[Soul Shards] Wither Skeleton head

[madaffacca]

Here I am with another silly question. I've struggled for hours to reach a tier 4 shard for my Wither Skeleton farm, I placed my shard inside a cage, then let the Skellys fall for about 30 blocks and die happily. After a couple of hours, I noticed that not a single head was dropped by those basterds; according to MC wiki, Skellys have a 2.5% chance of dropping a head, my tier 4 spawner should spawn up to 4 mobs every 5 seconds (= 12 spawning rotation per minute, 720 per hour), but let's say I'm very unlucky and I only got 1 mob spawned every 5 seconds for 2 hours. That would mean around 1440 skeletons,, which means around 36 heads, but I haven't got a single one (no stone swords as well). So:
- Soul Shards skeletons don't drop heads?
- Do I have to kill them manually?
- Am I reaaally unlucky?
- Is this a bug?

 

[TheBigGreaves]

You can only obtain rare drops from mobs if you kill them yourself manually.

 

[madaffacca]

Oh, cool, forgive my dullness then! Thanks a lot!

 

[Racer193]

Use turtles to kill them, my wither skeleton farm produces heads/swords when turtles are killing them

 

[Toadzilla]

I'm not sure if iron golems work, but you might as well try it

 

[Abdiel]

Both ComputerCraft attack turtles and RedPower deployers shooting damage (or in the case of undead mobs, healing) splash potions will yield rare drops - including heads.

 

[WatcherInTheShadows]

What about TNT?
Does it yield rare drops?

 

[EternalDensity]

What about arrow dispensers? Do they work?

 

[Bahnmor]

Both ComputerCraft attack turtles and RedPower deployers shooting damage (or in the case of undead mobs, healing) splash potions will yield rare drops - including heads.

It doesn't speak well of my maturity, but when I read 'ComputerCraft attack turtles' I just started giggling. I've known turtles could be used for that for a while, but seeing it written down that way appealed somehow.
As to the advice, I hadn't thought of that. I may have to give it a try.

 

[Chocorate]

Just have them fall from 29 blocks or something and finish them off with a Vorpal enchanted sword.

 

[Yuka]

Doesn't Redpower2 remove the default chance of a mob dropping its head and make it so that you NEED a weapon with "Vorpal" enchantment?

 

[Antice]

Doesn't Redpower2 remove the default chance of a mob dropping its head and make it so that you NEED a weapon with "Vorpal" enchantment?

No it doesn't.
Just got a head yesterday with a totally unenchanted sword in fact. (Mindcrack pack)

 

[Guswut]

It doesn't speak well of my maturity, but when I read 'ComputerCraft attack turtles' I just started giggling. I've known turtles could be used for that for a while, but seeing it written down that way appealed somehow.
As to the advice, I hadn't thought of that. I may have to give it a try.

That's why I call them "ComputerCraft MurterTurtles", and I usually number them starting at "1000" and going up one thousand units each time. It keeps the humor down to a minimal level.

 

[Hydra]

Doesn't Redpower2 remove the default chance of a mob dropping its head and make it so that you NEED a weapon with "Vorpal" enchantment?

Nope. In our wither farm I tend to just use whatever weapon I have available.

 

[Poppycocks]

Doesn't Redpower2 remove the default chance of a mob dropping its head and make it so that you NEED a weapon with "Vorpal" enchantment?

Contrary to popular belief, and due to one small weirdness in vanilla minecraft, vorpal does not in fact increase the chance of getting a head from a wither skellie specifically. The Looting enchantment does.

Or let me rephrase, Mojang bent to the "but that's too hard!" whine and moved wither heads from head drops to rare drops so that it can specifically be obtained easier thanks to a vanilla enchant.

And that's why we can't have nice things.