block gaps.
* They give 12 experience points when killed by the player or a tamed wolf instead of 5.
* Unlike most other baby mobs, they remain babies indefinitely and never become adult zombies.
* They have a decreased hitbox size.

A baby zombie riding a chicken is known as a chicken jockey. There is a chance it could also be wearing armor, have a sword, or have both armor and a sword while riding a chicken jockey. It can even be a baby zombie villager riding a chicken jockey.

### Zombie villagers

Zombie villagers have a 5% chance of spawning in place of zombies, and may also spawn from a villager killed by a zombie. The chance of a villager turning into a zombie villager when killed by a zombie or zombie variant depends on the difficulty level. Zombies spawned from a spawner are never zombie villagers, although zombie spawners in Bedrock Edition are able to produce them.

Any villagers that got killed by a zombie has a chance to turn into a zombie villager with armor on harder difficulties.

They can be cured back into villagers using a weakness potion and a golden apple.

### Husks

Main article: Husk

Husks often spawn in desert biomes in place of zombies. They attack like regular zombies, but inflict hunger for several seconds and do not burn in sunlight.

### Drowned

Main article: Drowned

Drowned spawn in rivers, most parts of oceans or when a normal zombie drowns. They are able to swim and breathe underwater as well as walk on land. Most drowned use melee attacks, but some spawn with tridents and throw them when attacking instead.

Zombies that are wearing armor and go underwater continue wearing the armor when converted to a drowned, although tools and weapons are lost.‌[*JE only*]

Zombies that convert to drowned drop all worn or held equipment with full durability and preserving existing enchantments.‌

### Geared zombies

Some zombies spawn wearing armor or holding tools, both of which may be enchanted. In addition, zombies may also spawn with the ability to pick up loot that is on the ground. The chances of each of these events occurring are listed below. Zombie villagers can also spawn naturally with armor, weapons or tools. If a zombie spawns wearing multiple pieces of armor, the armor is never mismatched (i.e. all pieces are made of the same material). Zombies cannot naturally spawn with netherite armor.

Chances of zombies wearing or picking up armor, per difficulty
 Armor
 Armor Enchantment
 Weapon
 Weapon Enchantment

1. ↑ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Value is based on the regional difficulty.
2. ↑ Jump up to:a b Enchantment is the same as on an enchantment table at level 5–22.
3. ↑ 1⁄3 chance of an iron sword, 2⁄3 chance of an iron shovel

If a zombie does spawn with armor, the chances of specific armor are as follows:

Chances of different armor pieces, per difficulty
 Boots & Leggings
 Boots & Leggings & Chestplate
 Full set

Armor worn by zombies is not damaged from most damage sources, which means it cannot "wear out" the way player armor does. Helmets (not blocks like pumpkins) on zombies can eventually wear away and break if the zombie is exposed to daylight or has an anvil or other falling block dropped on its head. Zombies also have a natural armor rating of 2 (), giving 1.6 - 8%‌ damage reduction from most sources. Zombies can also wear mob heads, although they need to be dropped by the player before the zombie can pick one up and put it on.

Any zombie that spawns with equipment gives 1–3 extra experience points per item when killed.

On Halloween, zombies may spawn wearing a carved pumpkin or jack o'lantern. They do not drop this, even when killed with Looting.

## Drops

Zombies drop 0–2 rotten flesh after dying. The maximum drop is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 with Looting III.

They can also drop one of the following when killed by a player or tamed wolf:

* Iron Ingot
* Carrot
* Potato (baked potato when killed with fire‌)

This drop has a 2.5% chance of occurring, increasing by 1% per level of looting. Individual items have the following chances of dropping:

* 5⁄600 (about 0.83%)
* 7⁄600 (about 1.17%) with Looting I
* 9⁄600 (1.5%) with Looting II
* 11⁄600 (about 1.83%) with Looting III

A zombie also drops a zombie head when killed by a charged creeper.

Any picked-up equipment has a 100% chance of dropping and drops without changing the damage that has accumulated on it.

### Naturally-spawned equipment

* Iron Shovel (sometimes enchanted)
* Iron Sword (sometimes enchanted)
* Random Armor (sometimes enchanted, made from leather, gold, chainmail, iron, or diamond)

Zombies have an 8.5% chance of dropping their naturally-spawned equipment and drop it with a random durability. Each level of Looting increases the chance by 1 percentage point (11.5% with Looting III).

## Appearance

Zombies are green-skinned, with vacant black holes for eyes. They wear light blue shirts with dark blue pants, with one side of the shirt poorly tucked in. Zombies always have their arms stiffly outstretched in front of them.

## Behavior

### Attacking the player

Zombies spawn in groups of 4 and pursue the player on sight from 35 blocks away, raising their arms up‌, as opposed to 16 blocks for other hostile mobs.

The detection range of zombies is reduced to half of their normal range (17.5 blocks) when the player is wearing a zombie mob head.

Zombies periodically make groaning sounds, which can be heard up to 16 blocks away. Zombies attempt to avoid obstacles, including fall damage, fire, lava, magma blocks, cactus and try to find the shortest path toward the player. Unlike skeletons, zombies do not try to avoid being hit and continue to pursue the player even when being attacked. Zombies can sometimes deal damage through a closed wooden or iron door.

If a zombie sees a player and a villager together, the zombie prefers to attack the player first. A zombie already chasing a villager continues to do so even if the player is near, until the player attacks it.

Zombies sink in water, facilitating their transformation into drowned.

### Burning under daylight

At dawn, generally when the sun is 15 degrees or more above the ground (when the moon can no longer be seen), zombie variants except for husks and zombified piglins burn once exposed to direct sunlight. Burning is suppressed when the zombie is:

* in a sufficiently shaded area: a sunlight level of 11 or less (a 1 block roof overhang provides sufficient protection even if it would have a sunlight level of 14);
* in water;
* wearing head armor (the helmet absorbs the damage from light but may take several day cycles to wear out completely).
* under the status effect of Fire Resistance.
* standing in cobwebs.

Transparent and translucent blocks, including glass and ice, do not prevent them from burning.

Zombies attempt to seek out shade during the day or enter water sources to protect themselves from burning up, but they leave protective areas to chase an enemy.

If they attack an entity while burning, they may set it on fire, with a (30×regional difficulty)% chance, and with a 2×floor (regional difficulty) second duration. If wearing armor enchanted with Thorns while burning they may set players attacking them on fire with thorns damage alone.

### Undead

Zombies are undead mobs, harmed by the status effect Healing, healed by the status effect Instant Damage and are unaffected by Regeneration and Poison. The wither does not attack zombies. Zombies are affected by the Smite enchantment.

### Picking up items

Some zombies are capable of automatically picking up dropped items that they come across. Mob heads and carved pumpkins are automatically worn on their heads. Zombies can use armor, weapons or tools. If a zombie encounters another similar item, it may drop the previous item in favor of the new one, if:

* the new item is armor or a sword and the old item was not (for example, zombies prefer swords to pickaxes and helmets to carved pumpkins),
* both items are armor/swords and the new item is better damage-wise (reduces higher damage for armor, or inflicts more damage for swords),
* both items are armor/swords with the same damage reduction/infliction, the new item has NBT tags while the old does not or the new item is *more* damaged than the old item, or
* both items are bows and the new item has NBT tags while the old does not.

Items dropped by mobs in exchange for another cannot be picked up by players or mobs for 10 game ticks (0.5 seconds, barring lag), but can be picked up by hoppers.

A zombie holding a picked-up item does not despawn when left alone.

Zombies have a higher chance of being able to pick up items in hard mode.

Picked-up items do not cause the zombie to drop more experience when killed, unlike naturally-spawned gear.

### Attacking villagers

Zombies target villagers within 42 blocks, and they can always see villagers through walls.

* If a zombie is attacking a villager and sees the player, it interrupts its attack on the villager to attack the player instead, even if the player has not attacked it‌.
* Once a zombie has targeted a villager, the zombie ignores any other villagers and the player, until its target is dead or the zombie is attacked‌.

Any zombie variant can transform a villager into a zombie villager. The probability depends on the difficulty:

* 0% chance in Peaceful (no zombies spawn) and Easy
* 50% chance in Normal
* 100% chance in Hardcore‌ or Hard

### Attacking wandering traders

Zombies target wandering traders within 35 blocks and can see traders through walls. The zombie focuses solely on the trader unless it's attacked, or if either it or the target is killed or moved out of range, or if the trader is under the invisibility status effect.

### Breaking doors

Up to 10% of zombies (depending on regional difficulty) in pursuit of a target bang on closed wooden doors and on Hard (and Hardcore) difficulty can succeed in breaking them down. Otherwise, the door cracks but does not break.

The zombie also breaks down the door if the door is blocking its way.

Zombies can break only the top half of a door, meaning they cannot break a door if the zombie is facing the bottom half of the door.

### Attacking utility mobs

Zombies pursue and attack utility mobs (golems) within 42 blocks. Iron golems and snow golems attack zombies without provocation, although snow golems deal only knockback to zombies with their snowballs.

### Reinforcements

On all difficulty levels, damaged zombie mobs (including husks, drowned and even zombified piglins) call all other zombies within a 67×21×67 to 111×21×111 area centered on the attacked zombie to target the attacker.

On Hard difficulty, zombies can spawn additional zombies, ghouls, and other Undead creatures to "help" when damaged. Each zombie has a "likeliness to call reinforcements" statistic ranging from 0–10%, and "leader" zombies (0–5% depending on regional difficulty) get a bonus of 50–75 percentage points to the stat. When the zombie is damaged by an entity or is damaged while targeting an entity, up to 50 attempts are made to randomly choose a spawn location (0 or ±7–40 blocks away in all three axes) that is above a block with a solid top surface, has light level 0, has no players within 7 blocks, and has no colliding entities or blocks at which to spawn the reinforcement. Both the damaged zombie and the new zombie has a 5 percentage point penalty to their "likeliness to call reinforcement" stat, preventing infinite zombies from spawning this way. Zombie reinforcements can spawn even in locations where naturally spawned zombies can't spawn, like mushroom biomes, The End, and Nether biomes., although they still cannot spawn on blocks where other items like redstone dust or pressure plates are placed.

These effects can be negated by killing the zombie in as few hits as possible, by using environmental damage such as cactus or lava, or by avoiding them completely. That is, if the zombified mob drops experience, it has a chance to spawn reinforcements. Additionally, reinforcements do not spawn at all, even on Hard difficulty, if `/gamerule doMobSpawning` is set to `false`.

Leader zombies are a special type of zombie that spawn with an added 50-75% chance to spawn reinforcements. The chance of a leader zombie spawning increases with clamped regional difficulty, up to a 5% chance of spawning.

Reinforcements zombies spawn regardless of the hostile mob cap. They also spawn on the north-west corner of the designated block, instead of the center of the block like natural mob spawning does.

### Attacking turtles

Zombies attack baby turtles and actively seek out and destroy turtle eggs within 24 blocks horizontally and 3 blocks vertically, by jumping on them until they crack and break.

### Becoming drowned

If a zombie's head (the legs don't work) is submerged in water for 30 seconds, it begins converting into a drowned. The zombie shakes, similar to a zombie villager being cured and, after 15 seconds, the zombie becomes drowned. Once this process starts, it cannot be stopped. This time is not affected by the Respiration enchantment.

A newly-converted drowned always has full health even if converted from a damaged zombie.

Only normal zombies can become drowned; zombie villagers and zombified piglins cannot be converted. Husks, however, convert into zombies if they drown, and then this zombie converts into a drowned as does a normal zombie.

Same as above, any husks that convert into zombies also has full health, even when the drowned husk was damaged.

### Weaknesses

Zombies are weak to Fire, and the Smite enchantment.

### Resistances

Zombies resist Cold, Earth, Poison, Status, and K.O. spells.

## See Also

* Mobs
* Ghoul