Combat profile
For Minecraft 26.3 / NeoForge, wave base values and supported behavior can be changed per registry entry: see health, damage and base armor and mob abilities. Tier, size and wave scaling still apply.
Behavior
The Burrower uses specialized three-dimensional navigation, attacks defenders and the Nexus, and removes one obstructing block at a time when digging is necessary. Its distant tail has a linked hitbox and follows the head’s recorded trail. The current Minecraft 26.3 / NeoForge movement rules are explained below.
Lava Creeper shares the supported crawling path but leaves temporary lava after mining, primes after a surviving hit and permanently cools in water.
Crawling, support and obstacle routes
The head moves between neighboring block positions along one axis at a time. Logical turns happen at block positions in right angles, allowing travel over floors, walls and ceilings. A normal crawl cell needs a solid support block sharing a face. One diagonally supported cell is permitted only to turn onto another face of that same support block; a parallel diagonal wall does not form a continuous route.
Before mining, it searches for a complete supported path around, above or below the obstacle. Only when that search cannot reach its destination within the existing search limits does it try a digging route. A partial crawl path does not rule out tunneling. Snow layers and other low collision obstacles can be cleared too; it does not always reverse at a thin obstacle.
It pauses its movement while clearing a single block. Mining uses player-style tool and effect rules with a 2× multiplier, subject to its mining ability, Mob Griefing and indestructible-block restrictions. An obstruction it cannot clear can make it retreat and seek another route. Without valid support it does not fly across an air gap. On a supported surface it may keep crawling even without an attack target.
The head and all 16 body segments visually bend smoothly along the same trail, including wall and ceiling turns. This animation does not move the server hitboxes off their block-grid route or change collision and mining. Ambient, hurt, death and crawl-step sounds use Minecraft’s Silverfish sounds.
Compare Lava Creeper, which shares this navigation but has separate cooling, lava-trail and explosion rules.
Drops
In the current Minecraft 26.3 / NeoForge build, the mob's own loot table drops the items below. Each range is rolled independently. These default pools have no Looting bonus; server datapacks can replace them. A minimum of zero means that item can be absent.
Rotten Flesh • 0–2
Dirt • 0–2
Small Remnants • 25% chance of 1The shared IM death hook independently gives a 25% chance of one Small Remnants, in addition to the item-table drops.
Compare the additional mob drops; this is the mod's own loot, rather than an inherited vanilla mob table.
Vanilla replacement
No vanilla mob converts into a Burrower. It is obtained through invasion waves or its spawn egg.