Ghast

Ghast

Health points	10
Behavior	Hostile
Attack strength	Impact: 6 Explosion: varies by proximity, maximum: Easy: 9 Normal: 17 × 8.5 Hard: 25 × 12.5
Size	Height: 4.0 Blocks Width: 4.0 Blocks
Spawn	The Nether, with at least 5×4×5 space (technically 4×4×4, but always overlaps more blocks), any light level, immediately above a spawnable block that is not in a Nether fortress.
Common drops	Ghast Tear (0–1) Gunpowder (0–2)
Experience	5
Sounds	Idle Hurt Fireball Charge Death
Internal ID	JE: 56 BE: 41
Namespaced ID	ghast

	“	At least they keep their eerie red eyes shut. Until the Ghast learns you're around, of course.	„
		— Tom Stone

Ghasts are huge, floating, white hostile mobs that live in The Nether and shoot explosive fireballs at the player. They are the second largest mobs that naturally spawn in the game, the largest being the ender dragon.

Spawning

To spawn naturally, ghasts require a solid block below them and 5×4×5 free space in order to spawn, and only spawn in the Nether, in any light level. In a single chunk only one ghast can spawn at once, although due to pack spawning the game tries to spawn up to four entities.

Ghasts will not spawn in nether fortresses.

Drops

• Ghast Tear (0–1) . Looting will increase the maximum ghast tears dropped by one per level, for a maximum of 4 ghast tears with Looting III.
• Gunpowder (0–2) . Looting will increase the maximum gunpowder dropped by one per level, for a maximum of 5 gunpowder with Looting III.
• 5 experience points when killed by the player.

Behavior

Ghasts float around the Nether with their eyes and mouth closed and periodically make sounds that sound like moaning/crying, only opening their eyes or mouth when attacking. They emit a loud screech when attacking the player and scream loudly when taking damage. The sounds that ghasts make have a minimum intensity regardless of their distance, meaning that they can sound closer than they actually are. They have a size of 4×4×4 blocks, as well as 9 tentacles about the size of a player, although longer and skinnier. However, the tentacles are not part of the ghast's hitbox.

Ghasts have a search range of 100 blocks, an explosive attack and mobility. Unlike most other aggressive mobs, the ghast does not have a pursuit mode - it does not attempt to draw closer to the player when at long range (and likewise is not particularly likely to float away). Ghasts can cause other mobs to attack it, but the ghast will never target other mobs; it will only target the player.‌^{[Java Edition only]} When the player comes within 16 blocks, it will open fire whereas strafing left and right, and attempt to gain altitude but will fly away when hit in Creative.

Ghasts will not fire at the player without a line-of-sight, which can be blocked by solid transparent blocks.

If the player is able to fly inside an aggressive ghast, it may die of shooting fireballs at itself. They are also careless about shooting at short range where they will be hurt by the blast.

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Ghasts have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

• Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all mobs see Template:Nbt inherit/mob/template
  •  ExplosionPower: The radius of the explosion created by the fireballs this ghast fires. Default value of 1.

Ghast fireball

Ghast Fireball

Internal ID	JE: 12 BE: 85
Network ID	JE: 63
Namespaced ID	fireball

The ghast's fireball attack has a straight trajectory unaffected by gravity and a theoretically infinite range, though it will disappear after 1 minute. Fireballs do not track the player once fired, are slow, and can be deflected if the player hits them with a projectile, fishing lure or melee attack. At close range, it is one of the most powerful mob attacks in Minecraft, fourth only to the explosion of a creeper, the melee attack of an iron golem, and the explosion of a wither. A direct hit will deal 6 projectile damage from the impact, and up to 9, 17 × 8.5, or 25 × 12.5 explosion damage from the blast, depending on difficulty. When two ghast fireballs collide, one is deflected to a random direction while the other explodes upon impact. Blocks are also set on fire by the explosion. If a ghast is killed, any fireball launched by that ghast will disappear. A fireball will deal 1,000 damage (500 hearts) to a ghast if the fireball was rebounded by a player.

The minimum blast resistance required to absorb all blast force of the ghast's fireballs is 20.17 (about the equivalent of a cobweb). Ghast fireballs therefore cannot damage cobblestone, which has a blast resistance of 30.

Data values

Entity data

Ghast fireballs are also entities which have associated entity data.

• Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  •  direction: List of 3 doubles. Should be identical to Motion.
  •  life: Increments each tick when the projectile is not moving; resets to 0 if it moves. Has no effect, though is still saved/read
  •  power: List of 3 doubles that adds to direction every tick. Act as the acceleration.
  •  Item: The item to render as, may be absent.
    • Tags common to all items see Template:Nbt inherit/itemnoslot/template
  •  ExplosionPower: The power and size of the explosion created by the fireball upon impact. Default value 1.

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
				Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo
	Return to Sender	Destroy a Ghast with a fireball	Kill a ghast using a ghast fireball.	Yes	PS3	Yes	Yes	30G	Gold
					PS4, PSVita				Silver

Advancements

Main article: Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Internal ID
	Return to Sender	Destroy a Ghast with a fireball	Nether	Kill a ghast using a ghast fireball.	minecraft:nether/return_to_sender
	Uneasy Alliance	Rescue a Ghast from the Nether, bring it safely home to the Overworld... and then kill it	Return to Sender	Kill a Ghast in the Overworld.	minecraft:nether/uneasy_alliance
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration, and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	minecraft:adventure/root
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 25 mobs. Other mobs are ignored for this advancement.	minecraft:adventure/kill_a_mob
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 25 mobs. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for the advancement.	minecraft:adventure/kill_all_mobs

Video

Note: At 0:39 in the video, it is stated that the player can only kill a ghast with an arrow, or with deflecting a fireball. However, this is not true. It is possible to kill a ghast with anything, as long as the player can reach it. Usually, this would be when the ghast has spawned under a fairly low ceiling, so it can't fly away. It is also possible to use a fishing rod to pull a ghast in close, then hit it.

History

Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0		October 11, 2010			Notch tweets that he is working on "the most unfair mob ever," adding that "you will hate the Ghast."
		October 22, 2010			Originally, ghasts were intended to be able to spawn near Nether portals in the Overworld. However, this ability was not implemented.
		October 29, 2010			A preview of the Halloween Update was sent to two gaming companies; their articles highlighted the behavior of the upcoming ghast mobs.
		preview			Added ghasts along with the Nether.
					Ghasts would appear to expand slightly before shooting a fireball, similarly to a creeper about to explode. This effect did not work in multiplayer, however.
Java Edition Beta
1.7					Ghasts now aim towards the player and not the camera. Prior to this, pressing F5 (going into third person view) allowed one to easily send the fireball over their head instead of at the character.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease			Ghasts now drop ghast tears.
					Ghasts are now affected by light and no longer appear with the same brightness anywhere.
					Updated ghast fireball texture to a new fire charge () texture. They previously used the snowball () texture, set on fire.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5			Ghasts can now be killed by their own fireballs, allowing the achievement "Return to Sender."
1.1		?			As heard in .minecraft/resources/newsound/mob/ghast, ghasts now have an unused "affectionate scream", which is a high pitched horn sound (like the classic cartoon tugboat sounds).
1.2.1		12w05a			Updated ghast hit box to incorporate their whole body. Prior to this ghasts could only be injured by hitting their tentacles and lower body.
1.3.1		12w19a			Ghasts now make their kill sound when killed rather than their pain sound.
					As a result of the client/server split, Ghasts no longer visibly expand before shooting a fireball in singleplayer.
1.8		14w06a			Ghasts' AI has been slightly changed. They cannot see the player unless their height comes to almost eye level with the player. When attacking, ghasts will now turn their whole body to face the player's direction, and repeatedly strafe left to right around the player while attacking. They now have perfect accuracy with their fireballs, shooting at the player's head, compared to earlier versions when the fireball was previously aimed slightly above the player's head.
					The (broken) code to make ghasts visibly expand while shooting was removed.
1.11		16w32a			Changed entity ID from Ghast to ghast.
					Changed projectile entity ID from Fireball to fireball.
		16w40a			Tags xTile, yTile, zTile, inTile and inGround were removed from the fireball entity data.
					The life tag is no longer used for anything, but still saved/read.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.11.0		build 2			Added ghasts. They are currently unobtainable in-game without editing.
0.12.1		build 1			Ghasts can now be spawned using spawn eggs.
					Ghasts now spawn naturally in the Nether.
		build 6			Ghasts now hit the player more reliably.
		build 7			Ghasts now drop gunpowder and ghast tears.
		build 8			Ghast hitbox is now bigger.
		build 13			Ghasts now have sounds.
0.13.0		build 1			Increased the spawn rate of ghasts.
		build 4			Increased the spawn rate even more.
0.14.0		build 1			Open ghast eyes now glow.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			The entity ID for the fireball is changed from largefireball to large_fireball.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added ghasts.
TU9					Reduced the volume of the ghast sound effects.
					Increased the distance the ghast's sound effect for shooting a fireball can be heard from.
TU11					Further reduced the volume of the ghast sound effects.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added Ghasts.

Issues

Issues relating to "Ghast" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• The player can go inside of a ghast by falling through the top of it or flying up underneath it. If the player stands on top of the head, the player will see inside of it.
• If a ghast is trapped in a 1-thick cube, it will shoot fireballs through the cube. This is because all mobs that shoot spawn the projectile one block in front of it to prevent the projectile from hitting the mob.
• On rare occasions, a ghast will spawn in such a way as to see through blocks (usually trapped on all sides in a tight area). When this happens and the ghast has “line of sight" through those blocks, it will launch a fireball in the player's direction.
• Ghasts can be killed in one shot by any bow with at least Power I, if you charge the bow fully.
• C418 revealed in an AMA on Reddit that ghast sounds are taken from his pet cat, which he makes when disturbed while sleeping.
• Two ghasts are featured in the LEGO set "Minecraft Micro World - The Nether", along with a Zombie Pigman.
• Iron golems do not fight ghasts unless they are very close to them, even in this case it's rare.
• When killed with its own fireball, the ghast will turn orange rather than red. This is because the ghast is set on fire.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• Splash potions will only affect ghasts when hitting them on their lower half.
• Despite not having visible feet, ghasts are still capable of making footstep sounds.
• In snapshots 13w02a (for Java Edition 1.5), and 13w24a (for Java Edition 1.6.1) the fireball texture was replaced with a diamond helmet, and an end portal frame, respectively.
• Ghasts are the only non-undead mob that withers are not hostile toward.

Gallery

• 

  A ghast preparing to shoot a fireball.

• 

  A ghast up close, shooting a fireball (with the old snowball texture) at the player.

• 

  A ghast opens its red eyes when it spits out fireballs.

• 

  Ghasts. (Note old snowball texture)

• 

  A ghast in a nether fortress.

• 

  A spawner programmed to spawn ghasts.

• 

  A Ghast pictured in the Mobestiary.

References

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]