A sculk catalyst is a block that converts blocks around it to blocks in the sculk family (except for more sculk catalysts) when a mob that drops experience dies nearby.
Obtaining
Natural generation
Sculk catalysts are generated within the deep dark biome.
Chest loot
| Item | Structure | Container | Quantity | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Java Edition | ||||
| Sculk Catalyst | Ancient City | Chest | 1–2 | 16.1% |
| Bedrock Edition | ||||
| Sculk Catalyst | Ancient City | Chest | 1–2 | 16.1% |
Mob loot
Wardens drop a single sculk catalyst upon death.
Breaking
Sculk catalysts can be mined with any tool, but hoes are the quickest. It drops 5 experience if mined without Silk Touch.
| Block | Sculk Catalyst | |
|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 3 | |
| Tool | ||
| Breaking time[A] | ||
| Default | 4.5 | |
| Wooden | 2.25 | |
| Stone | 1.15 | |
| Iron | 0.75 | |
| Diamond | 0.6 | |
| Netherite | 0.5 | |
| Golden | 0.4 | |
- ↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.
Usage
If a mob dies within 8 blocks of a sculk catalyst, it blooms, giving off soul particles and creates a patch of sculk with sculk veins around that location. Blooming sculk can replace blocks in the sculk_replaceable tag, which includes the surface materials of most of the biomes in all three dimensions. If a mob is killed and detected by the sculk catalyst while over a sculk block, it may occasionally result in the growth of a sculk sensor.
The means of death of the mob is irrelevant; mobs can die from being killed by a player or tamed wolf, which yields experience, or by any other means, which does not yield experience; any kill is accepted by the catalyst. Rather than granting experience, a bubbling charge spawns where the mob died, and it travels through sculk until it finds a replaceable block. The strength of the sculk spreading depends on the amount of experience the mob would have dropped when it was killed by a player or a tamed wolf. Several sculk charges may end up on the same block and merge, up to 1000 charges per block.
If a mob dies and a charge is detected more than 4 blocks from a catalyst, a sculk block has a chance to use 10 experience to grow a sculk sensor or a sculk shrieker. A sculk sensor has a 9% chance to spawn and a sculk shrieker has a 1% chance to spawn. However, sculk sensors and sculk shriekers cannot spawn if there are 2 or more sensors within a 9×3×9 box with the bottom center of the box centered on the bubbling charge location (or within -4,0,-4 and 4,2,4 in relative coordinates).
A player dying can also affect the sculk catalyst, depending on how much experience the player has gathered. The sculk catalyst spreads a number of sculk blocks depending on player experience, with no spreading if a player dies with zero experience.
A sculk catalyst does not respond to the death of mobs that do not yield any experience, such as baby animals. It also does not respond to the ender dragon's death,[1] although this may be implemented in the future.[2]
Sounds
Generic
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block broken | Blocks | Once the block has broken | block.sculk_catalyst.break | subtitles.block.generic.break | 1.0 | 0.8 | 16 | |
| Block placed | Blocks | When the block is placed | block.sculk_catalyst.place | subtitles.block.generic.place | 1.0 | 0.8 | 16 | |
| Block breaking | Blocks | While the block is in the process of being broken | block.sculk_catalyst.hit | subtitles.block.generic.hit | 0.25 | 0.5 | 16 | |
| None[sound 1] | Blocks | Falling on the block with fall damage | block.sculk_catalyst.fall | None[sound 1] | 0.5 | 0.75 | 16 | |
| Footsteps | Blocks | Walking on the block | block.sculk_catalyst.step | subtitles.block.generic.footsteps | 0.15 | 1.0 | 16 |
| Sound | Source | Description | Resource location | Volume | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blocks | Once the block has broken | break.sculk_catalyst | 1.0 | 0.8-1.0 | |
| Blocks | When the block is placed | break.sculk_catalyst | 1.0 | 0.8-1.0 | |
| Blocks | While the block is in the process of being broken | hit.sculk_catalyst | 0.3 | 0.5 | |
| Friendly Creatures | Falling on the block with fall damage | step.sculk_catalyst | 0.4 | 1.0 | |
| Friendly Creatures | Walking on the block | step.sculk_catalyst | 0.17 | 1.0 | |
| Friendly Creatures | Jumping from the block | step.sculk_catalyst | 0.12 | 1.0 | |
| Friendly Creatures | Falling on the block without fall damage | step.sculk_catalyst | 0.14 | 1.0 |
Unique
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sculk Catalyst blooms | Blocks | When a mob is killed near a sculk catalyst | block.sculk_catalyst.bloom | subtitles.block.sculk_catalyst.bloom | 0.5 | 0.6-1.0 | 12 |
| Sound | Source | Description | Resource location | Volume | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blocks | When a mob is killed near a sculk catalyst | bloom.sculk_catalyst | 2.0 | 0.6-1.0 |
Data values
ID
| Name | Identifier | Form | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sculk Catalyst | sculk_catalyst | Block & Item | block.minecraft.sculk_catalyst |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Form | Item ID[i 1] | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sculk Catalyst | sculk_catalyst | 715 | Block & Giveable Item[i 2] | Identical[i 3] | tile.sculk_catalyst.name |
Block states
| Name | Default value | Allowed values | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| bloom | false | falsetrue | Whether the sculk catalyst is actively spreading the sculk or not. |
| Name | Default value | Allowed values | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| bloom | 0 | 01 | Whether the sculk catalyst is actively spreading the sculk or not. |
Block data
A sculk catalyst has a block entity associated with it that holds additional data about the block.
- Block entity data
- Tags common to all block entities
- cursors: List of charges associated with the sculk catalyst.
- : A charge.
- charge: How much power is in the charge.
- pos: List of three integers representing the coordinates of the charge.
- decay_delay: Does not relate to delay. Be 1 if the charge was spread from a sculk or sculk vein, 0 otherwise. The charge can spread to any block if this tag is 1. If it is 0, all the powers in the charge disappear when it spreads to a block not in sculk family.
- update_delay: Delay in ticks until the charge begins to travel after being created.
- facings: If the block to replace is an air or water, replace the block at its position with sculk vein, and store the facings of this sculk vein. If the charge is not at an air or water, or this tag is null, attempt to replace a block next to it with sculk vein. Can be any combination of
north,south,east,west,up,down.
- : A charge.
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | It Spreads | Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst | Monster Hunter | Kill one of these 68 (70[upcoming: JE 1.20]) mobs near a sculk catalyst:
| adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst
|
History
| October 3, 2020 |  Sculk catalysts are shown at Minecraft Live 2020. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 13, 2020 |  The sculk catalyst has a new texture in a tweet from Brandon Pearce. | ||||
| April 26, 2021 | Kingbdogz states that sculk features aren't coming in 1.17. | ||||
| October 16, 2021 | Sculk features were delayed to 1.19. | ||||
| New sculk catalyst functions were shown. | |||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.19 | Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot 1 | Added sculk catalysts. | |||
| 22w11a | Implemented sculk catalysts into normal snapshot. | ||||
| 22w17a | Wardens now drop a single sculk catalyst upon death, making them renewable. | ||||
| 1.19.1 | Pre-release 6 | Sculk catalysts now drop five experience instead of 20. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.17.30 | beta 1.17.30.22 | "Sculk Catalyst" was mentioned in Bedrock Beta documentation. | |||
| beta 1.17.30.23 |      Sculk Catalyst textures were shown in internal Caves & Cliffs textures. | ||||
| Vanilla Experiments (experimental) | beta 1.18.0.22 | Added sculk catalysts. | |||
| Wild Update (experimental) | beta 1.18.10.21 | Moved sculk catalysts to the "Wild Update" experimental toggle. | |||
| beta 1.18.30.22 | Sculk catalysts were updated to match Java Edition's behavior. | ||||
| 1.19.0 | beta 1.19.0.20 | Sculk catalysts are now available without enabling experimental gameplay. | |||
| beta 1.19.0.28 | Wardens now drop a single sculk catalyst upon death. | ||||
| 1.19.20 | beta 1.19.20.23 | Sculk catalysts now drop five experience instead of 20. | |||
Issues
Issues relating to "Sculk Catalyst" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Gallery
Slicedlime "corrupting" a canyon into sculk block by using sculk catalyst and dying skeleton in his video.
Sculk charges appear on blocks when mobs' essence (recolected by sculk catalysts) travel on them.
A sculk catalyst generated in a wall.
References
- ↑ MC-249285
- ↑ "it hasn't been implemented yet. Dragon's death is... special." – @gnembon_mc on Twitter, February 20, 2022