POTION HARMFUL Present since 1.14 or earlier

Potion of Harming how to brew it in Minecraft

A Potion of Harming deals instant magic damage: 3 hearts at level I, 6 hearts at level II. Thrown as a splash potion, it is the hardest-hitting potion in the game, and armor points do nothing against it. Undead mobs are the exception: Harming heals them.

Brew it step by step

Put Blaze Powder in the fuel slot and up to 3 bottles at the bottom, then add each ingredient at the top.

01 + → Awkward PotionNether Wart + Water Bottle
02 + → Potion of HealingGlistering Melon Slice + Awkward Potion
03 + → Potion of HarmingFermented Spider Eye + Potion of Healing
+ + → OptionalPotion of Harming IIGlowstone Dust · Level II, shorter · Instant
+ + → OptionalSplash PotionGunpowder · Throwable
+ + → OptionalLingering PotionDragon's Breath · Leaves a cloud, base for Tipped Arrows

// Fuel: Blaze Powder

At a glance

Effect: Instant Damage
Duration: Instant
With Redstone: —
Level II: Instant
Key ingredient: Fermented Spider Eye

All variants and durations

Variant	Normal	With Redstone	Level II
Potion	Instant	—	Instant
Splash Potion	Instant	—	Instant
Lingering Potion	Instant	—	Instant
Tipped Arrow	Instant	—	Instant

■ Normal · ■ With Redstone · Lingering = ¼ of the duration, Tipped Arrow = ⅛

What Instant Damage does

HarmfulInstant Damage

Deals 6 damage instantly, doubled at each level. It heals undead mobs instead.

Commands

Potion/give →

/give @s minecraft:potion[potion_contents={potion:"minecraft:harming"}]

Splash Potion/give →

/give @s minecraft:splash_potion[potion_contents={potion:"minecraft:harming"}]

Lingering Potion/give →

/give @s minecraft:lingering_potion[potion_contents={potion:"minecraft:harming"}]

Why Harming hits so hard

The damage is magic, and magic goes straight through armor. A player in full netherite gear takes the same hit as one in leather, unless they wear Protection or have Resistance, which still reduce it. That is why splash Harming II is the classic finishing move in PvP.

Three ways to deliver it

Splash Potion: the burst option. The closer to the impact, the stronger the hit.
Lingering Potion: the cloud keeps hitting anything that stays inside it, which works well on a chokepoint.
Tipped Arrows: an instant hit of magic damage on top of the arrow itself, from a safe distance.

Pitfalls

It heals the undead. Zombies, skeletons, Drowned, Phantoms, zombified piglins and the Wither all get healed by Harming. Use a splash Potion of Healing on them instead.
Witches resist it. Witches take only a small part of magic damage, so Harming is a waste against them. A sword or a bow works better.
Do not drink it. The drinkable version simply hurts you. Add Gunpowder right away so a stray bottle in your hotbar cannot end badly.
Splash range cuts both ways. Thrown at an enemy right next to you, it hits you too.

Two ways to brew it

Add a Fermented Spider Eye to a Potion of Healing, or to a Potion of Poison. The Poison route avoids gold entirely: Spider Eyes are easy to farm from spiders. A level II Poison gives a level II Harming. There is no long version, since the effect is instant.

✓ Checked in Java Edition 26.3 · updated 1 November 2026