Arrow

Arrow

Type	Combat
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Normal / Spectral: Yes (64) Tipped: Yes (64, only if same effect)
Internal ID	Normal / Tipped: PC: 10, PE: 80 Spectral: PC: 24
Network ID	Normal / Tipped: PC: 60 Spectral: PC: 91
Entity ID	Normal / Tipped: arrow Spectral: spectral_arrow
First appearances	See History
Data values	Normal: dec: 262 hex: 106 bin: 100000110 Spectral: dec: 439 hex: 1B7 bin: 110110111 Tipped: dec: 440 hex: 1B8 bin: 110111000
Name	arrow spectral_arrow tipped_arrow

Arrows are ammunition for bows and dispensers. They can be modified to imbue status effects on players and mobs.

Obtaining

Skeletons

Skeletons may drop between 0 to 2 arrows upon death, and the maximum amount dropped can be increased by 1 per level of looting used. Strays may drop 1 arrow of Slowness when killed by a player, not increased by looting. Arrows shot by a skeleton or stray cannot be picked up.

Trading

Villager fletchers will sell 8 to 12 arrows for 1 emerald as part of their tier 1 trades.

Crafting

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Description
Arrow	Flint + Stick + Feather	4
Spectral Arrow	Glowstone Dust + Arrow	2	Java Edition only
Tipped Arrow	Arrow + Matching Lingering Potion	8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8	Arrows of decay are Pocket Edition exclusive.

Natural generation

Arrows can be found in all dispensers in jungle temples in stacks of 2–7.

Retrieving

Arrows stuck in a block that were originally shot by dispensers or by players in Survival without the Infinity enchantment may be collected. Arrows originally shot by skeletons, illusioners, by players in Creative, or by players using the Infinity enchantment cannot be collected.

Cauldrons

Tipped arrows can be obtained by using arrows on cauldrons that have potions.^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Usage

See also: Bow

When fired, arrows will fly in a ballistic trajectory affected by gravity and drag in air, water, and lava and will travel approximately 3 blocks when fired parallel to a flat plane with no charge, 15 blocks average with medium charge, and 24 blocks average with maximum charge. Arrows in water get much more drag than in air: they will move less than 8 blocks before completely losing horizontal speed and starting to fall straight down, however the knockback of the arrow is not affected. They also leave a trail of bubbles in their wake. Arrows (with bow at full strength) can travel 120 blocks when fired from the optimal angle. The maximum height an arrow fired by a bow can reach is around 66 blocks.

An arrow's damage is determined by its speed. When fired from a fully-charged bow, arrows do about 9 () of damage, with a small chance to damage for 10 (). They inflict about 6 () damage from a medium-charged bow, and about 1 () from a bow with no charge. Arrows fired from dispensers do about 3 () of damage.

Immediately after hitting the target, there is a 0.5 second cooldown period during which the target will be immune to further damage. Arrows hitting the mob in this state will lose all speed and drop to the ground.

Arrows can be deflected by snowballs.

An arrow shot into a tree

Two players with arrows sticking out of them.

Arrows will also stick into objects they come in contact with and will remain there for exactly a minute before disappearing; the distance from the object and the angle determine how far into the target the arrow will go. Such arrows may be retrievable.

The custom effects (NBT tag CustomPotionEffects) of tipped arrows will evaporate after the arrow has been stuck for 30 seconds, but the primary effect (NBT tag Potion) is not subject to evaporation.

If an arrow is stuck in a block and the block in which the arrow is stuck in is broken or disappears (e.g., leaves), then the arrow will fall straight down and damage entities below them.

Arrows can bounce off entities like minecarts and mobs immune to damage. The wither under the "wither armor" effect and a perching enderdragon are immune to arrows.

Arrows shot through lava (but not fire) will catch on fire and show an appropriate animation until they pass through water. Like arrows shot from a bow with the Flame enchantment, they can set other entities they hit on fire and ignite TNT.

An arrow shot at a boat or any kind of minecart will cause the vehicle to break, dropping any components (including container contents).

Redstone circuits

An arrow can activate a wooden button, wooden pressure plate, or tripwire. If the arrow sticks in the switch they will remain activated until the arrow despawns after one minute. Other switches are not affected by arrows.

When arrows are fired into the sides of blocks, they change their orientation to point more downwards than their original flight path might indicate. This can cause them to intersect and thus trigger switches above them that they didn't actually hit, or block rails above them.

Explosions

Arrows are affected by explosions while they are in flight. Since explosions increase the speed of an arrow, they can also increase the damage dealt by them.

Tipped arrows

Tipped arrows are arrows that imbue a potion effect when hitting a mob or player. The duration of the effect is ¹⁄₈ that of the corresponding potion, if applicable, and is not affected by the power of the arrow. The status effect is the same as the regular power effect for the potion. If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, tipped arrows will still be consumed.

The types of arrows are:

• 
  Arrow of Regeneration
• 
  Arrow of Swiftness
• 
  Arrow of Fire Resistance
• 
  Arrow of Healing
• 
  Arrow of Night Vision
• 
  Arrow of Strength
• 
  Arrow of Leaping
• 
  Arrow of Invisibility
• 
  Arrow of Poison
• 
  Arrow of Weakness
• 
  Arrow of Slowness
• 
  Arrow of Harming
• 
  Arrow of Water Breathing
• 
  Arrow of Luck^{[Java and Legacy Console editions only]}
• 
  Arrow of Decay^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Spectral arrows

The spectral arrow^{[Java Edition only]} imbues the Glowing status effect for 10 seconds. The Glowing effect creates an outline of the target, which is visible through blocks, and colored based on the target's team (white by default). If a bow is enchanted with Infinity, spectral arrows will still be consumed.

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Normal and tipped arrows

Arrows have entity data which define various properties of the entity. Their entity ID is arrow.

• 
  Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all projectiles see Template:Nbt inherit/projectile/template
  • 
     shake: The "shake" when arrows hit a block.
  • 
     inData: Metadata of tile arrow is in.
  • 
     pickup: 0 = cannot be picked up by players. 1 = can be picked up by players in survival or creative. 2 = can only be picked up by players in creative.
  • 
     player: 1 or 0 (true/false) - If pickup is not used, and this is true, the arrow can be picked up by players.
  • 
     life: Increments each tick when an arrow is not moving; resets to 0 if it moves. When it ticks to 1200, the arrow despawns.
  • 
     damage: Damage dealt by the arrow, in half-hearts. May not be a whole number. 2.0 for normal arrows, and increased 0.5 per level of Power enchantment on the firing bow. If the Power enchantment is present, an additional 0.5 is added on (so Power I gives a bonus of 1.0, while Power II gives 1.5).
  • 
     inGround: 1 or 0 (true/false) - If the Projectile is in the ground or hit the ground already (For arrow pickup; you cannot pickup arrows in the air)
  • 
     crit: 1 or 0 (true/false) - Whether the arrow will deal critical damage.

An Arrow entity is a tipped arrow if it has either the Potion or CustomPotionEffects tag. The tipped_arrow item uses these tags, but the arrow item does not.

• 
  Entity/item data
  • 
     Color ^{(since 16w50a)}: Used by the arrow entity, for displaying the custom potion color of a fired arrow item that had a CustomPotionColor tag. The numeric color code are calculated from the Red, Green and Blue components using this formula: Red<<16 + Green<<8 + Blue. For positive values larger than 0x00FFFFFF, the top byte is ignored. All negative values produce white.
  • 
     CustomPotionEffects: The custom potion effects (status effects) this potion or tipped arrow has. A potion getting its effects from this tag will be named "Water Bottle". A tipped arrow will be named "Arrow of Splashing".
    • 
      One of these for each effect.
      • 
         Id: The numeric ID of the effect.
      • 
         Amplifier: The amplifier of the effect, with level I having value 0. Negative levels are discussed here. Optional, and defaults to level I.
      • 
         Duration: The duration of the effect in ticks. Values 0 or lower are treated as 1. Optional, and defaults to 1 tick.
      • 
         Ambient: 1 or 0 (true/false) - whether or not this is an effect provided by a beacon and therefore should be less intrusive on the screen. Optional, and defaults to false. Due to a bug, it has no effect on splash potions.
      • 
         ShowParticles: 1 or 0 (true/false) - whether or not this effect produces particles. Optional, and defaults to true. Due to a bug, it has no effect on splash potions.
  • 
     Potion ^{(since 15w31a)}: The name of the default potion effect. This name differs from the status effect name. For example, the value for an "Instant Health II" potion is "minecraft:strong_healing". A potion or tipped arrow getting its effects from this tag will be named with the proper effect.
  • 
     CustomPotionColor: The item uses this custom color, and area-of-effect clouds, arrows, and splash and lingering potions use it for their particle effects. This color does not extend, however, to the particles given off by entities who ultimately receive the effect. The numeric color code are calculated from the Red, Green and Blue components using this formula: Red<<16 + Green<<8 + Blue. For positive values larger than 0x00FFFFFF, the top byte is ignored. All negative values produce white.

Spectral arrows

Spectral arrows also have entity data which define various properties of the entity. Their entity ID is spectral_arrow.

• 
  Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all projectiles see Template:Nbt inherit/projectile/template
  • 
     shake: The "shake" when arrows hit a block.
  • 
     inData: Metadata of tile arrow is in.
  • 
     pickup: 0 = cannot be picked up by players. 1 = can be picked up by players in survival or creative. 2 = can only be picked up by players in creative.
  • 
     player: 1 or 0 (true/false) - If pickup is not used, and this is true, the arrow can be picked up by players.
  • 
     life: Increments each tick when an arrow is not moving; resets to 0 if it moves. When it ticks to 1200, the arrow despawns.
  • 
     damage: Damage dealt by the arrow, in half-hearts. May not be a whole number. 2.0 for normal arrows, and increased 0.5 per level of Power enchantment on the firing bow. If the Power enchantment is present, an additional 0.5 is added on (so Power I gives a bonus of 1.0, while Power II gives 1.5).
  • 
     inGround: 1 or 0 (true/false) - If the Projectile is in the ground or hit the ground already (For arrow pickup; you cannot pickup arrows in the air)
  • 
     crit: 1 or 0 (true/false) - Whether the arrow will deal critical damage.
  • 
     Duration: The time in ticks that the Glowing effect will last.

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
				Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo
	Sniper Duel	Kill a skeleton with an arrow from more than 50 meters	Use a launched arrow to kill a skeleton, wither skeleton, or a stray from 50 or more blocks away, horizontally.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	30G	Silver
	Archer	Kill a creeper with arrows.		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	10G	Bronze
	Cupid	Kill 2 players in a round of a public Battle mini game using a bow and arrow.		Yes	Yes	No	Yes	20G	Bronze

Advancements

Main article: Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Internal ID
	Not Today, Thank You	Deflect an arrow with a shield	Suit Up	Deflect a projectile with a shield.	minecraft:story/deflect_arrow
	Take Aim	Shoot something with a bow and arrow	Monster Hunter	Fire a bow so that the arrow strikes any entity.	minecraft:adventure/shoot_arrow
	Sniper duel	Kill a skeleton with an arrow from more than 50 meters	Take Aim	Use a launched arrow to kill a skeleton from 50 or more blocks away, horizontally.	minecraft:adventure/sniper_duel

Video

Note: This video is outdated. As of 1.9, there are 15 new arrows added to Minecraft: The Spectral Arrow and 14 Tipped Arrows

History

Classic
0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST					Arrows were added and were fired by pressing Tab ↹.
0.25 SURVIVAL TEST 2					Arrows deal more damage.
					You now only have a limited number of arrows.
					Skeletons now fire arrows.
					Arrows are dropped when a skeleton is killed.
0.26					Skeleton arrows were purple. The purple arrow texture can still be found in the minecraft.jar file, in the same image as the normal arrows, but it is not in use.
0.29_01					Arrows are no longer available in single player.
Indev
January 24, 2010					Arrows now have a sound effect.
January 30, 2010					Arrows are now available in single player again and can only be shot with a bow.
					Arrows are now craftable.
					Arrows now took the item form.
Alpha
1.0.14					The tip of an arrow in crafting is now made from flint rather than iron ingot.
Beta
1.6					Arrows used to stick in any block before this update, even some non-solid ones. For example, they could stick in torches, sugar cane, and nether portals.
1.8			1.8-pre1		Arrows can no longer be rapid-fired from bows. Arrows (with bow at full strength) can travel 120 blocks when fired from the optimal angle, and stick to mobs.
Sound Update					Arrow firing sounds changed.
Official release
1.0.0			Beta 1.9-pre1		Arrows no longer stick to mobs.
			1.0.0-RC1		Arrow landing sounds changed.
1.1					Arrows which are on fire now set entities they hit on fire. Before, arrows could be on fire (like other entities), but they did not set what they hit on fire, and there was no enchantment to fire flaming arrows.
1.3.1			12w21a		Farmer villagers now sell 9–12 arrows for 1 emerald.
			12w23a		Arrows can activate the tripwire switch and wooden pressure plates.
1.4.2			12w34a		Arrows can activate the new wooden buttons.
			12w34b		Arrows on fire can ignite TNT.
1.4.4					Arrows stick to players again, but not mobs.
1.8			14w02a		Farmer villagers no longer sell arrows.
					Fletcher villagers now sell 8–12 arrows for 1 emerald.
			14w25a		An underwater arrow will lose all velocity after a few blocks and slowly fall.
					A flaming arrow underwater will be extinguished.
			14w26a		Fire arrow can be used to detonate minecarts with TNT.
1.9			15w31a		Added 15 new arrow types, 14 of which are tipped with a different potion effect. However some of them don't function yet.
					Added spectral arrows. They show mob and player outlines in their team color when hit.
			15w33c		Added shields; though they fully blocked damage from arrows, arrows would still visually stick into the player.
			15w37a		Arrows now ricochet off of shields.
			15w44b		Added the initial method for obtaining tipped arrows, which lasted until snapshot 16w06a – firing arrows into a lingering potion cloud.
			15w47b		Arrows now ricochet off of Creative mode players, whereas before they would pass straight through.
			15w49a		Tipped and spectral arrows are no longer affected by the Infinity enchantment.
			16w06a		Tipped arrows are given a crafting recipe, and are no longer obtained by shooting them into a lingering potion cloud.
1.10			16w20a		Arrows of slowness may drop from strays when killed by a player.
1.11			16w32a		The entity IDs are changed from Arrow and SpectralArrow to arrow and spectral_arrow.
			16w32a		Tipped Arrows of instant healing and instant damage now function. Previously the fact that tipped arrows have 1/8th the duration was reducing 1 game tick to zero game ticks.
			16w42a		Arrows now have a crit tag that determines whether it will deal critical damage.
1.11.1			16w50a		The arrow entity now has a Color integer tag, for displaying the custom potion color of a fired arrow item that has a CustomPotionColor tag.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.3.3					Added arrows.
0.12.1			build 1		Arrows which are on fire now set entities they hit on fire. Before, arrows could be on fire (like other entities), but they did not set what they hit on fire, and there was no enchantment to fire flaming arrows.
					Arrows on fire can ignite TNT.
					An underwater arrow will lose all velocity after a few blocks and slowly fall.
0.13.0			build 1		Arrows now update sand and gravel.
0.15.0			build 1		Added tipped arrows, which are made by using cauldrons filled with potions.
0.16.0			build 4		As a version exclusive, added Arrows of Decay.
					Currently have a white pixelated texture.
Pocket Edition
1.0			build 1		Tipped Arrows are now craftable, but they can still be obtained using cauldrons filled with potions.
1.1			build 1		The entity ID is changed from arrow.skeleton to arrow.
			build 7		Updated the Arrows of Decay texture.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.00	Patch 1		Added arrows.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		An underwater arrow will lose all velocity after a few blocks and slowly fall.
					A flaming arrow underwater will be extinguished.
TU46	CU36	1.38	Patch 15		Added tipped arrows.

Gallery

• 

  All the arrow types present in Minecraft.

• 

  Examples of custom arrow types using /give

Issues

Issues relating to “Arrow” are maintained on the issue tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• By default, arrows spawn slightly offset to the right. If the player stands close to a wall and fires several arrows without moving their crosshair, the arrows will cluster around a point slightly to the right of the crosshair. If the player switches their main hand to be the left hand in options, the arrows will instead be offset to the left.
• Arrows fired at Nether Portals will often skip through the portal block completely and fail to collide, thus continuing through to the opposite side of the block.
• A tipped arrow with no potion effect (obtained via commands) will be called "Arrow of Splashing".

Items

View at: Template:Items/content [edit]

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]