What is the Potion of Decay and how can we make it? In this article we are going to find out.
What it does
The Potion of Decay applies the Wither effect (related topic to Withers: Everything about Nether Fortress Bounding Boxes). This means that if you drink it you will get the same effect that you would get when hit by a Wither: the Hearts on your health bar will turn black and your HP will slowly decrease.
The effect is similar to the Poison effect. The difference though is that, unlike Poison, the Wither effect can eventually kill you.
You can also give the Wither effect to other mobs and players by throwing the splash version of the potion to them. If you don’t know how splash potions work or how to make them, you can check the Everything about Underwater Breathing Potion article. Everything about them is explained there in details.
How to get it
You can’t brew this particular potion in vanilla Minecraft (i.e. without mods or plugins installed). The item does exists though, so it will be possible to get it in the Creative mode or by using commands.
A third option is using mods: there are mods that allow you to brew this potion, if you want to experience the plasure of brewing it yourself. More on this matter later on.
How to get it – commands
You can give yourself the potion by using the commands, if you have the Cheats turned ON. If you do, you just need to open the commands and type:
/give @p potion 1 36
and a Decay Potion will appear in your inventory.
How to get it – Java version
Unfortunately the Decay Potion is not available in the Java version, not even in Creative mode. What we saw so far only works in the other versions, like the Windows 10 one (related topic: How to find Minecraft Windows 10 edition folder).
The only way to have it in Minecraft Java consists in using mods, and there aren’t many good mods that allow you to do this. The most reliable one seems to be the Better Survival mod, which isn’t even compatible with the latest patches of the game. To use it you need to play the 1.12 patch.
With this mod installed, you just need to use a Wither Rose as brewing ingredient, an item that the Wither will drop when dead (with also 50 XP. See more in What Mob gives the most XP in Minecraft?).
But don’t worry: the Decay Potion was introduced after many players suggested it in the Minecraft Feedback website. It’s only a matter of time before they will introduce it in the Java version, with even the option to brew it.
