A fireball is an explosive projectile expelled from a ghast as its method of attack.
Behavior[]
Fireballs have a straight trajectory unaffected by gravity and a theoretically infinite range, although they despawn after 1 minute.[JE only][verify] Fireballs do not track their target once fired and can be deflected if hit with a projectile or melee attack.
At close range, it is one of the most powerful mob attacks in Minecraft; a direct hit deals 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. A fireball deals 1000 × 500 damage to a ghast if the fireball was rebounded by a player.[verify]
If an entity has the fire resistance effect, it will not get damaged by the fireball, though this is not consistent unlike with blaze fireballs.
When two 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 remaining fireballs launched by that ghast disappear.
The minimum blast resistance required to absorb all blast force of a fireball is 4.034 (about the equivalent of basalt, which is 4.2). However, blocks with resistance as low as 3.5 survive if hit.
When a player hits a fireball, only the projectile damage dealt by the fireball counts as the player's kill.
Sounds[]
Java Edition:
Fireballs use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Explosion | Blocks | When a fireball impacts something | entity | subtitles | 4.0 | 0.56-0.84 | 16 | |
| Ghast shoots | Hostile Creatures | When a ghast shoots a fireball | entity | subtitles | 10.0 | 0.8-1.2 | 16 [verify] |
| Sound | Source | Description | Resource location | Volume | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blocks | When a fireball impacts something | random | 4.0 | 1.0 | |
| Hostile Creatures | When a ghast shoots a fireball | mob | 0.7 | 0.8-1.2 |
Data values[]
ID[]
| Name | Identifier |
|---|---|
| Fireball | fireball |
| Name | Identifier |
|---|---|
| Fireball | fireball |
Entity data[]
Fireballs have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.
- Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all fireballs
- Tags common to all projectiles
- ExplosionPower: The power and size of the explosion created by the fireball upon impact. Default value 1.
- Item: The item to render as, may be absent.
- Tags common to all items
Achievements[]
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Return to Sender | Destroy a Ghast with a fireball. | Kill a ghast using a ghast fireball. | 30G | Silver | ||
Advancements[]
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Return to Sender | Destroy a Ghast with a fireball | Nether | Kill a ghast by deflecting a ghast fireball back into it via hitting or shooting a projectile at the fireball. | nether/return_to_sender
|
History[]
| Java Edition Alpha | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v1.2.0 | preview | Added fireballs. | |||
 At the time, fireballs used the snowball texture, which was additionally lit on fire. | |||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9 Prerelease |  Fireballs now have a unique texture, which would later be used by fire charges. | |||
| Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5 | Killing Ghasts with their own[verify] fireball grants the player the achievement "Return to Sender." | ||||
| 1.5 | 13w02a | The texture used by the fireball has been changed from to  .[1][verify] This is likely due to the diamond helmet's position in stitched_items.png being the position where the fire charge was in items.png. | |||
| 13w02b | The accidental texture change of the fireball has been reverted from to . | ||||
| 1.6.1 | 13w24a | The texture of the fireball has been changed from to  .[2] | |||
| 13w24b | The accidental texture change of the fireball has been reverted from to . | ||||
| 1.11 | 16w32a | The projectile entity ID of the fireball has been changed from Fireball to fireball. | |||
| 16w40a | The tags[verify] xTile, yTile, zTile, inTile and inGround have been removed from the fireball's entity data. | ||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a |  The texture of the fireball has been changed. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.11.0 | build 1 | Added fireballs.
| |||
| As ghasts are currently unobtainable in-game without editing, their fireballs are also unobservable. | |||||
| v0.12.1 | build 1 | As ghasts now spawn in the Nether and have accessible spawn eggs, their fireballs can also be encountered. | |||
| Pocket Edition | |||||
| 1.1.0 | alpha 1.1.0.0 | The entity ID for the fireball has been changed from largefireball to large_fireball. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | The texture of the fireball has been changed. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | [verify] Added fireballs. |
| 1.90 | The texture of the fireball has been changed. | ||||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | Added fireballs. | ||||
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Fireball" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia[]
- If a player hits a fireball using an item with the Looting enchantment, any mob killed by that fireball has its drops affected by the enchantment as though the mob was killed by directly using the item.