What Levitation does
Levitation is a status effect that lifts you straight up into the air, one block at a time, until it wears off. You don’t jump and you can’t stop it by standing still. As long as the effect is active, you keep rising.
It’s one of the few effects in the game you almost never want. Floating up in the open leaves you exposed, and the drop after it ends can hurt or kill you. Knowing where it comes from and how to shut it off quickly is the difference between a funny moment and a lost inventory.
There’s no Levitation potion you can brew at a stand, so most players meet this effect for the first time in an End city, courtesy of a shulker.
What causes Levitation
In normal survival, one thing gives you Levitation: getting hit by a shulker’s projectile. When a shulker opens its shell and fires, the little homing bullet chases you down. If it connects, you take some damage and gain Levitation I for 10 seconds.
Shulkers live in End cities out on the outer End islands, usually stuck to the walls and floors of the tall purpur towers. That’s why the effect is so tied to end-game exploration. You rarely see it anywhere else without commands.
Shulker bullets track you around corners and don’t give up easily, so avoiding the hit entirely is hard. If two or more shulkers tag you in quick succession, the durations stack and you stay airborne longer than a single 10-second window. In a tower full of them, that can add up to a long, unwanted climb.
Outside of survival, the /effect command can hand out Levitation at any level for any duration. Map makers use it for custom jump pads, floating puzzles, and trap rooms. There are no tipped arrows or brewed potions of Levitation in the base game, so if you want it without a shulker, a command is the only route.
Can you brew a Levitation potion?
No. The brewing stand has no recipe for it, and no ingredient combination produces one. If you see a “Potion of Levitation” it came from a command, a data pack, or a mod, not from vanilla brewing.
How Levitation moves you
Levitation pushes you upward at a steady rate of about 0.9 blocks per second per level. Levitation I, the version a shulker gives you, is a gentle climb. Over a full 10-second shulker effect, that works out to roughly 9 blocks of lift, enough to clear a couple of tower floors or float you clean off a ledge. Higher levels from commands rise much faster, and at extreme amplitudes you shoot up like a rocket.
The climb is smooth and constant. You can still steer left and right with normal movement keys while you rise, which matters a lot near an edge: nudging back toward solid ground while you float can save you from ending up over open air when the effect fades.
The effect works on almost any entity, not just players. Mobs caught in a shulker’s fire will float too, which is why you sometimes see zombies or endermen drifting up the side of an End city tower. Items, boats, and minecarts can be affected as well.
One quirk worth knowing: pushing the level very high with commands (roughly 250 and above) flips the direction and drags entities downward instead. The number wraps into a negative value internally, so a “super Levitation” command can actually slam you into the floor. It’s a fun trick for custom maps and a good thing to remember before you type a giant number.
Levitation and fall damage
While the effect is active, you take no fall damage, because you’re moving up rather than down. The danger comes the moment it ends. If Levitation drops you off after lifting you 30 blocks over solid ground, gravity takes over and you fall the whole way.
Near the edge of an End city, the stakes are higher. A shulker can float you up and sideways over open air, and when the effect fades you drop toward the void with nothing to land on. Plenty of players have lost a full set of enchanted gear this exact way.
Keep a water bucket, a stack of blocks, or an Elytra ready before you fight shulkers. Any of the three turns a bad landing into a non-event. The water-bucket save is the reliable one: aim down and place water on the block you’re about to hit, and the fall damage cancels the instant you touch it. On the outer End islands the ground is often too broken up for a clean water landing, so an Elytra is the safer backup once you have one.
How to remove Levitation
You have a few options once the effect is on you:
- Drink milk. A bucket of milk clears every active effect instantly, Levitation included. This is the fastest hard stop.
- Wait it out. Shulker Levitation lasts 10 seconds. If you’re somewhere safe, just ride it out and let it expire.
- Get under a ceiling. A solid block above your head stops the upward drift, so ducking into a doorway or tunnel keeps you from rising further.
Milk is the plan you actually want in your hotbar during an End city raid. It resets the clock the instant you get tagged, so you can drop back to the floor and keep fighting instead of drifting into the open.
Using Levitation on purpose
Because survival ties the effect to shulkers, deliberate uses are mostly a command-and-map-maker affair, but a couple of tricks work with real shulkers too.
The classic one is a shulker elevator. Trap a shulker in a small shaft, let it tag you, and ride the Levitation up to a higher floor. It’s slow and a little dangerous, so most players prefer regular water or bubble-column elevators, but it works in a pinch when you have a shulker handy and nothing else. The upside is that a boxed-in shulker keeps re-applying the effect, so you can climb several floors on a single trip if the shaft is tall enough.
The effect also has a clear visual tell while it’s on you. You’ll see the Levitation icon in your effects list and faint particles around your body, which is a useful cue in a map or a busy fight that you’re about to start drifting and should react before you lose your footing.
On custom maps, Levitation shows up as invisible jump pads, floating parkour sections, and “anti-gravity” rooms. A command block firing /effect give @p levitation 3 5 at a pressure plate can launch a player up a shaft on cue. Pair it with Slow Falling and you get a controlled up-and-down float that feels great in an adventure map.
Java and Bedrock differences
The core behavior is the same on both editions: shulkers apply Levitation I for 10 seconds, milk removes it, and the upward drift works the same way. There are no meaningful gameplay differences to worry about for everyday play. The command syntax differs slightly between editions, so a map built for one may need small tweaks to run on the other.
Frequently asked questions
What gives you Levitation in Minecraft?
Getting hit by a shulker’s projectile in survival. It applies Levitation I for 10 seconds. Outside survival, the /effect command can apply it at any level.
Can you make a Levitation potion?
No. There’s no brewing recipe for Levitation in the base game. Any Levitation potion you come across is from a command, data pack, or mod.
Does Levitation stop fall damage?
Yes, while it’s active you take no fall damage because you’re rising. Once it ends, though, you fall normally and can take full damage from the height you reached.
How do you get rid of Levitation fast?
Drink a bucket of milk. It clears the effect instantly. You can also wait the 10 seconds out or duck under a solid ceiling to stop rising.
Can Levitation kill you?
Not directly, but it easily leads to a death. Floating up high and then dropping causes fall damage, and drifting over the edge in an End city can carry you into the void.
Does Levitation affect mobs?
Yes. Any mob caught by a shulker’s shot floats upward too, which is why you sometimes see mobs drifting up the outside of End city towers.
Why does a high Levitation level pull you down?
Very large amplifiers set by command (around 250 and up) wrap into a negative value internally, so the effect reverses and drags entities downward instead of up.
How long does shulker Levitation last?
A single shulker hit gives Levitation I for 10 seconds. Fresh hits refresh and extend the timer, so staying in range of several shulkers keeps you floating well past the first 10 seconds.
The short version
Levitation is a shulker’s calling card, and the safest way to fight one is to carry milk and keep a water bucket for the landing. Treat the effect as a warning that you’re about to lose control of your position, deal with it fast, and the End city towers stop being a place where good gear goes to die.