I want to recreate the entity that heals the dragon in the end, but I have no idea what it's called (in the code) or how to create an entity in 1.8. Is there a tutorial that shows how to create an entity?

Have you tried searching, perhaps on Google?

 

There are lots of tutorials, though I'm not sure how many are specifically for 1.8. Any tutorial for 1.7.10 should get you going for 1.8 as well, since the basics of coding an entity (registering it to EntityRegistry#registerModEntity, registering the render class, etc.) has not changed a whole lot, and mostly not at all.

 

As for the entity in the end, that's an EntityEnderCrystal, but the code for healing is actually within the ender dragon class called from onLivingUpdate() -> updateDragonEnderCrystal().

Ok, thanks for the entity class. I asked for a tutorial because it looks like a lot of things changed in 1.8 so I assumed that it changed as well.

Ok, thanks for the entity class. I asked for a tutorial because it looks like a lot of things changed in 1.8 so I assumed that it changed as well.

It has, but not really - a few methods have been renamed, the AI has changed a little, entity rendering has changed a little with the addition of Layers, but the basics of the actual entity class itself are nearly identical.

 

Unless you are planning to something really complicated, which it doesn't sound like you are, you are unlikely to run into any major issues following a 1.7 tutorial and using that code for 1.8.

I'm creating an 'artifact' that essentially looks like the ender crystal and stores a string in it's nbt.