How to Respawn the Ender Dragon in Minecraft Bedrock

You beat the dragon. You watched the credits. And now the End feels kind of empty. Good news: you can bring it back. You can bring it back as many times as you want, actually. Each fight gives you XP, a chance to collect Dragon's Breath, and opens a new End gateway portal to the outer islands.

All you need is four End Crystals.

Crafting End Crystals

Each End Crystal requires:

• 7 Glass
• 1 Eye of Ender
• 1 Ghast Tear

You need four crystals, so the total shopping list is:

• 28 Glass (smelt 28 sand)
• 4 Eyes of Ender (4 ender pearls + 4 blaze powder)
• 4 Ghast Tears

The crafting recipe: place the Eye of Ender in the center slot, the Ghast Tear directly below it, and fill all remaining 7 slots with Glass.

Getting Ghast Tears

Ghasts drop 0-1 Ghast Tear on death. This is the most annoying material to farm because ghasts fly over lava, and the tears often fall into it and burn. A few tips:

• Fight ghasts in soul sand valleys or nether wastes where there's more solid ground
• Use a bow with Flame. The ghast dies in one hit, but the fire doesn't destroy the tear drop
• Looting III on a sword increases the maximum drop to 4 per ghast, but you still need to get close enough to use it
• Deflecting a ghast fireball back at it counts as a player kill and drops tears normally

Budget about 15-20 minutes of ghast hunting. With decent aim you'll have 4 tears in no time.

Getting Eyes of Ender

If you've already beaten the dragon, you've done this before. Ender pearls come from endermen (kill them in the End for easy farming) and blaze powder comes from blaze rods (killed blazes in a nether fortress). Combine one pearl and one blaze powder per Eye of Ender.

Placing the Crystals

Go back to the End. The exit portal in the center of the main island is where the ritual happens.

1. Stand near the exit portal (the bedrock structure with the dragon egg on top, if you haven't moved it)
2. Look at the portal frame. It's a square. Each of the four sides has a center bedrock block on the rim.
3. Place one End Crystal on the center bedrock block of each side. The exact block matters on Java, but on Bedrock you have a bit of leeway and can place crystals one block outward too.
4. When you place the fourth crystal, the respawn sequence begins immediately.

Stand back after placing the third crystal. The moment you place the fourth one, all four crystals explode. If you're standing too close, you'll take serious damage or die. Step a few blocks away before placing the last one.

What Happens During the Respawn

Once you place the fourth crystal, a chain reaction starts:

• Your four crystals explode
• All obsidian pillars around the island regenerate. Any blocks you placed on top of them (platforms, torches, ladders) get destroyed
• New End Crystals appear on top of each pillar, including the two iron bar cages
• The dragon spawns at coordinates 0, 128, 0 and the fight begins

The exit portal deactivates during the fight. You can't leave the End until you kill the dragon again (or die).

Preparing for the Second Fight

The respawned dragon is identical to the first one. Same health (200 HP), same attack patterns, same crystal healing. But you're probably better equipped now than you were the first time. Here's what to bring:

A bow with Infinity or lots of arrows. You need to shoot out the End Crystals on the pillars before focusing on the dragon. Leave them up and the dragon heals faster than you can damage it.

A diamond or netherite sword. Sharpness V if you have it. When the dragon perches on the portal, melee is by far the highest damage you can deal.

Ender pearls. For teleporting onto the caged crystal pillars. Two of the ten crystals are surrounded by iron bars. You need to get up there and break the bars before destroying the crystal. Ender pearls are the fastest way up.

Glass bottles. If you want Dragon's Breath, bring empty glass bottles. When the dragon uses its breath attack (the purple cloud on the ground), walk into it and use the glass bottle to collect it. This is the only way to get Dragon's Breath, and you need it to brew lingering potions.

Slow Falling potions. The dragon's charge attack knocks you into the air. Without Slow Falling, the fall damage can kill you. With it, you drift down safely. This is arguably more important than armor enchantments for this fight.

A carved pumpkin (optional). Wearing one on your head prevents endermen from becoming hostile when you look at them. The End is full of endermen, and accidentally aggroing a swarm during the dragon fight is a common way to die. The trade-off is reduced visibility.

XP and Loot from Respawned Dragons

The first dragon kill gives you 12,000 XP. Every subsequent kill gives 500 XP. That's a big drop-off, so don't respawn the dragon purely for XP farming. There are better methods.

What you do get from each respawn:

• A new End Gateway portal. Each dragon kill activates one gateway on the edge of the main island. These teleport you to the outer End islands, where you'll find End Cities, shulkers, and elytra. There are up to 20 gateways total, so 20 dragon fights to unlock them all.
• Dragon's Breath. Only available during the fight. Bring bottles.
• The dragon egg does NOT drop again. Only the first kill produces the egg. Respawned dragons don't drop it.

Can You Respawn the Dragon with Commands?

If you just want the dragon without the crafting:

/summon ender_dragon

This spawns an ender dragon at your location. Be aware: it won't behave exactly like the natural dragon fight. It won't interact with the End Crystals on the pillars, and killing it won't activate a new gateway portal. For the full respawn experience with all mechanics working correctly, use the End Crystal method.

Cheats disable achievements, as always.