The Enderman in Minecraft is a neutral mob that only attacks the player when provoked. The Enderman is provoked by either looking at it directly or by attacking it first. The Enderman often picks up blocks, most often a grass block as it teleports around the world of Minecraft. It has long black limbs and unique purple eyes. The Enderman is also three-block tall and emits purple particles that are often found around Nether portals as well.
While the Enderman is a neutral mob, it can be difficult to take an Enderman down once it is in fight mode. However, killing Enderman is absolutely essential to the gameplay of Minecraft, as they drop Ender Pearls, which are required to access the portal to The End. The End is where the player fights the Ender Dragon and finishes the game.
| Health Points | 40 (20 hearts) |
| Behavior | Neutral |
| Attack Strength | Easy: 2 hearts, Normal: 3 and a half hearts, Hard: 5 hearts |
| Spawn | Light Level 7 or less in the Overworld and the Nether, Light Level 11 or less in The End |
| Location | Found in all dimensions, but found in most numbers in the Warped Forest in the Nether and The End. |
| Drops | 0-2 Ender Pearls plus the block it may be holding. The drops increase up to 4 Ender Pearls with a Looting sword. |
The History of Enderman
Notch, the creator of Minecraft, has talked about creating the Enderman in his blog called The Word of Notch. He spoke at length about wanting to create a “creepy” mob. At first, the Enderman was created with green eyes, and with zombie noises as a placeholder until something better was figured out. Notch wanted to add almost a feeling of horror when players encountered the Enderman, and so he added the element of the player having to stare directly at the mob to make it hostile. Additionally, the Enderman stares right back at the player, until they move the reticle, at which point the Enderman either runs or teleports to them to attack. This was how the formidable Enderman was born.
The Enderman was first created before the release of Beta 1.8 the Adventure update. The mob used to emit smoke, which was later replaced by the purple particles found close to Nether and End portals in Minecraft. In Beta 1.8, the Enderman used to drop diamonds, as a placeholder for Ender Pearls. By Beta 1.9, they were given their own realm, The End. The zombie noises were also finally replaced with the unique wail that the Enderman makes when killed by the player.
Prior to the pre-lease of Minecraft Beta 1.9, the Enderman could be killed by a bow. This was later amended to make it impossible for the Enderman to be attacked by any projectiles in the game. Over the many years of updates in Minecraft, small changes like water making the Enderman teleport away were added to the game. In the latest Nether update in Minecraft 1.16, the new Nether biome of the Warped Forest is a great location to find and hunt the Enderman.
How do the Enderman behave?
The Enderman is a neutral mob that only attacks when aggravated by the player. That means that if you want, you can go about playing Minecraft without ever actually having to fight an Enderman, at least until you’re ready to go to The End. The Enderman can be stared at by the player to make them hostile, which means aiming your in-game reticle at anywhere above the Enderman’s legs from up to 64 blocks away. This will make the Enderman open its mouth and make a screaming noise, after which it will either run or teleport to the player to hunt you down.
There are a few ways in which the Enderman will stop pursuing you. One of these is water. When the Enderman touches water, it returns to its neutral state and immediately teleports away from it. The Enderman may also stop attacking the player if it gets distracted by other mobs attacking the Enderman or if the sun has risen since the Enderman does not like wandering in the sun and will usually prefer a cave to hide in during the day.
The Enderman can often be seen picking up random blocks and moving them from one place to another. In the Overworld, they mostly move grass blocks and place them elsewhere. If the Enderman is killed while it is transporting a block, it drops the block as a loot as well, and this is one way of getting a grass block in Minecraft, which turns to dirt when mined with a tool or with hand. The only other way of getting grass blocks is through a silk touch tool.
The Enderman can often also be seen fighting some other mobs. They almost always attack Endermites, which sometimes spawn after teleportation with an Ender Pearl. Additionally, hauntings or groups of the Enderman are sometimes attacked by the Ender Dragon in the end, and they can be seen retaliating at the Dragon in a group.
How to protect from Enderman?
There are a couple of ways that can be implemented to kill the Enderman safely. Some of these methods are listed below:
1. Standing in a pool of water may be a good way to protect against the Enderman. Since the Enderman takes damage from water, it may help you kill it faster. Because of the water, the Enderman may also simply teleport away, leaving you alone.
2. Minecraft players often dig two-block tall tunnels in their world to battle the Enderman. They stare at the Enderman and once it comes to attack, they hide in the two-block tall tunnel and attack the Enderman from relative safety. Since the Enderman is three-block tall, it cannot attack you or follow you into the tunnel and can be killed safely.
3. Another effective way of protecting from the Enderman’s attack in Minecraft is to simply use a shield to block their attacks and find opportune moments to strike back with your sword.
4. Cobwebs can be used in places to trap the Enderman, which is unable to teleport or move when it is stuck in the cobweb. This can help you kill the Enderman easily.
5. Minecraft players have also been known to use the trick of trapping the Enderman in a boat. If you place a boat directly under the Enderman, it is unable to move or teleport from it and you can safely damage it enough to kill.
6. If a player is wearing a carved pumpkin on their head instead of a helmet, they can safely stare at the Enderman without provoking it. However, a carved pumpkin highly restricts your field of view and is generally considered too much of an inconvenience.
7. Staring at the Enderman through a glass window does not aggravate them as it is considered a solid block by Minecraft.
Where to find the Enderman in Minecraft?
The Enderman spawn in the Overworld at light level 7 or lower, which means they can often be found roaming the Overworld or in caves. They can also often be spotted in the desert biome. Additionally, the Enderman can spawn at anytime in the Nether, with light level 7 or lower.
Apart from the light level, the Enderman also needs open space of up to 3 blocks in order to spawn. In the Nether, they are most often found in the newly added Warped Forest biome, which is often visited by Minecraft players when they want to farm a lot of Ender Pearls.
In The End, which is a separate dimension home to the Enderman, they usually spawn in groups called a haunting. Often upto four Enderman can spawn together. Light levels need to be either 11 or lower in order for the Enderman to spawn in The End.
How to summon the Enderman in Minecraft?
The Enderman can be summoned in Minecraft using game commands, which are considered to be in-game cheats. In order to use commands, you must turn on cheats before generating your world.
Once you are playing in your Minecraft world, you can simply type in a /summon command in order to spawn the Enderman. In the latest versions of Minecraft Java Edition, you can type in /summon enderman [pos] [nbt].
[Pos] denotes the X, Y, and Z coordinates that the player can specify in order to spawn the Enderman at that specific spot. However, this is optional. If position is not specified in the summon command, the Enderman spawns right where the player is. [Nbt] denotes NBT tags, formerly known as data tags, that describe the state in which an Enderman will spawn. Thus, the NBT tags can be used to specify whether the Enderman will be holding a block or how many hearts it will spawn with.
