Skyblock: Fewer skeles, more wither skeles from spawners

It would be nice if the skele spawners in the nether produced more wither skeles and fewer regular skeles (or none!) I'm working on collecting wither skeleton heads, but wither skeles spawn at a rate of 1 for every 10 regular skeles, or worse. I think my beacon is a long way off, even with my looting sword. I'm just not getting enough wither skeles for a chance to get a head!

Before the last reset, spawners in the nether only spawned wither skeles, and I loved that.

I get chests and chests full of bones, string and sticks from my mob grinder, and better xp from blazes. Manually killing skeles is a huge waste of time. Going to the nether to kill wither skeles for a chance to get heads works much better. Also, it's a nice source of coal for trading with villagers as an "unlocking" trade item.

So I'd suggest that the skele spawners in the nether just produce wither skeles, like before, or at least a better ratio so that I have some chance of getting the parts for beacons I need.

 

This actually is not our doing, but a result of the 1.11 update. The way to resolve this is to either edit spawners or add a Wither Skeleton spawner.

 

Blame mojang!

 

huh. I wonder if the wither skeles I'm seeing are spawning naturally; lucky that my tower sits in a fortress space (?) Anyway, this is a long process getting skulls, if there's some way get more of those (and less regular skeles), would greatly appreciate it!

What would be involved in changing those spawners to wither skele spawners? I really don't need the regular skeles.

But, for future sb players, it would be handy if the nether was generated with wither skele spawners from the get-go.

 

For improving your chances of rare drops, follow these instructions:

1. Acquire a Looting 3 sword
2. Throw an Instant Healing potion at a collection of skeletons and wither skeletons.
3. Quickly switch items so the Looting 3 sword is in your hand.
4. The killed mobs will give drops as if killed by the Looting sword.


Also, I don't think spawners should create wither skeletons. The ration should be 4 wither skeletons for every 1 skeleton if that was the case. To increase wither skeleton spawn rates, make a large flat area in the nether fortress with slabs on the surrounding area. The wither skeletons need nether bricks to spawn on.

 

I don't mind whacking them with the sword; diamond swords have a lot of durability My goal is to build a strength beacon there so I only have to whack them 1 time. But I'll try the healing pot trick, that's pretty straightforward. Thing is, generally I have to kill lots of them (dozens?) to get a skull, even with looting 3.

I'll try swapping netherbrick into my lo-tech spawner trap & see if that generates more withers. That's a good tip. I would *love* to see 4 withers for each regular skele!

Before the reset -- i.e. before 11.1 -- a skele spawner would make all withers in the nether, and all regular skeles in the overworld. That was really nice. I had 2 big grinders, and split my spawners between them. Of course, you can't move spawners now, but I'm OK with that as long as I can get the 24 skulls or so I need for beacons.

 

Oh wow, really? I didn't know this, handy tip for lazy people.

 

+1 Very few people play skyblock so you should have a big say.

(And its absurdly hard to make a grinder to begin with, much less get either skeles to spawn and get skulls)

 

lol I used pistons to push floors out and walls up around the "spawn" area and then dug out from underneath

 

How did you get it so mobs fell tho

 

the classic lo-tech grinder (this works well in regular minecraft for nether fortresses) is alternating rows of blocks with half slabs on the ceiling, exposing a half-block for their feet. That's what I have now; totally (well mostly totally) safe, but you have to run around to get them when they spawn.

Phase 2 is to build the "funnel" underneath that, and then just chop away the blocks and floors so they just fall into the funnel.

Now, before the reset spawners would spawn mobs in the air & they'd fall. In regular mc, I think even spawners need a full block to spawn on so I don't think that would work.

I'm happy to show you, or anyone who's interested.

However, going back to OP, one way or the other, without wither skeles it's kind of A LOT of work for nothing

 

in the recent update this is how Lohan meant it to be, and we do not see need for this at the point in time. Denied