TL;DR
- The base ingredient is a Fermented Spider Eye, not a regular Spider Eye. Using the wrong one gets you Potion of Poison instead.
- This is one of the only potions in Minecraft that skips the Awkward Potion step entirely. No Nether Wart required.
- Add Gunpowder to turn it into a Splash Potion, then add Dragon’s Breath to make it Lingering.
- Swamp hut cauldrons sometimes already contain a finished Potion of Weakness, so you can skip brewing altogether.
- The main reason players actually want this potion is to cure a Zombie Villager back into a regular Villager.
- The recipe works the same way on Java and Bedrock. The only differences are in menu layout, not mechanics.
You’ve got a Zombie Villager cornered in a boat, a Golden Apple in your hand, and no idea what to do next because the Weakness Potion you need isn’t behaving like every other potion you’ve ever brewed. Maybe you tossed in Nether Wart first and got confused when nothing happened the way it does for Fire Resistance or Speed. That confusion is common, and it’s not your fault.
Weakness is the odd one out. Almost every potion recipe in Minecraft starts with an Awkward Potion, which means Nether Wart plus a Water Bottle, before you add the actual effect ingredient. Weakness skips that entirely. You can drop a Fermented Spider Eye straight into a plain Water Bottle and walk away with a finished Potion of Weakness.
This guide covers the exact brewing steps, the ingredient that trips people up, the splash and lingering variants, a shortcut that skips brewing completely, and the full Zombie Villager cure sequence that’s probably why you’re here. By the end, you’ll know exactly what to put where, and why the “normal” potion rules don’t apply this time. If you’re new to brewing in general, our full Minecraft brewing stand setup guide covers the basics this article builds on.
What Do You Need to Make a Weakness Potion in Minecraft?
You need four things: a Brewing Stand, Blaze Powder for fuel, a Water Bottle, and a Fermented Spider Eye. That’s the entire list, and unlike most potions, there’s no Nether Wart step hiding in between.
Blaze Powder comes from Blaze Rods, which only drop from Blaze mobs found inside Nether Fortresses. Getting there is usually the hardest part of this whole process, since it means finding Nether Fortress terrain and surviving the Blazes long enough to farm rods. Our Nether Fortress survival guide has the full rundown on finding one safely. The Water Bottle is simple: fill a Glass Bottle at any water source. The Fermented Spider Eye is the ingredient most players get wrong, and it gets its own section below because of it.
| Ingredient | Where to Get It | Purpose in Recipe |
|---|---|---|
| Brewing Stand | Crafted from Blaze Rod and Cobblestone, or found in villages | Base station for brewing |
| Blaze Powder | Crafted from Blaze Rods (Nether Fortress drop) | Fuel for the Brewing Stand |
| Water Bottle | Glass Bottle filled at any water source | Base for the potion |
| Fermented Spider Eye | Crafted, not found naturally | Turns Water Bottle into Potion of Weakness |
How to Make a Fermented Spider Eye (The Ingredient Nobody Explains Well)
A Fermented Spider Eye is crafted from a Spider Eye, Sugar, and a Brown Mushroom placed together on a crafting table. This is the step most guides gloss over, and it’s the one that actually matters.
Here’s the mistake that ruins more brews than anything else on this list. If you toss a raw Spider Eye into a Water Bottle instead of a Fermented one, you get Potion of Poison, not Weakness. They look similar in the crafting menu, and if you’re moving fast, it’s an easy swap to make without noticing. Fermented is the whole trick. Skip that word and your brew goes sideways.
Sugar comes from harvesting Sugar Cane, which grows near water and is one of the easiest renewable resources in the game to farm. Brown Mushrooms grow naturally in caves, swamps, and mushroom biomes, and can also be grown on any block as long as light levels stay low. Once you have all three, the crafting table turns them into a single Fermented Spider Eye, ready for the Brewing Stand.
Spider Eyes themselves drop from regular Spiders and Cave Spiders when killed, so you rarely need to go out of your way to farm them separately. Most players collect a stack naturally just from clearing caves at night. Keep a small stockpile of Sugar and Brown Mushrooms in a chest near your Brewing Stand so you’re never short an ingredient mid-brew.
How to Make Weakness Potion in Minecraft: Step by Step
The full brewing process takes four moves at the Brewing Stand and produces a finished Potion of Weakness with zero Nether Wart involved. Here’s the exact order.
- Place Blaze Powder in the fuel slot of the Brewing Stand.
- Add a Water Bottle to one of the three bottom slots.
- Add the Fermented Spider Eye to the top ingredient slot.
- Wait for the brewing animation to finish, then collect the Potion of Weakness from the bottom slot.
That’s the whole process. This is the shortcut that separates Weakness from nearly every other potion in the game, since most recipes require brewing an Awkward Potion as an in-between step before adding the effect ingredient. If you were expecting a two-stage brew, you can stop waiting. There isn’t one.
One Water Bottle in the Brewing Stand produces one Potion of Weakness, but the stand holds up to three bottles at once. Fill all three bottom slots before starting the brew and you’ll walk away with three finished potions from a single Fermented Spider Eye and one unit of Blaze Powder. That’s the most efficient way to stock up if you’re planning to cure more than one Zombie Villager.
How to Make a Splash Potion of Weakness
Add Gunpowder to a finished Potion of Weakness and it converts into a Splash Potion of Weakness. Drop it in the top slot the same way you added the Fermented Spider Eye, and let the Brewing Stand do its thing.
Players want the splash version because it’s throwable, which means you can hit a target from a distance or catch multiple mobs in a small area at once. That range matters a lot when the target is a Zombie Villager that’s still hostile enough to take a swing at you.
How to Make a Lingering Potion of Weakness
Add Dragon’s Breath to a Splash Potion of Weakness and it becomes a Lingering Potion, which leaves a cloud that keeps affecting anything that walks through it. Dragon’s Breath only comes from bottling the breath attack of the Ender Dragon during the End fight, which makes this an end-game variant rather than something a new player will stumble into early.
Most people brewing Weakness for a Zombie Villager cure will never need to go this far. It’s worth knowing the option exists, but the Splash version covers nearly every practical use case.
The Fastest Way to Get Weakness Potion Without Brewing (Swamp Hut Shortcut)
You can sometimes skip brewing entirely by checking the cauldron inside a swamp hut, which occasionally generates with a pre-made Potion of Weakness sitting inside as loot. According to Minecraft’s own wiki documentation, swamp hut cauldrons have roughly a 10% chance of holding a Potion of Weakness among their possible random potion contents.
That’s not a guarantee, and you shouldn’t plan a whole cure sequence around finding one. But if you’re already exploring a swamp biome and happen to spot a hut, popping the cauldron open before firing up a Brewing Stand costs you nothing and might save an entire Nether trip for Blaze Powder.
How to Make a Weakness Potion for Curing a Zombie Villager
Throwing a Splash Potion of Weakness at a Zombie Villager and then feeding it a Golden Apple starts the cure process that turns it back into a normal Villager. This is the reason most players end up on this page in the first place, so here’s the full sequence, not just the potion step.
- Trap the Zombie Villager somewhere secure, ideally boxed in with fence gates or a small pen, so it doesn’t wander off.
- Throw a Splash Potion of Weakness directly at it. You’ll see particles confirming the effect landed.
- While it’s affected by Weakness, give it a Golden Apple by right-clicking it with one in hand.
- Wait. The cure takes several in-game minutes, and the Villager will shake violently while the transformation happens.
- If the process gets interrupted (the Zombie Villager despawns, dies, or the effect wears off before the Golden Apple lands), you’ll need to repeat the sequence from the start.
Timing matters here more than most players expect. Weakness needs to still be active when the Golden Apple goes in, so don’t dawdle between the splash and the feed.
A regular Apple won’t work for this cure. It has to be a Golden Apple specifically, crafted from eight Gold Ingots and an Apple, since the enchanted or budget-crafted versions behave differently. Keep a couple in reserve before you go hunting for Zombie Villagers so a failed attempt doesn’t send you back to the crafting table mid-cure.
The Weakness Arrow and Crossbow Trick (What Reddit Players Are Doing Instead)
Some players skip splash potions entirely by crafting Tipped Arrows with the Weakness effect and firing them from a Crossbow enchanted with Piercing. A community thread on the topic laid this out as a workaround for curing multiple Zombie Villagers without brewing several splash potions one at a time.
Piercing lets a single arrow pass through multiple targets, which means one shot can apply Weakness to a whole cluster of Zombie Villagers if they’re lined up. It’s worth being clear that this is a community-discovered workaround, not an official game mechanic Mojang built the recipe around. You still need to brew a base Potion of Weakness first, since Tipped Arrows are crafted from a finished potion plus an Arrow, not from raw ingredients.
What Does the Weakness Effect Actually Do?
Weakness reduces the melee damage dealt by whatever is affected, whether that’s a mob or a player. It also stacks in strength at higher levels, such as Weakness II, which some in-game sources like beacons or specific status effects can apply.
Players intentionally drink it for a few specific reasons beyond curing villagers. Some speedrunning and PvP strategies use Weakness deliberately to avoid overkilling an entity they need to keep alive, since a weaker hit means less risk of accidentally finishing off something they’re trying to preserve.
Minecraft Weakness Potion on Bedrock vs. Java: Any Differences?
The recipe and ingredients are identical on both Java and Bedrock Edition. The only differences show up in the inventory UI and crafting menu layout, not in what you actually need to brew.
If you’ve followed the steps above on one version, the same Fermented Spider Eye, Water Bottle, and Blaze Powder combination works exactly the same way on the other. There’s no separate Bedrock recipe hiding anywhere. For a broader rundown of what else changes between the two versions, see our Minecraft Java vs Bedrock differences guide.
Common Mistakes That Ruin a Weakness Potion Brew
- Using a raw Spider Eye instead of a Fermented Spider Eye, which produces Potion of Poison instead.
- Forgetting Blaze Powder as fuel, which means the Brewing Stand won’t activate at all.
- Assuming Nether Wart is required, when this specific potion is one of the few that skips it completely.
- Adding Gunpowder and Dragon’s Breath in the wrong order. Gunpowder always comes first to make it Splash, and Dragon’s Breath only works on an already-splash potion to make it Lingering.
- Feeding the Golden Apple too late, after the Weakness effect has already worn off, which forces you to restart the whole cure sequence.
FAQ
Do I need Nether Wart to make a Weakness Potion?
No. Weakness is one of the only potions in Minecraft that skips the Awkward Potion step entirely. You can add a Fermented Spider Eye directly to a plain Water Bottle at a Brewing Stand and get a finished Potion of Weakness, no Nether Wart involved at any point.
What is a Fermented Spider Eye made of?
A Fermented Spider Eye is crafted at a crafting table from three ingredients: a Spider Eye, Sugar, and a Brown Mushroom. It’s the fermented version specifically that turns a Water Bottle into Weakness. A regular Spider Eye without fermenting produces Potion of Poison instead.
How do I make a Splash Potion of Weakness?
Add Gunpowder to a finished Potion of Weakness at the Brewing Stand. This converts it into a throwable Splash Potion, which lets you hit a target from range or affect multiple mobs standing close together, useful for curing Zombie Villagers without getting close enough to take a hit.
Can I find a Weakness Potion without brewing one?
Yes, sometimes. Swamp hut cauldrons occasionally generate with a Potion of Weakness already inside as random loot, according to Minecraft’s own wiki documentation. It’s not guaranteed, so treat it as a lucky shortcut if you’re already near a swamp hut, not a reliable primary method.
What is the fastest way to cure a Zombie Villager with a Weakness Potion?
Trap the Zombie Villager, throw a Splash Potion of Weakness at it, then immediately feed it a Golden Apple while the effect is still active. The transformation takes several in-game minutes. If the Weakness effect wears off before you feed the apple, you’ll need to repeat the entire sequence.
Why did my potion turn into Poison instead of Weakness?
This happens when a regular Spider Eye goes into the Water Bottle instead of a Fermented Spider Eye. The two ingredients look similar in the crafting menu, especially if you’re moving quickly. Always check that you’re holding the fermented version, made from Spider Eye, Sugar, and Brown Mushroom, before brewing.
The Bottom Line
The one thing worth remembering here is that Weakness breaks the pattern you’ve learned from every other potion in the game. There’s no Awkward Potion step, no Nether Wart detour, just a Fermented Spider Eye and a Water Bottle doing all the work. Once that clicks, the rest of the process, splash conversion, lingering upgrade, swamp hut shortcut, all falls into place fast.
If you’re brewing this for a Zombie Villager cure, get your Golden Apple ready before you throw the splash potion, not after. Timing is the part that trips people up more than the brewing itself. Once you’ve got the sequence down, curing a whole cluster of Zombie Villagers becomes less of a project and more of an afternoon.
