Piglin Brute

The Piglin Brute is what happens when a piglin skips the gold obsession and goes straight to leg day. It stands guard inside Bastion Remnants, swings a golden axe, and hits harder than almost anything else you will meet on foot.

Your golden boots mean nothing to it. Your gold ingots mean nothing to it. It sees you, it charges, and it does not stop until one of you is a pile of items on the blackstone floor.

Brutes only appear when a bastion first generates. Kill one and it is gone for good, which makes them less of a farmable mob and more of a one-time boss fight you did not ask for.

Overview

Appearance

A Piglin Brute uses the same basic body as a regular piglin: wide pig snout, flappy ears, tusks, and a humanoid frame. The difference is the outfit. Brutes wear a black and gold belt and a golden arm guard, and they carry themselves like bouncers at a club you are definitely not getting into.

Developers have said that arm guard is meant to work like a small shield, which is the in-lore reason brutes have so much more health. They do not wear real armor because, as the story goes, they feel armor would weigh them down.

• Weapon: Spawns holding a golden axe, usually in the right hand (95%) and occasionally in the left (5%).
• Baby form: None. There are no baby Piglin Brutes.
• Variants: No color or texture variants.
• Animations: Raises its axe when it locks onto a target. Unlike regular piglins, it never does the little victory dance after a kill.

Behavior & AI

• Targeting: Attacks players on sight within 16 blocks, gold armor or not. It also goes after wither skeletons and withers, but will always pick you first if you are available.
• Not distracted by gold: Drop all the gold ingots you want. Brutes ignore gold items and gold blocks entirely.
• No bartering: You cannot use a gold ingot on a brute. There is no trade menu, only an axe.
• No retreating: Regular piglins back away from soul fire items, zoglins, and zombified piglins. Brutes do not flinch at any of them.
• Home base: When not fighting, a brute tries to walk back to the spot where it spawned. This is true even for brutes you summon yourself. Break line of sight long enough and it goes back to patrolling its room.
• Calling for backup: Hit a brute and every piglin and brute nearby joins in, even if you are wearing gold armor. Brutes were designed this way on purpose so you would sneak around them instead of starting fights.
• Doors: Can open wooden and copper doors. Your hiding spot needs an iron door.
• Retaliation: Attacks any mob that hurts a piglin or brute, including iron golems, snow golems, and even goats that ram one by accident.
• Hunting: In Bedrock, brutes join piglin hunts on hoglins. In Java, they ignore hoglins completely.
• Persistence: Brutes do not despawn on Easy, Normal, or Hard. On Peaceful they despawn like other monsters.
• Water: Cannot swim. They sink and eventually drown.
• Fire and lava: Not immune. A brute that walks into lava burns like you do.
• Zombification: After 15 seconds in the Overworld or the End, a brute turns into a zombified piglin and keeps its golden axe.

Abilities, Attacks & Status Effects

• Melee axe swing: Its only attack. On Normal in Java, that is 13 damage per hit. Only the wither, iron golem, warden, and the unused giant deal more melee damage.
• Enchanted axes: In Java, the golden axe can spawn enchanted. Bedrock brutes stopped getting enchanted axes in 1.16.100.
• Shields: Holding up a shield blocks the swing, but an axe-wielding mob can knock your shield out of commission for a few seconds. Do not plan on turtling behind one forever.
• Status effects: Brutes do not inflict any. The damage alone is the whole problem.
• No ranged attack: Brutes cannot use crossbows. If you are not in axe range, you are safe from this particular mob.
• Item pickup: Will only pick up golden axes (plain or enchanted), and only if it walks directly over one.

Spawning

Interactions with Environment & Other Mobs

• Piglins: Brutes and piglins defend each other. Anger one and you have angered the whole room.
• Wither skeletons and withers: Brutes attack both on sight. Leading a brute near a nether fortress can start a fight you get to watch.
• Hoglins: Java brutes leave hoglins alone. Bedrock brutes join the hunt.
• Zoglins and zombified piglins: No fear response. Brutes will stand their ground next to either.
• Golems and goats: Any mob that damages a piglin or brute becomes a target, including your iron golem if it swings first.
• Dimension travel: Pushed through a portal, a brute has 15 seconds before zombifying in the Overworld or the End.
• Charged creepers: Unlike regular piglins, brutes do not drop a piglin head when killed by a charged creeper explosion.
• Lava and cliffs: Bastions sit next to lava lakes and long drops. A good knockback hit near an edge ends the fight fast, though you lose the drop.

Drops & Loot

Player Uses & Farming

• No farm is possible: Brutes only exist from bastion generation. Once a bastion’s brutes are dead, that is it.
• Why fight them at all: Brutes guard the best bastion loot, including netherite scraps, ancient debris, and the Snout banner pattern chests. Clearing them is the price of admission.
• Ranged beats melee: Brutes cannot shoot back. A bow from a raised pillar two or three blocks up lets you deal damage while it swings at air.
• Use the leash: Brutes return to their spawn point when they lose you. Pull one out, fight it alone, and do not let it drag the whole room into it.
• Doorway trick: Fight from a one-block gap with an iron door or a block you can close. Brutes open wooden doors, so wood will not save you.
• Piglin head (Java): Wearing one cuts their detection range to 8 blocks, making it much easier to slip past.
• Armor up: At 13 damage per swing on Normal in Java, iron armor is the bare minimum. Diamond or netherite with Protection makes the fight manageable.
• Gold still matters: Brutes ignore your gold armor, but regular piglins do not. Wear at least one gold piece so only the brutes are after you.

Commands & NBT

Summon a standard brute (in Java, it spawns with its golden axe when no NBT is added):

/summon minecraft:piglin_brute ~ ~ ~

Java: summon a brute that will not zombify in the Overworld, with the axe added manually. Adding any NBT skips the normal spawn equipment, so you have to give it the axe yourself:

/summon minecraft:piglin_brute ~ ~ ~ {IsImmuneToZombification:1b,equipment:{mainhand:{id:"minecraft:golden_axe",count:1}}}

Java: a brute with a netherite axe, for anyone who wants to feel something:

/summon minecraft:piglin_brute ~ ~ ~ {equipment:{mainhand:{id:"minecraft:netherite_axe",count:1}}}

Bedrock:

/summon piglin_brute ~ ~ ~

• IsImmuneToZombification (Byte): If 1, the brute never converts to a zombified piglin outside the Nether.
• TimeInOverworld (Int): Ticks spent outside the Nether. It converts once this passes 300 (15 seconds).
• equipment (Compound): Held items and armor slots, used for setting the brute’s weapon or armor.
• NoAI (Byte): Brutes with no AI do not zombify and do not pick up items.

Tags, Gamerules & Datapack Hooks

• Bedrock families: adult_piglin, monster, piglin, piglin_brute
• Bedrock numeric ID: 127
• Java translation key: entity.minecraft.piglin_brute
• Loot table (Java): minecraft:entities/piglin_brute. The golden axe comes from the equipment drop chance, not this table.
• Java gamerules (1.21.11 names): minecraft:mob_drops controls the axe drop and XP, and minecraft:spawn_mobs does not affect brutes since they come from structure generation.
• Bedrock gamerules: domobloot controls drops.

Difficulty & Edition Differences

• Peaceful: Brutes despawn. In Bedrock, they no longer generate on Peaceful as of 1.21.90, and properly despawn as of 1.21.100.
• Easy/Normal/Hard: Damage scales from 7.5 to 13 to 19.5 in Java, and 6 to 10 to 15 in Bedrock.
• Damage gap: Golden axes deal more damage in Java, so Java brutes hit harder with the same weapon.
• Hitbox: 1.95 blocks tall in Java, 1.9 in Bedrock.
• Enchanted axes: Java only.
• Hoglin hunts: Bedrock only.
• Piglin head stealth: Java only.
• Zombification Nausea: In Java, the new zombified piglin gets a cosmetic 10-second Nausea effect. In Bedrock it does not.

Sounds & Audio

• Ambient: entity.piglin_brute.ambient (Java) / mob.piglin_brute.ambient (Bedrock)
• Angry: entity.piglin_brute.angry (Java) / mob.piglin_brute.angry (Bedrock)
• Hurt: entity.piglin_brute.hurt (Java) / mob.piglin_brute.hurt (Bedrock)
• Death: entity.piglin_brute.death (Java) / mob.piglin_brute.death (Bedrock)
• Footsteps: entity.piglin_brute.step (Java) / mob.piglin_brute.step (Bedrock)
• Zombification: entity.piglin_brute.converted_to_zombified (Java) / mob.piglin.converted_to_zombified (Bedrock)
• Pitch: Brute snorts are lower-pitched versions of regular piglin sounds. If the grunt sounds deeper than usual, check your corners.

History & Major Changes

• June 25, 2020: Brutes announced for a 1.16.x release.
• Java 1.16.2 (20w27a): Piglin Brutes added.
• Bedrock 1.16.20: Piglin Brutes added. A later beta let their axes spawn enchanted and changed the unarmed attack animation.
• Bedrock 1.16.100: Removed enchanted axes, raised the XP drop from 10 to 20, and let converted zombified piglins keep the golden axe.
• Java 1.19.3 (22w46a): Wearing a piglin head now halves a brute’s detection range.
• Bedrock 1.21.90: Brutes no longer generate on Peaceful.
• Bedrock 1.21.100: Brutes properly despawn on Peaceful.

Notable Bugs & Quirks

• Drowning: Brutes cannot swim and will drown in water. Mojang marked this as working as intended.
• No head from charged creepers: A charged creeper kill does not drop a piglin head, even though brutes look like piglins. Reports on this were closed as invalid.
• Missing Nausea (Bedrock): Brutes converted in Bedrock skip the cosmetic Nausea effect Java applies.
• Goat grudges: A goat that rams a piglin by accident gets hunted down by nearby brutes.
• Summon NBT (Java): Summoning with any NBT data skips spawn equipment, so the brute shows up empty-handed unless you give it an axe.
• Unused despawn code (Bedrock): The brute’s Bedrock files include a despawn component copied from zoglin rules. It never triggers in normal play because brutes only come from bastions.

Advancements/Achievements

• Monster Hunter (Java and Bedrock): Killing a brute counts toward killing any hostile monster.
• Monsters Hunted (Java): Brutes are one of the 41 monsters required.
• It Spreads (Java and Bedrock): Killing a brute near a sculk catalyst works, since it drops XP.
• Overkill (Bedrock): Deal nine hearts of damage in one hit. With 25 hearts of health, brutes make great test dummies for this.

Spin-offs, Culture & Trivia

• Late addition: Brutes were built late in 1.16 development, so they were pushed to 1.16.2 instead of rushing them into the Nether Update launch.
• Bad eyesight: A developer hinted at launch that brutes do not see very well. The piglin head mechanic in 1.19.3 leans into that.
• Treasure guards: Mojang described brutes as devoted to protecting bastion treasure and able to see right through your golden disguise.
• Minecraft Dungeons: A piglin brute appears as a mob in Minecraft Dungeons.
• Minecraft Legends: A brute unit appears in Minecraft Legends.
• LEGO: A piglin brute figure exists in LEGO Minecraft sets.

See Also

• Piglin
• Zombified Piglin
• Hoglin
• Wither Skeleton
• Bastion Remnant
• Golden Axe