Warding

Warding

Type	Equipment intrinsic
Maximum level	✟ 4
Applies to	Nazar, Warding Sword, Silver Sword, Warding Shield, Wooden Cross, Electrum equipment, Prayer of Man
Added in	0.4-alpha or earlier
Tooltip	1 … 4
Resource location	matcha:warding_1 … matcha:warding_4

Warding (, often written ✟) is an intrinsic of certain held items and of electrum armor that slows nearby undead and burns the nearest one with damage that ignores armor. It is the pack's main defense against the undead, and it comes in four levels.

The item most associated with warding is the Nazar, a lapis charm that wards the dead while held. The Warding Stone applies a much stronger, stationary version of the same effect.

Obtaining

Warding cannot be found as a random enchantment. It comes on the following items:

Item	Level	Where it works
Wooden Cross	1	Main hand or off hand
Warding Sword	1	Main hand or off hand
Silver Sword	1 (and Smite III)	Main hand or off hand
Warding Shield	1	Main hand or off hand
Electrum Mattock	1	Main hand or off hand
Nazar	2	Main hand or off hand
Electrum Axe	2	Main hand or off hand
Electrum Spear	2	Main hand or off hand
Electrum Sword	3	Main hand or off hand
Electrum armor	+1 per piece, up to 4	Worn

The Prayer of Man blessing stores 2 and Smite II, and can add warding to a sword, axe or shield in an anvil. The four warding levels are mutually exclusive, and they are also exclusive with the shakudo and adamant weapon intrinsics, so an item can carry only one of them.

Mechanics

Warding level

Every tick, each held item with warding adds its level to the player's held warding, and each worn piece of electrum armor adds 1 to a separate armor count. The player's effective level is then worked out as follows:

1. The levels of the items in the main hand and off hand are added together, and the total is capped at 3.
2. The number of electrum armor pieces worn (0–4) is compared with that total, and the higher of the two is used.

Held items therefore stack with each other: a 1 Warding Sword in the main hand and a 2 Nazar in the off hand give 3. Held items and armor don't stack: a player wearing one electrum piece and holding a 1 item still has 1. 4 is only reached by wearing the full set of electrum armor, which is why the electrum set bonus reads Max.

Only players can ward. The level is only calculated for players, so a mob holding a warding item has no effect.

Effects by level

Warding runs on a timer, not every tick. Levels 1 and 2 pulse once per second, and levels 3 and 4 pulse every 0.5 seconds. On each pulse, warding does two things:

• It gives every undead mob inside the slowing radius Slowness for 1 second, shown by soul particles at the mob's feet.
• It damages one target inside the damage radius, shown by soul fire flames at the target's eyes. The damage is of the out_of_world type, so it ignores armor and Resistance.

Level	Pulse	Slowing radius	Slowness	Damage radius	Damage per pulse	Damage per second	Wither
1	1 s	8 blocks	II	3 blocks	1 ( × 0.5)	1 ( × 0.5)	Never damaged
2	1 s	10 blocks	II	6 blocks	1 ( × 0.5)	1 ( × 0.5)	1 ( × 0.5) within 8 blocks
3	0.5 s	14 blocks	III	8 blocks	1 ( × 0.5)	2 ( × 1)	1 ( × 0.5) within 12 blocks
4	0.5 s	24 blocks	III	12 blocks	2 ( × 1)	4 ( × 2)	2 ( × 1) within 16 blocks

Targeting

Each pulse picks a single target to damage, in this order:

1. A mob wearing copper armor. If any non-player entity wearing at least one piece of plain copper armor is inside the damage radius, the nearest one draws the pulse like a lightning rod. It gives off electric sparks and a high-pitched trident sound and takes no damage, and nothing else is damaged that pulse. This includes armor stands. Shakudo armor, which is built on copper armor, doesn't count.
2. The Wither, if it is inside its own, larger radius (see the table). At 1 the Wither is never damaged.
3. The nearest undead mob inside the damage radius.

At 4 the copper armor's protection is pierced. A copper-wearing mob is still chosen first, but it takes 1 ( × 0.5) of damage. Copper-wearing mobs are also slowed at 4, while at levels 1–3 they are left out of the slowing.

Affected mobs

Mob	Damaged	Slowed
Zombie, Zombie Villager, Drowned, Zombified Piglin, Zoglin	Yes	Yes
Skeleton, Stray, Bogged, Wither Skeleton, Parched	Yes	Yes
Phantom	Yes	Yes
Wither	Yes (see above)	Yes
Husk	Yes	Only at 4
Zombie Nautilus	No	Yes, except at 4

Zombie horses, skeleton horses and camel husks are not affected.

Notes

• Warding works through walls. Only distance matters.
• The damage has no attacker, so a mob killed by warding is not counted as killed by the player.
• Because only one target is damaged per pulse, warding is strongest against single undead and weakest against crowds, which it can only slow.

Advancements

Crafting a Nazar grants Apotropaic Jewellery ("Holding a Lapis Nazar will Ward the Dead. It can also be attached to some Equipment"). Smithing a Nazar onto a sword or shield grants Fae-Slayer, Sabbatarian or Convoymaster.

History

0.4-alpha	Added the Silver Sword, Warding Sword, Warding Shield and Wooden Cross. Fixed warding not working on electrum tools and weapons.
1.03	Nerfed the Silver Sword, Warding Sword and Warding Shield.
1.10	Undead wearing copper armor became immune to warding. The Warding Stone and the electrum set bonus bypass this. Zombie horses, skeleton horses and camel husks were removed from the warding targets.
1.12.1-alpha	The warding levels became exclusive with each other. The zombie nautilus was removed from the warding targets. The Silver Sword, Warding Sword and Warding Shield became repairable only with Nazars or lapis.
1.12.2	Warding levels from held items now stack, up to 3. 4 was reserved for the full electrum set, and it slows husks and pierces copper armor. Warding changed from a constant effect to pulses: once per second at levels 1 and 2 and every 0.5 seconds at levels 3 and 4. Added the targeting order: copper-wearing mobs, then the Wither, then the nearest undead. Separate particles for slowing and damage, and the particles now work on baby mobs. The Warding Shield was reduced from 2 to 1. Warding was removed from electrum tools. Fixed warding effects being inconsistent between levels.

Trivia

• The developer chose to leave warding unexplained in game: "I want players to ask their friends 'What the cross symbol mean?' I think that stuff is fun."
• In 0.4-alpha, electrum armor worn or held by non-players still warded the dead. The developer left it in, calling it a possible feature. In the current code only players ward.
• The in-development plans describe a future copper intrinsic, "Lightning Rod/Conductive", that "redirects all 'aura'-based nonsense to itself, and nullifies it".

See also

• Warding Stone
• Apotropaic
• Doom, the adamant armor counterpart
• Electrum equipment