Eye of Ender

Eye of Ender

Rarity tier	Common
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Size	Height: 0.25 blocks Width: 0.25 blocks

{
    "title": "Eye of Ender",
    "rows": [
        {
            "field": "Common",
            "label": "(link to Rarity article, displayed as Rarity tier)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Yes",
            "label": "(link to Renewable resource article, displayed as Renewable)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Yes (64)",
            "label": "Stackable"
        },
        {
            "field": "Height: 0.25 blocks<br>Width: 0.25 blocks",
            "label": "Size"
        }
    ],
    "invimages": [
        "Eye of Ender"
    ],
    "images": [
        "Eye of Ender.png"
    ]
}

An eye of ender is a craftable item used to locate strongholds and activate the End portals within them. It is also used to craft an End crystal or an ender chest.

Obtaining

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Blaze Powder + Ender Pearl

Usage

Locating strongholds

To locate strongholds (and the End portals they house):

• Pressing use while holding an eye of ender causes it to fly approximately 12 blocks in the direction of the nearest stronghold, traveling through any blocks necessary, and leave a trail of purple particles, the same particle effect used for endermen and ender chests.
  • The eye leads to the chunk where a spiral staircase, the first room generated in the stronghold, is located.
  • The center of this entrance staircase is always exactly at the chunk coordinates 4, ~, 4, although the eye of ender leads to chunk coordinates 0, ~, 0 (the northwest corner of the chunk).
• While over 12 blocks away from the northwest corner of the staircase chunk, the eye travels upward to offer an easily-visible indication of the horizontal direction the player must travel.
• When closer than 12 blocks to the northwest corner of the staircase chunk, the eye travels downward, to indicate the player is above a stronghold and must mine downward.
• After two or three seconds of travel, the eye floats in the air briefly, then either falls (becoming collectable again) or shatters in mid-air. The eye has a 20% chance of shattering (80% chance of surviving) per throw. Therefore, throwing it three times has approximately a 50% overall chance to shatter the eye (0.8³=51.2%).
• The eye of ender's flying function works only in the Overworld and only if a stronghold exists or can generate in the world. It does nothing in the Nether, the End, or custom dimensions, unless a structure able to generate in that dimension has been added to the #minecraft:eye_of_ender_located structure tag.

Note that the eyes may point to an incorrect location if the target chunks were generated with a different biomes map in an older version or through different generation settings.^[1]

Activating End portals

Once an End portal is found, eyes of ender are required to activate it. End portals require a total of 12 eyes of ender in order to activate, though each individual frame-block has a 10% chance of containing an eye of ender when generated. Eyes can be placed in empty End portal frames by pressing use on them until the entire ring of 12 is filled, thereby activating the portal. Because there is a 10% chance of for each individual End portal frame to contain an eye, there is a 1 in 1 trillion chance that every frame will have an eye in it, thereby activating the portal automatically.

The probability that a specific number of eyes are generated was calculated using the probability mass function:

p_X(k) = P(X = k) = ${\displaystyle {\displaystyle (\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{12}{k})}\cdot 0.1^k\cdot (1-0.1{)}^{12-k}}$

where k is the number of eyes and p_X(k) is the probability that a particular End portal contains k eyes when it is generated.

Crafting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
End Crystal	Glass +  + Ghast Tear
Ender Chest	Obsidian +

Sounds

Java Edition:
Eyes of ender use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Item	Identifier	Form	Translation key
Eye of Ender	ender_eye	Item	item.minecraft.ender_eye

Entity	Identifier	Translation key
Eye of Ender	eye_of_ender	entity.minecraft.eye_of_ender

Bedrock Edition:

Item	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Eye of Ender	ender_eye	433	Item	item.ender_eye.name

Entity	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Eye of Ender	eye_of_ender_signal	70	entity.eye_of_ender_signal.name

Entity data

The purple particles left by eyes of ender have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Eye Spy	Follow an Eye of Ender	Enter a stronghold.

Video

History

Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3				Added eyes of ender.
							Eyes of ender can be used on a portal block to repair them, but repairing them does nothing.
			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4				Each eye can now be placed in a portal block or used to hone in on a stronghold. Jeb demonstrated the new uses for an eye in his livestream.[2] An End portal within a stronghold could be seen in the stream with two eyes inserted into blocks.
							In older worlds with chunks generated before Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3, the eyes may mislead the player to a place where there isn't a stronghold at all. This happens because the eyes lead to where a stronghold should be based on the world seed in the current version, but before Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3 strongholds generated differently based on the seed. Therefore, if the player saved the coordinates the eye traveled to in an old world and generated a new world with the same seed, the player could travel to those same coordinates and find a stronghold.
			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6				Eyes of ender no longer render like a tool in third person.
			RC1				The throwing sound of eyes of ender has been changed.
1.3.1			12w21a				Eyes of ender can now be used to craft ender chests.
							Priest villagers would buy 2–3 eyes of ender for one emerald.
			12w22a				Priest villagers no longer buy eyes of ender, instead sell them for 7–10 emeralds.
1.6.4			1.6.3				Eyes of ender now lead to strongholds based on the structure data saved in the world file instead of calculating their approximate location via the world seed. Therefore, strongholds generated in old versions can still be found even if the distribution of strongholds is changed.
1.7.2			13w41a				Eyes of ender now lead to the entrance of a stronghold instead of the portal room.
1.8			14w02a				With changes that have been made to villagers and the trading system, cleric villagers now sell eyes of ender for 7–11 emeralds, as one of their tier III trades.
			14w06a				Eyes of ender now spawn at the player's feet when thrown instead of their eyes.[3]
1.9			15w41a				Eyes of ender are no longer sold by cleric villagers.
			15w44b				An eye of ender is now used to craft an End crystal.
			16w07a				Eyes of ender now spawn at the player's chest when thrown instead of their feet.
			pre3				Eyes of ender now point to the 125 new strongholds.[4]
1.11			16w35a				Throwing an eye of ender now slows down the player for the time that the use button is held down, similar to eating, drinking etc..[5] This was done to prevent it from also causing the item in the offhand to be used.[6]
1.12			17w17a				A new pop sound has been added when a thrown eye of ender bursts.
1.14			18w43a				The texture of eyes of ender has been changed.
1.19			22w11a				Eyes of ender now lead to the corner of the chunk (0, ~, 0) instead of the center (8, ~, 8).[7]
Pocket Edition
1.0.0			alpha 0.17.0.1				Added eyes of ender.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				The texture of eyes of ender has been changed.
1.16.0			beta 1.15.0.51				The particles of eyes of ender have been changed to match Java Edition.
Upcoming Bedrock Edition
1.21.100			Preview 1.21.100.20				The sprites of eyes of ender, when rendered in the world, now have the correct scaling and positional offset.
							They now match Java Edition and also match better with their collider.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU7	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added eyes of ender. They can be used to locate stronghold, but cannot be inserted into End portal frames.
TU9							Eyes of ender can be placed in empty End portal frames.
TU14		1.04					Eyes of ender can now be used to craft ender chests.
							Priest villagers now sell eyes of ender for 7–10 emeralds.
TU31	CU19	1.22	1.22	1.22	Patch 3		With changes that have been made to villagers and the trading system, cleric villagers now sell eyes of ender for 7–11 emeralds, as one of their tier III trades.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Eyes of ender are no longer sold by cleric villagers.
							An eye of ender is now used to craft an End crystal.
							Eyes of enders now spawn at the player's chest when thrown instead of their eyes.
TU53	CU43	1.49	1.50	1.49	Patch 23	1.0.3	A new pop sound has been added when a thrown eye of ender bursts.
TU54	CU44	1.52	1.52	1.52	Patch 24	1.0.4	Throwing an eye of ender now slows down the player for the time that the use button is held down, similar to eating, drinking etc..
			1.90				The texture of eyes of ender has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.7.10							Added eyes of ender.

• 
  The eye of ender used to appear large in third-person view.

Data history

Issues

Issues relating to "Eye of Ender" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• When thrown in third-person view, the eyes of ender fly out from the player's chest instead of their hand.
• In Bedrock Edition the eye of ender flies out of the top right of the screen above the player head.
• In Bedrock Edition if the player travels beyond a certain radius (roughly 740,000 blocks), eyes of ender always point to a stronghold near spawn, even though strongholds continue to generate past this limit. If one travels to this limit, they can see eyes of ender suddenly switching direction. A similar phenomenon occurs with the /locate command.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  An End portal frame containing a few eyes of ender.
• 
  An ender chest depicting an eye of ender on the front.
• 
  An enchanted eye of ender obtained with commands being thrown. Eyes of ender retain their components, including name and enchantments, when used.

In other media

• 
  Official T-shirt artwork "Eye of Ender" sold by JINX.
• 
  A Halloween T-Shirt design featuring an eye of ender.

External links

• A super-easy stronghold triangulation tool
• JSFiddle Eye of Ender triangulator - can guess the location of other 2 strongholds in the first ring
• Minecraft Stronghold Locator Eye of Ender throw plotting visualizer - zoomable to show all possible stronghold rings
• Python Eye of Ender throw plotting tool
• HTML Eye of Ender throw plotting visualizer (not updated after 1.9 stronghold placement changes)
• Chunk Base Stronghold Finder (seed-based)
• Amidst - File-based world visualizer
• Find strongholds by analyzing stronghold.dat file

References

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