Minecraft wiki entry for Ender_Dragon, associated text: Dragon fireballs are special fireballs that the Ender dragon fires while strafing. They cannot be deflected unlike ghast fireballs, and they do no impact damage. Instead, they deposit purple effect clouds across the ground that damages players the same way a lingering Potion of Harming does. This means that the ender dragon's fireballs deal magic damage, which ignores any damage reduction that comes from the player's armor. However its damage does get reduced by armor enchanted with the Protection enchantment.