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The Wild Update added as part of Minecraft 1.19 brought a slew of new features to the game. Many such features revolve around the new deep dark biome, a spooky environment far underground that is both treacherous and rewarding.

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The main reason the Deep Dark is so dangerous to explore is the Warden, who, as the name suggests, guards the biome and the treasures it contains. The Warden is on a power level hitherto unseen in Minecraft, so taking one on is no mean feat. Luckily, this guide will walk you through exactly how the new mob operates, to give you a fighting chance against this blind behemoth.

Updated August 23, 2023, by Sean Murray: Defeating the Warden is a difficult task, so your best bet is to prevent the Warden from spawning in the first place. We've refreshed this guide with more tips on how to prevent the Warden from spawning and what to do if you a Warden comes for you.

What Is The Warden?

A Minecraft warden stumbling past some trees

The Warden is a hostile mob that can only spawn in the deep dark. It's incredibly tanky, having 250 hearts of health - equivalent to the Ender Dragon and Wither combined! It is also remarkably strong, as its melee attack can deal as much as 22.5 hearts of damage if you're playing on hard mode.

It can also unleash a lethal sonic boom attack. More on that later.

The Warden's only real weakness is that it's blind, but to compensate for this it has exceptional senses of smell and hearing. It's also very sensitive to vibrations, and will pathfind in the direction of anything it hears. It can also pick up players' scents, increasing the chances of it locking onto them.

How Does The Warden Spawn?

minecraft warden spawning

The Warden doesn't spawn like regular mobs, simply popping into existence in areas of low light level the right distance from the player. Instead, the Warden's arrival is triggered by Sculk Shriekers, the Sculk blocks with four white bits popping up at the corners.

Sculk Shriekers activate whenever they receive vibrations caused by player actions - walking, placing or destroying blocks, opening chests, etc. They can pick up these vibrations directly, or have them passed on by Sculk Sensors. Just because you don't see a Shrieker in the immediate vicinity, that doesn't mean you're safe if there are still Sensors around.

You can surround Sculk Sensors and Shriekers with wool or carpet to prevent them picking up noise, or just destroy them.

As their name suggests, Sculk Shriekers let out a blood-curdling scream when activated. After this scream ends, all players in the vicinity are inflicted with 12 seconds of the disorienting "darkness" effect, which essentially blinds the player on and off. There's an even worse effect of Shrieker activation, though — they summon the Warden.

The specifics of Warden summoning are a little technical, but essentially, there's a hidden counter for the number of Shriekers you activate. You can activate three Shriekers, and all that'll happen is you'll be repeatedly blinded, but once you activate a fourth Shrieker, the Warden will spawn.

This hidden counter is independent of individual Shriekers, meaning it doesn't matter if you activate the same Shrieker four times, or four different Shriekers.

The Shrieker counter is player-specific, meaning that if you've activated three Shriekers and then your friend activates one, you're safe — their activation will go toward their hidden counter instead of yours.

After the counter has hit four, any subsequent Shrieker activations also have the potential to spawn a Warden, if the conditions are met. Wardens' spawning conditions are as follows:

  • There is no other Warden within 48 blocks
  • There is a light level of less than 11

If these conditions are met, any extra Shrieker activation will spawn another Warden, regardless of how many Wardens have already spawned.

The good news is that your counter can decrease. For every ten minutes you go without activating a Shrieker, your counter decreases by one. If you go 40 minutes without triggering any Shriekers, you'll be back to zero (assuming you were only at four). You'll then have your three-Shrieker leeway back for exploring the Deep Dark.

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The Warden's Anger Meter

a minecraft warden in a calm state

Despite how scary it is, simply spawning a Warden doesn't actually sign your death warrant. Upon spawning in, all it knows is that someone set off a Shrieker, and being blind, it can't exactly look to see who's standing right next to one. Because of this, the state the Warden spawns in is the calmer of its two states.

Calm State

A summoned Warden will be in a calm state and its default behavior is simply wandering around at random.

The Warden also has a passive heartbeat effect that inflicts constant darkness on anyone in the vicinity - essentially a non-stop Shrieker blindness.

The Warden's Anger Meter

The calm state begins to change whenever the Warden picks up vibrations. It can hear any vibrations around it in a 16-block radius and pathfinds towards them as it hears them. This includes sounds from players, mobs, and objects such as projectiles and minecarts.

There's another hidden counter that affects the Warden's state, and it's controlled by vibrations. Each time you produce any sort of vibration the Warden's anger meter towards you increases. All actions such as walking, running, placing blocks, throwing projectiles, opening chests, etc. will produce vibrations.

Each vibration caused adds 35 to the anger meter, except for projectiles, which add ten. Once the anger meter hits 80, the Warden roars for 4.2 seconds then enters its enraged state, pursuing the target.

There are other ways to increase the Warden's anger. Every five to ten seconds while calm, it sniffs the surroundings and adds 35 anger to the nearest player or mob, so keep away. Similarly, bumping into it will add 35 anger, and attacking it will add a whopping 100 anger, instantly enraging it.

Enraged State

Once in an enraged state, the Warden's sense of smell takes over, latching onto whoever enraged it like a bloodhound and pursuing them relentlessly, ignoring any and all vibrations. At this point, the Warden essentially pathfinds as if it can see its target.

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What Are The Warden's Attacks?

a minecraft warden's sonic boom

The Warden's default attack is a melee it can use every 0.9 seconds, dealing between eight and 22.5 hearts of damage (depending on your difficulty settings) and disabling your shield for five seconds. This alone is a brutal attack, but the Warden also has a special move it can use to hunt down elusive prey.

If you are hiding behind a wall or up on a pillar, the Warden charges up its sonic boom attack. This is essentially a sound-based laser that has a 20-block range and goes through walls.

The Warden is immune to knockback, and doesn't take any damage from fire and lava. Your only real chance is to run.

The sonic boom attack hits for three to seven-and-a-half hearts of damage, depending on difficulty, but that's not the whole picture. The sonic boom also bypasses all armor and enchantments, meaning that on hard mode, even if you have full Netherite armor with Protection IV, the Warden's sonic boom will knock three-quarters off your health.

To top it off, the Warden has a whopping 250 hearts, meaning that even if you can somehow survive its onslaught long enough to fight back, any damage you deal will just be a drop in the ocean of its massive health pool.

How Can I Avoid The Warden?

Minecraft Warden In The Ancient City Deep Dark Torch

Ideally you'll want to avoid summoning the Warden in the first place. You can do this by sneaking around instead of running or walking, and by placing wool around the Sculk Sensors to block the vibrations.

You may also find a Swift Sneak enchant in a chest in the deep dark, allowing you to move quicker while sneaking.

However, we all know that Minecraft doesn't always go to plan. So if you've summoned the Warden here are the best ways to get out of its path.

  • Throwing snowballs or other projectiles will send the Warden off to investigate where they landed, allowing you to run in the opposite direction.
  • Pillaring up can quickly increase the distance between you are the Warden since it cannot follow you up a pillar.
  • Have an escape route planned. You will end up blind so make sure you know which direction to run in if required.

If you pillar up make sure you are quick and get high enough, otherwise you risk being sonic boomed off the top!

The real key to "beating" the Warden is that if it is left in its calm state for 60 seconds, it will burrow back underground and despawn, so once one spawns in, get out of detection range and wait for it to go back underground. This really is your best hope, as the Warden's attacks are formidable.

This is a monster unlike anything seen before in Minecraft, so just fighting it simply isn't the wisest move. If you are brave enough to take it on - good luck. You'll need it.

Next: Minecraft Complete Guide and Walkthrough