The Enderman is perhaps the most disturbing of the mobs that are seen in the World, a legacy perhaps of the Slenderman that might have inspired them?
Endermen are matte-black creatures three blocks tall that are otherwise shaped a lot like a player. Their eyes, however, glow an eerie purple color. Endermen are normally passive, ignoring you- but all that changes if you look directly at them. Eye contact with an Enderman is a particularly unsettling prospect, as it causes the Enderman to briefly freeze and ‘scream’ at you with its mouth wide open. Once you attack, break eye contact/look away, or after a few moments, the Enderman will attack. This is to be avoided if you can manage it, unless you are extensively prepared to fight an Enderman.
Endermen are highly dangerous for a number of reasons. First of all, the Enderman has twice as many hearts as you, making it very durable. Second, the Enderman does large amounts of damage- a single hit from an Enderman on Hard mode will always kill you if you aren’t armored, and they only need three hits to do you in on Easy if you’re unarmored. Third of all, Endermen teleport. When you are fighting them, they may teleport away if you hit them, but they may teleport behind you and continue to attack from there. Fourth, Endermen cannot be hurt by your projectile weapons. If an arrow, egg, or snowball is about to hit them and it was launched by a player, the Enderman will teleport away before it can take any damage.
Of course, Endermen also tend to slide when they move instead of walking- which is also creepy- and when they are aggressive because you have attacked them, they will jitter as they move, making them look like an uneven filmstrip image.
There are strategies for dealing with Endermen in combat, though. Their melee reach is the same as any other creature, so you have more reach with your weapon- and since they are three blocks high, you can easily stand under something and strike them. Standing on a single-block tower three blocks tall will put you out of their reach, because they do not jump and cannot teleport to an occupied space. Forcing them into lava or repeatedly setting them on fire works because, for whatever reason, they do not teleport away when they catch fire. Dropping sand or gravel on an Enderman can crush or suffocate it, as well. Water, from rain, water blocks, or flowing water will damage Endermen, and it will cause them to immediately teleport away.
Outside of combat, Endermen are simply bothersome. They will only spawn in darkness, but are not bothered by light at all. They can teleport huge distances, though the teleports are marked by a distinctive sound and glowing purple sparkles.
And they can pick up and move blocks. Most of the blocks they can move are naturally-occurring blocks, but it can still be annoying to find that an Enderman has left you a ‘present’.
Curiously, wearing a pumpkin on your head will keep Endermen from being aggravated or screaming when you look at them. By the same rote, looking at them through a partly-transparent block will not get their attention- so it’s fairly easy to avoid combat with Endermen. Which is good, because unless you really need the Ender Pearls they drop when killed, avoiding them is the best option.
