
1000 is a lot. I had given up on it after a couple hundred a few months ago, but then I stumbled upon how to gain more villagers and now I'm racing to the finish.
If I remember right, Mark and I would go in with diamond swords, bows and iron armor, all enchanted to the max. First though, you need a bow, hopefully with Infinity on it so you don't need a lot of arrows. That's the first part of the end dragon battle, destroying its ability to reheal. Then we just had whatever we could enchant on the swords like Flame or Smite and Blast Protection on the armor. There are some potions that can help a lot too like the one that gives you temporary health regen. I always liked making the fire protection potion, but that was more for enemies in the nether. If I remember right, the End Dragon breathes it's own type of damaging breath which you can bottle and make a potion out of (the type of potion I forget now). But mainly you just have to be able to dish out more damage and take more damage. There are a lot of endermen in there too which can be a problem. It's a badass fight. We used to do it over and over again because it was fun, but it's a pain getting all the ender pearls together in the real world to open the end portal. I want to do it again though.