Upgraded Mobs

Have you ever felt that after a while, Minecraft gets too easy? Have you ever wished you could make it more challenging without the glass cannon nature of Hard difficulty? Have you ever found fighting mobs boring and monotonous due to their simplistic AI?

If yes — this datapack is for you.

Upgraded Mobs is a datapack/server-side mod that adds new attacks, mechanics, and features to many of the mobs you know and love.

⚔️ Changes & Additions

All Mobs

• Increased follow range — mobs spot you from farther away.
• Slightly increased movement speed — running away is a little harder.

🧟 Zombies

(Includes Drowned, Husks, and Zombie Villagers)

• Can break doors regardless of difficulty.
• Periodically dash at nearby players with a bite attack that deals bonus damage.
  • This attack can be blocked, but it will eat through your shield quickly!

🌊 Drowned

(All zombie upgrades apply, plus:)

• Swim faster on top of the default movement buff.
• If a player has water below them, drowned will periodically pull them deeper underwater — this can even happen while you're traveling above them in a boat!

👁️ Elder Guardian (Boss)

Elder guardians have been upgraded into full-fledged boss mobs.

• 300 HP (same as the vanilla Wither).
• Periodically debuffs a random player with Weakness, Slowness, and/or Blindness.
• If no guardians are nearby, periodically summons mini-guardians that disappear after a short time.
• Below half HP, periodically turns invisible.

🧙 Evokers (Mini-Boss)

• 150 HP, and below half HP, gains Regeneration I.
• Holds a Totem of Undying in their off-hand — it must be popped before they can be killed.
• Their fang attack now follows up with two additional waves of fangs.
• Vexes now die immediately if no evokers are nearby.

Admin Functions:

• upgradedmobs:evokers/raid_loot/enable — Evokers in raids won't drop totems, but can instead drop golden apples, enchanted books, lapis lazuli, and the Sentry armor trim. (Disabled by default)
• upgradedmobs:evokers/raid_loot/disable — Reverts to default behavior.

👹 Piglin Brutes

• 75% knockback resistance by default.
• Periodically dash at nearby players.
• Periodically throw the closest player or wither skeleton high into the air — watch out for lava!
• Small chance of spawning with random pieces of netherite armor or Knockback on their axe.

🏹 Pillagers

• Some pillagers shoot weakness arrows or firework rockets instead of regular arrows.
• Some pillagers wield Quick Charge II crossbows.
• Both upgrades are applied more frequently during raids.

🕷️ Spiders

• Periodically dash at nearby players.
• Periodically trap the closest player in a cobweb. Use a sword or water to break free!

🧪 Witches

• 60 HP (up from 26).
• Splash potions have a 25% chance to be lingering potions instead.
• If a player is nearby, splash potions have a 10% chance to inflict Blindness.

⚙️ Configuration

There's no config file, but you can open the datapack ZIP to customize things yourself:

• Comment out features — add a # in front of any command in an .mcfunction file to disable it.
• Add modded mobs — use the tag system to integrate mobs from other mods (e.g. add a new spider type to the upgradedmobs:spiders entity tag). You can do this in an external datapack by setting the replace key to false.
• Adjust probabilities — replace predicates with your own to change how often abilities trigger.
• Blacklist specific mobs — give a mob the upgradedmobs.blacklist tag to exclude it from all features (useful for custom bosses).
• Uninstalling — simply remove the datapack. Note that HP/speed/follow range buffs already applied to existing mobs will not be reverted.

🤝 Credits

• Some mechanics were taken from TheGayerest's old Tougher Everything and Tougher Bosses datapacks, with permission.
• Some inspiration was taken from Kindred408's old Smart Mobs datapack (implementation is original).

📦 Recommended Companions

• Vanilla Parity — Replaces the Wither with the Bedrock edition Wither.
• Blaze Tweaks & Pillager Tweaks by FlanDere — Makes blazes and pillagers strafe like crossbow piglins.
• Jumping Mobs by FlanDere — (Compatibility note: dashes and jumps don't mix well — mobs may bounce unintentionally. Use the blacklist tag as needed.)
• My other packs — Check them out on my Modrinth page!

⚠️ Compatibility Notes

• Datapacks like Incendium that add custom mob AI won't have their features overwritten, but this datapack's mechanics will still be applied, which may cause unintended behavior.
• Use the upgradedmobs.blacklist tag on any mob you don't want affected.

Have you ever felt that after a while, Minecraft gets too easy? Have you ever wished that you could make it more challenging without the glass cannon nature of the hard difficulty? Have you ever found fighting mobs boring and monotonous due to their simplistic nature?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, this is the datapack for you. Upgraded Mobs is a datapack/server-side mod that adds new attacks, mechanics, and features to many of the mobs you know and love.

Details

All of the changes and additions in this project are detailed below.

Elder Guardians

Elder guardians have been upgraded to be full fledged boss mobs.

• Elder guardians have 300 HP, same as the vanilla wither.
• In combat, elder guardians will periodically debuff a random player with weakness, slowness, and/or blindness.
• If no guardians are nearby, an elder guardian will periodically summon mini-guardians that disappear after a short time.
• Below half HP, elder guardians will periodically turn invisible.

A video demonstrating this is shown below. It is slightly outdated, however, as instant damage on the periodic debuff has been removed. Coincidentally, it also demonstrates the new drowned features!

Configuration

Don't like some of the features listed above? Want to adjust some of the probabilities? Want to give a modded mob some of these features? While there is no config file, you can open up the datapack ZIP to edit things yourself:

• If you add a # symbol in front of a command in an mcfunction file, that line will be commented out and won't be ran.
• You can integrate other mobs via the tag system. For example, if you have a mod that adds a new type of spider, you can add it to the upgradedmobs:spiders entity tag. Note that you can also do this in an external datapack by adding the same tag file but with the replace key set to false.
• This datapack includes a list of predicates for random probabilities. If you want to change a probability, you can replace the associated predicate with a different one, or make your own.
• If you want to exclude individual mobs (e.g. custom bosses) from the features in this datapack to make sure nothing is overwritten, give them the upgradedmobs.blacklist tag.

If you want to uninstall this datapack, you can simply remove it from your world with no issues. However, buffs to HP, follow range and movement speed, and the like that were already made to existing mobs won't be reverted.

Credits

I can't take credit for all of this. Below includes a few sources that I used while making this:

• Some mechanics were taken from TheGayerest's old Tougher Everything and Tougher Bosses datapacks, with permission given by the original author.
• Some inspiration was taken from Kindred408's old Smart Mobs datapack, although the actual implementation in this datapack is my original work.

Other Datapacks

I recommend the following datapacks, in addition to this one:

• Vanilla Parity replaces the Wither with the Bedrock Wither.
• The old datapacks Blaze Tweaks and Pillager Tweaks by FlanDere allow blazes and pillagers to move backwards when a player approaches them, like crossbow piglins do (and forward, in the case of blazes).
• My other packs! Check them out on my Modrinth page :)

Compatibility-wise, this datapack should usually be fine. However, watch out for the following:

• Datapacks like Incendium that have mobs or bosses with custom AI and features won't be overwritten (except for when this pack buffs a mobs HP and such), but this datapack's mechanics will also be applied, which may have unintended consequences.
• For example, FlanDere also has a cool Jumping Mobs datapack, but dashes and jumps don't mix well (the mob can bounce really high accidentally).
• Remember to give the upgradedmobs.blacklist tag to any mob that you don't want to be affected by this datapack.