Target Dummy Wiki

Target Dummy adds a craftable training dummy you can punch, shoot, and blow up to measure exactly how much damage your weapons and enchantments do. Every hit pops a floating damage number above the dummy, and it keeps a running DPS (damage per second) readout so you can compare loadouts scientifically.

The dummy is more than a number printer: you can dress it in armor, a shield, an elytra, or a banner-cape, and it will count as the matching mob type so type-specific enchantments behave correctly. It also reacts to critical hits and freezing, making it a genuinely useful test rig for theorycrafting your gear.

1. Craft a Target Dummy from a hay block and an armor stand - the hay gives it a body and the stand gives it a frame. (Check the in-game recipe book for the exact shaped recipe.)
2. Place it on the ground where you want a testing range.
3. Start hitting it. Damage numbers and a DPS counter appear immediately.

To remove it, break it like any block - it drops back as an item.

The dummy's main job is benchmarking your damage output.

• Floating numbers show the exact damage of each individual hit, so you can see crits, enchantment bonuses, and resistances at a glance.
• The live DPS tracker averages your damage over time while you attack - keep swinging to let it stabilize, then read off your sustained damage.
• Switch weapons or enchantment setups and repeat to compare builds side by side.
• Because it shows real numbers, it is perfect for testing potion buffs, Strength effects, sweeping-edge multi-hits, and attack-cooldown timing.

You can put gear on the dummy to test damage against specific situations:

• Armor - equip helmet/chestplate/leggings/boots to see how armor and toughness reduce your incoming damage numbers.
• Shield - test how blocking changes the result.
• Elytra / banner-cape - cosmetic and for visual flavor on your range.

Critically, the dummy counts as the correct mob type for the gear/state it is in, so enchantments that only apply to certain mobs work against it:

• Smite deals bonus damage as if it were undead,
• Bane of Arthropods applies its arthropod bonus,
• Impaling lands extra damage like against aquatic mobs.

It also responds to critical hits and freeze effects, so Frost Walker/powder-snow and crit timing can be validated too.

Target Dummy exposes a few useful options in its config file (generated after first launch):

• Damage-number colors - customize the color of the floating damage text (e.g. distinguish crits or damage tiers).
• Disable equipment damage - stop gear equipped on (or used against) the dummy from losing durability while training, so endless testing does not wear out your enchanted gear.

Edit the config and reload the world for changes to take effect.

I don't see any damage numbers. Make sure you actually placed the dummy (not just held the item) and that you are hitting it. The numbers are client-side floating text above the entity.

My DPS reading looks low. DPS averages over time - keep attacking continuously for a few seconds so the counter reflects sustained output rather than a single swing.

My weapon's durability is dropping fast while testing. Enable the disable-equipment-damage option in the config to train without wearing out gear.

Do Smite/Bane/Impaling really work on it? Yes - the dummy reports as the appropriate mob type, so those enchantments add their bonus damage exactly as they would in real combat.