Health

Health is the fundamental condition that an entity needs to survive. Health can be recovered by healing, through natural regeneration, or by using status effects.
Regaining health
Players can recover health naturally by having their hunger at least 18 ( × 9) and the gamerule naturalRegeneration is set to true, or through status effects.
Mobs
Horses, donkeys, mules, llamas, allays, happy ghasts, and the wither[Java Edition only] are the only mobs that regenerate health naturally over time.
Health bar
The health bar displays how much health the player has left. It is usually based on a single row of 10 heart icons. Each full heart contains two halves, one health point each (the player normally has 20 maximum health points).
The Regeneration effect makes health regenerate fairly quickly, and the hearts of the health bar bounce in a wave.
If the health bar shows HP or less, it begins to shake violently, warning that the player is low on health.
The player's health bar is invisible while holding or wearing an item that gives negative health points that exceed the player's current health points. For example, the player's default health is 20, and if holding an item with the attribute −21 health, the player can take two hits before dying, regardless of how much damage these hits inflict. The first one deals enough damage to reduce health to 1HP, and the second one kills the player. If the player uses a modified item to reduce health, sometimes the death screen appears. After clicking respawn, the player would shake in the death position and this can be fixed by ceasing to use the modified item.
If a player is riding a mob, the health of that mob is shown in place of[Java Edition only] or on top of[Bedrock Edition only] the hunger bar, using as the texture for hearts.
Hearts



Hearts make up the health bar for the player in the Survival, Hardcore (different texture), and Adventure modes.
The player's hearts have a different texture depending on the various condition. Also, all hearts have different textures in Hardcore mode.
| Type | Color | Icon | Hardcore Icon | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poison | Green | Poison effect | ||
| Wither | Black | Wither effect | ||
| Absorption | Yellow | Absorption effect (only additional hearts) | ||
| Freezing | Cyan | Freezing in powder snow | ||
| Normal | Red | Otherwise |
- Hearts take the highest applicable texture in this list; poison overrides wither, which overrides absorption, which overrides freezing.
- Only hearts given by the Absorption effect will be absorption hearts.
- For all of the other conditions, the entire health bar (including absorption hearts, except freezing which does not change absorption hearts) will change texture.
Entities' health
| Entity | Health | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playable | 20HP × 10 |
|||||
| Passive | 20HP × 10 |
20HP × 10[JE only] 6HP[BE only] |
12HP × 6 |
14HP × 7 |
6HP |
32HP × 16 |
10HP |
4HP |
3HP |
12HP × 6 |
10HP |
15HP × 7.5 to 30HP × 15 | |
10HP |
10HP |
20HP × 10 |
15HP × 7.5 to 30HP × 15 |
10HP |
15HP × 7.5 to 30HP × 15 | |
10HP |
6HP |
10HP |
3HP |
3HP |
3HP | |
8HP |
15HP × 7.5 |
4HP |
14HP × 7 |
10HP |
20HP × 10 | |
6HP |
3HP |
30HP × 15 |
20HP × 10 |
20HP × 10 |
||
| Neutral | 10HP |
12HP × 6 |
10HP |
20HP × 10 |
40HP × 20 |
10HP |
10HP |
100HP × 50 |
15HP × 7.5 to 30HP × 15 |
Most variants: 20HP × 10 Weak: 10HP |
16HP × 8 |
30HP × 15 | |
16HP × 8 |
15HP × 7.5 to 30HP × 15 |
Wild: 8HP Tamed: 40HP × 20 |
20HP × 10 |
|||
| Hostile | 20HP × 10 |
16HP × 8 |
30HP × 15 |
1HP (invulnerable if natural) |
20HP × 10 |
80HP × 40 |
8HP |
24HP × 12 |
10HP |
30HP × 15 |
40HP × 20 |
20HP × 10 | |
Big: 16HP × 8 Medium: 4HP Small: 1HP |
20HP × 10 |
50HP × 25 |
24HP × 12 |
100HP × 50 |
30HP × 15 | |
8HP |
20HP × 10 |
Big 16HP × 8 Medium: 4HP Small: 1HP |
20HP × 10 |
14HP × 7 |
24HP × 12 | |
500HP × 250 |
26HP × 13 |
20HP × 10 |
40HP × 20 |
20HP × 10 |
20HP × 10 | |
| Bosses | 200HP × 100 |
300HP × 150 |
Easy: 300HP × 150 Normal: 450HP × 225 Hard: 600HP × 300 |
|||
| Unused | 100HP × 50 |
20HP × 10 |
32HP × 16 |
20HP × 10 |
20HP × 10 |
20HP × 10 |
15HP × 7.5 |
||||||
| Minecraft Education | ∞ ( × ∞) |
4HP |
∞ ( × ∞) |
|||
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | ||||||
| Overkill | Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit. | Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall. | 30 | Bronze | |||
| Over-Overkill | Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace | Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall. | 20 | Silver | |||
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) |
|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Adventure | Adventure, exploration and combat | Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity. |
![]() | Over-Overkill | Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace | Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall. |
Video
History
| Java Edition Classic | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 20, 2009 | Notch mentions plans to add a health bar. | ||||||
| August 18, 2009 | Health bar and fall damage teased. | ||||||
| August 20, 2009 | Health bar blinking when damaged, damage invulnerability, and health bar shaking teased. | ||||||
| 0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST | Added all of the above. | ||||||
| Mushrooms now regain health. | |||||||
| Java Edition Indev | |||||||
| ? | Dead mobs would fall on their left side instead of other random directions. | ||||||
| Before suffocation was implemented, players that were covered by blocks could see through dirt and stone. Suffocation was added after Notch discovered that players were abusing this exploit to find underground caves and hollowed carvings. The patch added suffocation damage and making the player unable to see anything when experiencing it. However, this glitch is not completely fixed and is still possible to be done even in the existing version of the game. | |||||||
| In Survival mode, eating a red mushroom would deal the player 3HP of damage because they were poisonous. | |||||||
| Java Edition Alpha | |||||||
| v1.0.4 | Players no longer suffocate when riding in a minecart. | ||||||
| Java Edition Beta | |||||||
| 1.5 | Unarmed damage is increased from 1HP to 2HP. | ||||||
| 1.8 | Pre-release | Unarmed damage is decreased from 2HP to 1HP. | |||||
| Regeneration effect added, increasing health. | |||||||
| Java Edition | |||||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2 | Mobs can now have armor points.[1] | |||||
| Hearts now look different in Hardcore mode. | |||||||
| RC1 | The sound of the player taking damage is changed from a man's grunt to be more gender-neutral. | ||||||
| 1.3.1 | 12w25a | Removed the downward knockback while drowning, which essentially trapped drowning players in multiplayer underwater. | |||||
| ? | The health bar no longer has an animation for damage that shows how many hearts are lost. | ||||||
| 1.4.2 | 12w38a | Changed hurt sounds for player again. | |||||
| 1.6.1 | 13w23a | Natural health regeneration can now be toggled with the game rule naturalRegeneration. | |||||
| 1.8 | 14w32a | The health bar has an animation for damage that shows how many hearts are lost again. | |||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||||
| v0.2.0 | Health bar added. | ||||||
| v0.12.1 | build 1 | Regeneration effect is added that increases health. | |||||
| build 10 | The sound of the player taking damage is changed from a man's grunt to be more gender-neutral. | ||||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||||
| 1.21.100 | Preview 1.21.100.22 | Reduced the alpha value from 60% to 25% for hurt color overlay on entities to aid in accessibility, matching Java Edition. | |||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||||
| Xbox 360 | Xbox One | PS3 | PS4 | PS Vita | Wii U | Switch | |
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | Added the health bar. |
| TU5 | The sound of the player taking damage is changed from a man's grunt to be more gender-neutral. | ||||||
| TU69 | 1.76 | 1.76 | 1.76 | Patch 38 | Changed hurt sounds for player again. | ||
Issues
Issues relating to "Health" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.
Gallery
Screenshots
-
A preview of the health system seen on Notch's blog. Note how the sprite for the half-heart has a black line in the middle. -
Health displayed in the tab menu.
In other media
-
"Rainbow Life Bar," an official T-Shirt design made to celebrate Pride Month. -
Some hearts in a cherry blossom biome. -
Some hearts in a forest biome. -
Some hearts in a plains biome.
See also
- Death, the result of an entity's health reaching 0HP.
References
- ↑ "I've added some armor points to the zombies, so they're slightly tougher now" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X (formerly Twitter), September 29, 2011
External links
- Everything you need to know about health in Minecraft – Minecraft.net
| General mechanics | |
|---|---|
| Technical mechanics | |
| Survival |
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| Combat | |
| Environment |
More |
| Movement | |
| User interface | |
| Visuals | |
| Removed | |
| Unintended | |

