Phantom

Phantoms are flying undead hostile mobs that spawn in the night sky when the player has not laid in a bed or died for three or more in-game days. They attack by diving at the player from the sky to bite them. Usually, they appear in trios.

Spawning[]

Phantoms spawn unless the game rule doInsomnia is set to false. The spawning mechanics differ between Java and Bedrock editions. In both editions, they spawn in the Overworld above the player if the "Time Since Last Rest" statistic is at least 1 hour (72000 ticks or 3 in-game days).^[verify] This statistic is reset when the player dies or enters a bed. Furthermore, the player must not have a block overhead that blocks light in any way; for example, leaves prevent phantoms from spawning as they have a light opacity of 2, but glass does not, as its light opacity is 0. Phantoms do not spawn in Spectator mode,‌^{[JE only]} but they do spawn in Creative mode.^[1]

Bedrock Edition[]

Phantom spawning is similar to other monsters spawning: the spawn location must have a light level of 7 or less, and spawns are limited by the monster population cap. Phantoms are also subject to a density cap of 5. Phantom spawn attempts are made on surface blocks throughout the same spawn radius as other monsters. However, when a phantom spawn attempt succeeds the phantom appears somewhere in a 21×15×21 cube centered 28 blocks above the player instead of at the block where the spawn attempt occurred.

Java Edition[]

Phantoms attempt to spawn every 1–2 minutes. They spawn only if it is night or a thunderstorm is happening, the player is above sea level (y=64) with sky access, and the local difficulty is greater than a randomly chosen value between 0.0 and 3.0. The chance of a successful spawn is ^x−72000⁄_x, where x is the number of ticks since the player last entered a bed or died. This roughly comes to a ¹⁄₄ (25.0%) chance on day 4, a ²⁄₅ (40.0%) chance on day 5, a ³⁄₆ (¹⁄₂) (50.0%) chance on day 6, ⁴⁄₇ (about 57.1%) chance on day 7, and so on.

If all conditions are met, a group of phantoms attempt to spawn 20–34 blocks above the player, and off to the side by a taxicab distance of up to 10 blocks. The number of phantoms spawned is 1-2 in Easy difficulty, 1-3 in Normal, and 1-4 in Hard. Phantoms can spawn inside buildings, if the player is outside and the building is both near enough and the building has a large enough cavity for them to spawn inside.

Phantoms are counted toward the hostile mob cap, but they don't adhere to it when spawning.^[2] Their spawning mechanic is based on the location of players in the world rather than by chance, unlike regular mob spawning. Phantom spawning is completely independent of the biome, meaning they can spawn in biomes that normally prevent hostile mob spawning such as mushroom fields^[3] and the void^[4]. Phantoms increase in number every consecutive night a player hasn't entered a bed and stop spawning when the player lies down in bed.

Drops[]

Phantoms drop when killed:

• 0–1 phantom membranes when killed by a player or tamed wolf. Looting increases the maximum drops by 1 per level, for a maximum of 4 with Looting III.
• 5 when killed by the player or a tamed wolf.

Behavior[]

When idle, phantoms fly around in a roughly circular pattern within 15 to 25 blocks of a player horizontally and within 24 to 35 blocks of a player vertically, leaving a trail of gray smoke while doing so. Their movement speed is one of the fastest of any mob, up to 20 blocks per second. They have a large search radius, targeting and following players from 64 blocks away‌^{[BE only][more information needed]}. Once every 10-20 seconds‌^{[BE only][more information needed]} they swoop down or up quickly to attack. If stopped or hurt during this action, the phantom retreats back to its original elevation. When a path to its original elevation is obstructed by a block, the phantom continues attempting to return to its original elevation until it either attacks or moves out from under the block. Phantoms do not attack an exposed player sleeping in a bed.

Phantoms can move through water at their normal speed. In Bedrock Edition, a phantom underwater attempts to fly to the surface, and dies from drowning after 20 seconds if trapped underwater. Phantoms do not drown in Java Edition.

A phantom's body disappears when under the Invisibility effect, but its eyes and smoke particles are still visible.

Cats hiss at phantoms that are currently attacking players, and phantoms try to stay at least 16 blocks away from them. In Bedrock Edition, phantoms also avoid ocelots in the same manner.

Undead[]

Like other undead mobs, phantoms are harmed by the Instant Health effect, healed by the Instant Damage effect, immune to the Poison and Regeneration effects, ignored by the wither, and affected by the Smite enchantment.

Like zombies and skeletons, phantoms burn in sunlight. They burn even when equipped with helmets through commands.^[5]

Sounds[]

Java Edition:
Phantoms use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Phantom screeches	Hostile Creatures	Randomly	entity.phantom.ambient	subtitles.entity.phantom.ambient	0.8	0.8-1.2	16
	Phantom bites	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom attacks something	entity.phantom.bite	subtitles.entity.phantom.bite	0.3	0.9-1.0	16
	Phantom dies	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom dies	entity.phantom.death	subtitles.entity.phantom.death	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	Phantom flaps	Hostile Creatures	Periodically	entity.phantom.flap	subtitles.entity.phantom.flap	0.95-1.0	0.95-1.0	16
	Phantom hurts	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom is damaged	entity.phantom.hurt	subtitles.entity.phantom.hurt	0.75	0.8-1.2	16
	Phantom swoops	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom dives down to attack	entity.phantom.swoop	subtitles.entity.phantom.swoop	7.0	0.95-1.05	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Hostile Creatures	Randomly	mob.phantom.idle	10.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom attacks something	mob.phantom.bite	10.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom dies	mob.phantom.death	10.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	Periodically	mob.phantom.flap	10.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom is damaged	mob.phantom.hurt	10.0	0.8-1.2
	Hostile Creatures	When a phantom dives down to attack	mob.phantom.swoop	10.0	0.95-1.05

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Translation key
Phantom	phantom	entity.minecraft.phantom

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Phantom	phantom	58	entity.phantom.name

Entity data[]

Phantoms have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements[]

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
PS4	Other
		Monster Hunter	Attack and destroy a monster.	Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: an enderman, a piglin, a zombified piglin, a spider, or a cave spider.	15G	Bronze
		Sound the Alarm!	Ring the bell with a hostile enemy in the village.	—	20G	Bronze

Advancements[]

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	adventure/root
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_a_mob
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Monster Hunter	Kill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Axolotl Bee Blaze Camel Cat Cave Spider Chicken Chicken Jockey Cod Cow Creeper Donkey Dolphin Drowned Elder Guardian Enderman Endermite Evoker Fox Frog Ghast Goat Glow Squid Guardian Hoglin Horse Husk Llama Magma Cube Mooshroom Ocelot Panda Parrot Phantom Pig Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Polar Bear Pufferfish Rabbit Ravager Salmon Sheep Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Skeleton Horse Skeleton Horseman Slime Sniffer Stray Spider Spider Jockey Squid Strider Trader Llama Tropical Fish Turtle Vex Vindicator Warden Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Wolf Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.	adventure/kill_all_mobs
	Two Birds, One Arrow	Kill two Phantoms with a piercing Arrow	Ol' Betsy	Use a crossbow enchanted with Piercing to kill two phantoms with a single arrow shot.	adventure/two_birds_one_arrow

History[]

November 1, 2017					Phantoms are first shown on YouTube (back then known only as Mob B and The Monster of the Night Skies).
November 14, 2017					The article about the phantom was published, which introduced a community vote option for the phantom at MINECON Earth 2017.
November 18, 2017					The phantom wins the vote at MINECON Earth. It is the second of mobs that were added as a result of the community voting for it.
Java Edition
1.13		18w07a			Added phantoms with a placeholder drop of 1-4 leather.
		18w09a			Phantoms no longer spawn in the End.
					Phantoms now despawn at daytime.
		18w10a			The phantom's model and texture have been changed.
		18w10c			Phantoms are now considered undead.
		18w10d			Phantoms now burn in sunlight like most undead mobs.
					Phantoms no longer despawn at daytime.
		18w14a			Phantoms now drop 0-1 phantom membrane, instead of leather.
		18w19a			The phantom's animation has been changed to have the wings flap quicker and smoother.
					Phantoms now drop experience.[6]
		pre1			Phantoms now have new flapping sounds.
1.14		18w44a			Phantoms are now afraid of cats.
		pre3			The damage of phantoms has been reduced from 6 to 2.[7]
1.15		19w36a			Phantom spawning can now be toggled with the game rule doInsomnia.
Bedrock Edition
1.6.0		beta 1.6.0.1			Added phantoms with the health of 10, with a placeholder drop of 1-4 leather.[verify]
		beta 1.6.0.5			Phantoms now drop phantom membranes.
					The phantom's health has been increased from 10 to 20 × 10.
					Phantoms now burn in direct sunlight.
					Phantoms are now able to drown.
1.8.0		beta 1.8.0.8			Phantoms are now afraid of cats.
Legacy Console Edition
TU69		1.76	Patch 38		Added phantoms.

Issues[]

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

Trivia[]

• At one point before the release of 18w10a, the phantom texture was made red, but it was decided that it appeared too much like a Nether mob.^[8]
• The phantom was originally going to have a mouth, like the drawing shown during MINECON Earth, but it was eventually scrapped because "it looked so much like a muppet".^[8] Earlier designs can be seen on Minecraft's Instagram account.^[9]
• The sounds of the phantom were taken from Samuel Åberg's baby son screaming.^[10]
• Despite that they are flying mobs, phantoms can destroy turtle eggs when on top of them.^[11]
• The game rule that modify Phantom spawning (doInsomnia ) is probably the reference to the condition of spawning Phantom since "Insomnia" means "the state of unable to sleep".

Gallery[]

Screenshots[]

• 

  A phantom under the Invisibility effect.

• 

  Phantoms exposed to sunlight and taking fire damage.

• 

  The particles produced by the phantom's wings can be clearly seen.

• 

  A phantom swooping down at a player at night leaving a trail of gray smoke.

• 

  A phantom stuck in a player's boat, caught in the daylight.

• 

  Noor riding a phantom.

• 

  A player avoiding a phantom by using the Invisibility effect.

• 

  A swarm of phantoms.

• 

  Another swarm of phantoms.

• 

  A phantom on fire.

Development images[]

• 

  A phantom with a colorful texture.^[12]

• 

  A phantom with the missing texture.^[13]

• 

  Phantoms flying overhead.

• 

  A phantom flying high in the air, using its model and texture from 18w07a. The smoke particles beside each of its wings can be seen.

• 

  A phantom flying high in the air, using its model and texture from 18w07a. The smoke particles beside each of its wings can be seen.

• 

  The phantom's poses.

In other media[]

• 

  The Mob B finally wins in Minecon Earth Mob vote.

• 

  All the revisions of the phantom design, except for red revision.

• 

  Concept sketches.

• 

  A phantom, as depicted in Minecraft Dungeons.

• 

  Phantom Armor, an armor set from Minecraft Dungeons.

• 

  LEGO Minecraft Phantom.

• 

  "Phantoms and Witches and Ghasts, Oh My," an officially licensed T-Shirt.

• 

  Phantom Plush

References[]

External Links[]

• Meet the Phantom – Minecraft.net on March 12, 2018