Wither Skeletons & heads

[Beleriond01]

Hi all,

Just wanted to put this out there. Playing DW20 pack and noticing the following: been spending literally hours and hours in the Nether trying to hunt down wither skeletons for their heads so I can spawn a Wither Boss.

Using my enchanted Vile Sword (Sharpness IV, Soul Stealer III, Vorpal III) to kill them. Currently my soul shard tells me I'm at 558 kills. Strange thing is that, so far, I've only got 1 wither skull. I kid you not, one. Anyone know why this is perhaps? Possibly Sharpness and Vorpal interfering with each other???

On a somewhat related note. Currently flying around in the Nether trying to pass by all fortresses I located in order to find more skellies. Not much luck I'm afraid...ideas on that??? FYI, I've gone about 3000 blocks in each direction and found about 10 fortresses in total. Unfortunately, wither skeletons hardly seem to spawn at all for me?

Thanks for any info,
Bel*.

 

[whizzball1]

Well, Skelly heads are the rarest freaking thing ever. Good luck with that.

 

[Djharts]

That definitely doesn't seem right. I killed about 10 wither skellies and got 3 heads.

 

[Beleriond01]

@Djharts: I agree, especially since I killed about half that number in regular skellies and got about 2 stacks of their heads XD

 

[FivEven]

Unfortunately, random is hard to average out without huge numbers.
Another thing to look at is that you are using the soul stealer enchant. So your gem says one thing, but you haven't actually killed that many withers.

 

[snooder]

Vorpal doesn't AFAIK increase the chance of a wither head. It's treated as a mob drop, so you need looting to get more of them to drop.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Yes, it's a rare loot drop rather than a head like the skelly, zombie, and creeper heads.

 

[RedBoss]

this is a good tutorial on making a "farm" for wither skellies. your best bet would be to find some spawners, take them out with other soul shards and put those against your wither shard in an anvil. that's how i got my t5 wither shard

 

[Beleriond01]

I obviously know that 558 souls/kills doesn't mean I killed that many of them. In fact, it's 558/3 or something. Fact remains, I'm not getting any wither skulls whatsoever.

@RedBoss: would love to try that farming idea but I've yet to come across a wither skelly spawned tbh. All I've had to go on was random spawns in fortresses so to speak. I'll look at the vid to see if I can get some ideas though so tyvm.

I'm going around killing every mob in sight, barring the pigmen XD

 

[Bloodfrost]

yeah its 558/4... not 3 =p. So yeah you've only killed just over 120 or so... Also since its like a 2% drop rate i think? it seems to me you're about on par.... don't worry about it man, you're over halfway there to having the spawner and you'll be rolling in heads soon enough, just keep it up.

Another suggestion if the portal gun is in DWpack <sorry i never play it> You could always just take a skeleton spawner with it out of a thaumcraft dungeon and drop it into the nether and kill them there.

With my spawner i'd normally let it run for about 1-2 min filling up with mobs before i kill them... so thats ... oh i dunno ~250 withers? Sometimes i come out of it with like 3-6 heads... sometimes i come out of it with one... the drop rate really is crap man, keep at it tho! you're halfway htere!

 

[Poppycocks]

Just gotta get to that spawner, man.

 

[brujon]

What did you use to farm the Wither? Turtle to build the Wither + MFFS to kill him?

 

[Fuzzlewhumper]

Looting really helps in that if you do trigger a skull drop you could get 1-3 heads off that skeleton. Don't ask me how that's even possible though, but game mechanics last I checked allowed that in Vanilla minecraft.

 

[abculatter_2]

Then make infinite soul sand with either Minefactory Reloaded Sluge Boilers, or with an infinite redstone Alkahest loop, and then a wither grinder with MFFS.
Infinite Nether Stars FTW!

 

[zilvarwolf]

What did you use to farm the Wither? Turtle to build the Wither + MFFS to kill him?

heh. I wonder if a wall of mining laser turtles could kill him. ^_^

 

[brujon]

Probably. 2 Iron Golems are USUALLY enough to finish off the Wither in normal mode. Usually. 3 is guaranteed.

 

[Poppycocks]

Then make infinite soul sand with either Minefactory Reloaded Sluge Boilers, or with an infinite redstone Alkahest loop, and then a wither grinder with MFFS.
Infinite Nether Stars FTW!

Since you're infi-looping with alkhalest, why not simply dupe them with the alkhalest tome recipe?

 

[YooKahZee2]

Use a looting sword!

 

[slay_mithos]

Guys, saying looting sword works, you better have checked this before hand...

Because there are some drops that are not affected by it, like raw chicken.
I would really not be surprised if the wither skeletons were coded the same way as to drop only one skull at most.

 

[Poppycocks]

Guys, saying looting sword works, you better have checked this before hand...

Because there are some drops that are not affected by it, like raw chicken.
I would really not be surprised if the wither skeletons were coded the same way as to drop only one skull at most.

In short, looting doesn't increase the quantity, it does increase the chance, up to 4%(from the original 2,5%) at looting 3.