Armor Stand

Armor Stands are entities that are able to hold and display wearable items.

## Obtaining

An armor stand can be broken by quickly attacking it twice, dropping itself and any armor placed onto it.

### Crafting

* 6 Sticks and 1 Smooth Stone Slab creates an Armor Stand.

### Natural generation

Two armor stands are found in each taiga village outdoor armory, one equipped with an iron helmet, the other with an iron chestplate.

## Usage

Players can use armor stands to hold armor, mob heads, carved pumpkins, and elytra. Commands can be used to give them other items. The stand does not have a GUI, so players interact with it directly. Armor stands are also able to be placed in different orientations, similar to banners or signs. Armor stands are entities, allowing them to be pushed by pistons, moved by flowing water, pulled with fishing rods, and bounced by slime blocks.

Using armor on the stand places the armor if done on a bare spot. Conversely, clicking on armor with a bare hand removes the armor and places it in the highlighted hot-bar slot. It is not possible to take or place items from the armor stand's hands unless playing on Bedrock Edition.

Armor, mob heads, or carved pumpkins can be automatically placed on armor stands with a dispenser.

Armor stands can be customized further to have arms, pose, disobey gravity, dual wield and other things by summoning them using `/summon` with NBT tags.

In maps heavily using command blocks, armor stands can be used to keep scoreboard objectives that are 'global' to the map, run commands, etc.

## Behavior

Because armor stands are entities, they obey gravity, allowing them to fall and rest on non-full blocks such as enchantment tables, snow layers and slabs.

Any armor on the stand drops when the stand is broken. Armor stands can display enchanted and all forms of dyed armor. The effects of most enchanted armor have no effect when on an armor stand, with three exceptions:

* Frost Walker creates frosted ice blocks on water as usual if an armor stand is pushed with a piston.
* Depth Strider slows the movement of the armor stand when being pushed with water.
* A player may take damage from hitting an armor stand that holds armor enchanted with Thorns.

Armor stands are not damaged by cacti but can be broken by arrows. An armor stand destroyed by an explosion or a firework does not drop as an item. Armor stands in water and lava at the same time are not consumed by the lava.

The stand wobbles slightly when being hit by the player.

It is possible to create an armor stand with arms using the `/summon` command. It is also possible to change an armor stand without arms into a stand with arms by using the `/data` command. The commands are as follows:

* `/data merge entity @e[type=armor_stand,sort=nearest,limit=1] {ShowArms:1}`, which will change the nearest armor stand into an armor stand with arms.
* `/summon minecraft:armor_stand ~ ~ ~ {ShowArms:1}`, which will summon a new armor stand with arms shown.
* `/summon armor_stand ~ ~ ~ {Rotation:[0.0f]}`, which will summon a new armor stand that will face your desired direction (you have to change the "0.0f" to other numbers or else it will face the same way as a default armor stand, such as "90.0f" or "180.0f").

### Tricking Monsters

Depending on the intelligence of certain monsters, they might be fooled into thinking an Armor Stand is you. This makes placing them down while being pursued a viable option to draw away attention from particularly stupid monsters. A similar effect can be achieved with a Jack o' Lantern.

## See Also

* Armor
* Items