What the Weakness effect does
Weakness is a status effect that lowers the damage you deal with melee attacks. While it is active, punching or swinging a sword hits for less than normal. It has no effect on bows, crossbows, or tridents, so ranged attacks still do full damage.
On its own, Weakness sounds like something you would never want. Most players never drink it by choice. The reason it matters is a single job it does better than anything else in the game: it is the effect you need to cure a zombie villager and turn it back into a normal villager.
That one use makes the Potion of Weakness worth knowing how to brew, because a cured villager can give you cheap trades that a wild villager never will.
How to get the Weakness effect
There are a few ways to end up with Weakness, whether you want it on yourself or on a mob.
Brewing a Potion of Weakness
The Potion of Weakness is the odd one out at the brewing stand. Almost every potion starts with an Awkward Potion made from nether wart. Weakness does not. You brew it straight from a plain water bottle.
The recipe is simple: put a water bottle in the brewing stand and add a fermented spider eye on top. That single step gives you a Potion of Weakness. You do not need nether wart at all, which makes this one of the cheapest potions to make.
To craft the fermented spider eye, combine a spider eye, a bit of sugar, and a brown mushroom on a crafting table. Spiders drop spider eyes at night or in caves, sugar comes from sugar cane, and brown mushrooms grow in dark spots and swamps.
The base potion lasts 1 minute and 30 seconds. Add redstone dust in a second brewing step to stretch it to 4 minutes. The Weakness effect has no level II version, so glowstone does nothing useful here.
Splash and lingering versions
A potion you drink only affects you, which is no help when the target is a zombie. Add gunpowder to your Potion of Weakness to make a Splash Potion of Weakness that you can throw. The splash cloud applies the effect to any mob or player it touches. This is the version you actually want for curing zombie villagers.
Add dragon’s breath to a splash potion to make a Lingering Potion of Weakness, which leaves a cloud on the ground for several seconds. Lingering potions cost more materials, so most players stick with the splash version for a quick cure.
Tipped arrows
Combine a Lingering Potion of Weakness with arrows to craft Arrows of Weakness. An arrow of Weakness applies the effect to whatever it hits. This is a handy way to weaken a zombie villager from a safe distance before you close in to feed it.
Witches
Witches sometimes throw a Splash Potion of Weakness at you during a fight. It is not a common source, and you would not farm witches for it, but it explains why your attacks suddenly feel soft mid-battle.
Curing a zombie villager with Weakness
This is the real reason the effect exists in most players’ minds. A zombie villager can be turned back into a living villager, and doing so gives that villager a steep discount on its trades. A whole trading hall can be built on cured villagers.
Zombie villagers show up in a few places. About 5 percent of zombies that spawn are zombie villagers, so ordinary night hunting turns them up. They also appear in zombie villages, spawn from a regular villager killed by a zombie on higher difficulties, and generate inside igloo basements next to a cured villager. Once you have one, the cure takes two ingredients working together: Weakness and a golden apple.
- Find or trap a zombie villager. You can tell it apart from a normal zombie by its villager nose and clothing. Keep it from burning in daylight by putting it under a roof or in a hole.
- Throw a Splash Potion of Weakness so the cloud covers the zombie villager. You should see the Weakness effect swirl appear around it.
- While Weakness is active, feed it a regular golden apple by holding the apple and interacting with the zombie villager. A plain golden apple works. You do not need the enchanted one.
- Red swirling particles appear and the zombie villager starts shaking. Now wait. The conversion takes a few minutes.
Two tricks speed the process up and make it safer. Trapping the zombie villager behind iron bars keeps other mobs off it while it heals. Placing beds and iron bars nearby lowers the cure time, since the game treats those as signs of a settled village. Once the timer finishes, you have a full villager ready to trade.
How much damage Weakness removes
The size of the penalty depends on which version of the game you play, and the two editions handle it differently.
In Java Edition, Weakness lowers melee attack damage by a flat 4 points per level. Since a bare fist and most early weapons deal single-digit damage, Weakness I can drop a weak attack close to nothing. Your sword still connects; it just does far less.
In Bedrock Edition, the reduction works as a percentage of your weapon’s damage rather than a flat number. Stronger weapons lose more raw damage, but the attack is never reduced all the way to zero the way a flat penalty can do in Java. In practice, both editions leave you hitting soft while the effect lasts.
Either way, Weakness only touches melee. Switch to a bow and your damage is unchanged.
How to remove Weakness
If you catch the effect yourself and want it gone, drink milk. A bucket of milk clears every active status effect at once, good and bad, so it wipes Weakness instantly. Milk comes from any cow, so it is easy to keep a bucket on hand.
You can also just wait it out. The base potion is short, and even the extended version ends after 4 minutes. If you are not in a fight, letting the timer run is fine.
Tips and common mistakes
The most common mistake when curing villagers is drinking the Potion of Weakness instead of throwing it. A regular potion only affects the person who drinks it, and the zombie villager gets nothing. Always brew the splash version for curing.
Another slip is forgetting the golden apple must be fed while Weakness is active. If the effect wears off before you interact with the zombie villager, nothing happens and you have to splash it again. Have the apple ready in your hand before you throw the potion.
Do not confuse the plain golden apple with the enchanted golden apple. Curing only needs the normal one, crafted from an apple and eight gold ingots. Save the enchanted apples for tough fights.
Finally, remember Weakness does nothing to your mining speed or movement. That is Mining Fatigue and Slowness. Weakness is melee damage only.
Weakness and Strength are opposites
Weakness has a mirror image called Strength. Strength raises your melee damage, Weakness lowers it, and the two cancel each other out to a degree if you somehow have both. You will almost never stack them on purpose, but it helps to picture Weakness as the negative side of the same coin. Both effects touch melee only, and neither one changes how much damage a bow or crossbow deals.
This is also why Weakness is safe to use in a pit full of zombie villagers you plan to cure. It weakens their punches while you stand close feeding golden apples, so you take less damage during the minutes it takes each one to convert.
Frequently asked questions
What does Weakness do in Minecraft?
It lowers the damage you deal with melee attacks like punches and sword swings. It does not affect bows, crossbows, or tridents.
How do you make a Potion of Weakness?
Put a water bottle in a brewing stand and add a fermented spider eye. No nether wart or Awkward Potion is needed, which makes it one of the cheapest potions in the game.
Why do I need Weakness to cure a zombie villager?
The cure requires the zombie villager to have the Weakness effect when you feed it a golden apple. Weakness plus a golden apple starts the conversion back into a normal villager.
Does drinking a Potion of Weakness cure a zombie villager?
No. Drinking it only affects you. You need to throw a Splash Potion of Weakness so the cloud lands on the zombie villager.
How do you get rid of the Weakness effect?
Drink milk to clear it right away, or wait for the timer to run out. Milk removes all active effects at once.
Does Weakness affect bow damage?
No. Weakness only reduces melee damage. Arrows, crossbow bolts, and thrown tridents deal their normal damage.
Can you make Weakness level II?
No. There is no Weakness II. Glowstone does not upgrade it, though redstone still extends how long it lasts.
Worth keeping a few on hand
Weakness is one of the few potions worth brewing even though you never plan to drink it. A couple of splash potions and a stack of golden apples turn every wandering zombie villager into a discount trader. Keep the ingredients for a fermented spider eye in a chest near your brewing stand, and curing villagers becomes a routine part of building up a base.