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They buffed the skeletons. Not sure about much else.

Skeletons strafing has made them very hard to hit, which I like.

They buffed the skeletions XD I dont think they debuffed anything so they just made it harder >:)

Skeletons (like others said) got a few buffs, they are now much smarter when trying to get rid of fire, they strafe, they chase you, and they shoot way further if you are running from them.

There have also been many AI improvements in general and the monsters should act way less glitchy when trying to find a path to you.

Setting the reload/cooldown to quickly reset would bring you a step closer to the 'OP-ness' in previous versions, but it will still be harder than them.

So you pretty-much need the shields a lot now, especially when fighting those skellies!

Another thing to keep in mind is that they nerfed armor so the more damage you get the less protection it offers, down to 20% of its original value (16% damage reduction for full diamond), which basically buffs most mobs, especially ones that deal a lot of damage, like creepers, which are impossible to survive (on Easy you need at least 20% damage reduction, though the damage isn't high enough to lower it that much, while on Hard at least 73%) unless you have maxed-out Blast Protection (or a combination like 3x Protection IV + 1x BP IV). I don't think there is any way to change this with commands, only with plugins or mods since this is a hard-coded property, not an attribute (changing armor points will not help since it caps at 20).

However, there is a "toughness" attribute that lets you reduce this effect; by default diamond armor has a toughness of 2 so a full set only degrades half as quickly (that is, for most armor 2 damage will negate one point, but for full diamond it takes 4, or 64 damage to bring it down to the minimum 16% damage reduction). I'm not sure how high it can go but a very high value (e.g. 32767 if a short value is used) would effectively remove armor penetration.

One thing that you can take advantage of is the fact that enchantments are not affected by the armor penetration and are no longer randomized; that is, before 1.9 full Protection IV provided 40-80% damage reduction (averaging 60%) while in 1.9 it provides a fixed 64% damage reduction; likewise, at the enchantment cap you get a fixed 80% damage reduction vs 50-80% before (the Wiki describes how enchantments work here).

Note that the changes to armor also affects mob armor, although the nerf to Sharpness, plus the fact that swords no longer add their damage to your unarmed damage (an unenchanted diamond sword deals 7 damage in 1.9 and 8 before) means that you need at least three hits to kill zombies (2 armor points or a minimum 1.6% damage reduction, requiring a total of 20.33 damage to kill) unless one is critical or you use Smite, or put something like Sharpness 6 (10.5 damage) on your sword (by comparison, prior to 1.9 a Sharpness V diamond sword deals 14.25 damage).

Less knockback on mobs too.

I only recently started playing again...whilst playing I went mining for a while and game back up and my house was completely blown up, any thoughts on how?? (singleplayer btw)

I love the new combat changes, making it way more strategic instead of just a charge and click. The load bar completely changes the way you need to think about heading into a group of mobs, and being able to have a second hand item (not necessarily a shield) can help you mix things up with how you negate/spread your damage. Not to mention all the options available with the tipped arrows, and AOE potions.

I suppose if you had an iron golem wandering around, a skeleton or other-mob-golems-will-attack got into a fight with it and in so doing a creeper got in the way of a golem swing/skeleton arrow. If something attacks a creeper, it's going to attack back and that means "kablooey!".

If you are unsure if it was an explosion, then perhaps something was too close to a flame and caught fire. Wouldn't really be applicable if your house was all stone/dirt/clay or anything derived from those.

Quote from DuhDerp»

If you are unsure if it was an explosion, then perhaps something was too close to a flame and caught fire. Wouldn't really be applicable if your house was all stone/dirt/clay or anything derived from those.

This is what I suspect. An unsafe fireplace, lava item incinerator or a lightning strike that set something on fire as the storm ended. I recently had a spot in the forest near my base where lightning started a fire and burned parts of two trees so it is possible, though unlikely.