12. Playing Through: The Nether and The End

In This Chapter

Image Get kitted up and head to The Nether.

Image Find your way through a region of plummeting lava falls, endless fiery lakes, and precipitous cliffs.

Image Locate The Nether fortress, defeat its mobs, and take home its horde.

Image Set course for a stronghold and activate its portal.

Image Travel to The End, defeat the dragon, and explore the region’s islands, ships and cities.

Image Build a beacon, gain additional powers, and throw a beam of light up into the sky.

Pack your bags for another field trip. You won’t need your winter woolies because you’ll be heading to hell and back. In this chapter, you’ll explore Minecraft’s other worlds: The Nether and The End. They’re a little like Dante’s vision of the seventh and ninth circles of hell: flaming rivers in one, an icy core in the other. Defeating the Ender dragon completes your journey through the official game structure, earning your passage back to The Overworld. You’ll bring home countless treasures, valuable experience, and the priceless achievement of having won the toughest battle in Minecraft. Think of it as going from hell 9 to cloud 9.

Alternate Dimensions

The Nether (see Figure 12.1) and The End (see Figure 12.2) regions are not fun places to hang out. You need to go in with specific goals; don’t dawdle too long. Both places are hazardous to your health, and any time you die, you respawn in The Overworld and lose anything you haven’t been able to put away in a chest for safekeeping.

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FIGURE 12.1 Seeing red? It’s just The Nether: a cavernous, unforgiving place filled with more lava pools than a Krakatoan conference.

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FIGURE 12.2 The End region is a dark dimension inhabited by a large dragon. It’s probably high time to swap that pickaxe for something significantly sharper.


Tip: Nether Here and There

Ender Chests transport the same items between all dimensions, so they are incredibly useful for stashing valuable finds when traveling in the more dangerous regions. Die in The Nether, and you can pick up anything you’ve already stored in an Ender Chest back in The Overworld when you respawn. Create an Ender Chest with one Eye of Ender and eight obsidian blocks. (Of course, you need at least two Ender Chests—one at each end—to make this useful.) See “The End Game,” later in the chapter, for more on creating those elusive eyes.

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Getting through both dimensions and playing through to the end of the game takes a bit of work, but you can definitely get lucky. Although your experience will vary as much as it does in any unique Minecraft world, it will run something like this:

1. Take your time to build up your resources in The Overworld and become combat ready; you’re heading into a heck of a fight, and it’s going to take a lot more than just a couple of swords and some light armor to get through.

2. Build an obsidian portal to travel to The Nether.

3. Find a Nether fortress and defeat a dozen or so blaze mobs. Collecting their dropped blaze rods.

4. Return to The Overworld and craft Eyes of Ender. You’ll also need to defeat about 15 Endermen in The Overworld to gain Ender Pearls for this recipe, but also see the tip “Trade Your Way to The End,” which follows this list.

5. Use the Eyes of Ender to find a stronghold and activate its end portal.

6. Defeat the Ender dragon and travel through the exit portal back to The Overworld. In Minecraft’s rather spare tradition, you won’t see a fancy end game sequence, but you’ll get to read the existential “End Poem” and see the credits roll, followed by a final score that is equal to your current experience points.

Try to be patient as you complete these six steps. This is not a first-person shooter that takes a day, some pizza, and a rack of energy drinks to finish off, although you certainly could. It also isn’t an impossible challenge, and you’ll see some great sights along the way.

Even better, the game isn’t over once you’ve defeated the Ender dragon. There are new islands in The End to explore, accessed by the End gateway portal, as well as v1.9’s all new End cities.


Tip: Trade Your Way to The End

Traveling to The Nether is not actually a prerequisite for completing the game. You really only need to go there to obtain the blaze rods that supply blaze powder. When you combine blaze powder with an Ender Pearl dropped by an Enderman, the result is an Eye of Ender. If you’ve found a village or two, look for the purple-garbed priest villager. There’s about a 16% probability that he will offer to sell you an Eye of Ender for 7 to 10 emeralds a pop. Even if the initial trade isn’t useful, you can use it to open additional trades until you have the one you want. This is actually a great way to get to the end of the game if you’re not so much into hardcore combat. It will still take quite a bit of time, though, because you’ll be extremely busy doing different tasks to complete other trades until you’ve amassed sufficient Eyes of Ender.



Caution: Chores Are Over, but Don’t Make Your Bed

Sleeping in a bed in either The Nether or The End regions is definitely not a good idea. Settle in for a quick nap, and the bed explodes faster than a creeper on final fuse.


Getting to The Nether

A successful trip to The Nether is mostly about being prepared. Start by gathering the items on this survival checklist:

Image A full set of iron armor—When it comes to armor, diamond is best, but given the scarcity of diamond blocks, and accepting the fact that you’ll almost certainly die and respawn without it, just stick with iron. If you can, apply an enchantment of feather falling to your boots so you can jump down cliffs, and use any other protection enchantments you can summon up. Remember, though, that when you die, your armor doesn’t come back with you, so don’t go overboard. Be utilitarian rather than try to become invincible.

Image A couple of iron pickaxes and a few swords—Make one of the swords diamond; it will help in a difficult fight.

Image An iron shovel and a full stack of gravel (64 blocks)—You’ll need this stuff for pillar jumping. The Nether has a lot of crazy-tall cliffs you’ll need to get up and down.

Image Two full stacks of cobblestone—You’ll need this to create temporary shelters, bridges, and barricades.


Note: Forget the Water

Don’t worry about bringing water with you. There’s no way to place it, so you can’t convert any of the numerous, enormous lava lakes to cobblestone or obsidian for easier passage.


Image A bow and a full stack of arrows—Use these to shoot down ghasts, or use a bow with the infinity enchantment to save on arrows.

Image Snow blocks—Turn these into snowballs to help fight blaze mobs.

Image 10 obsidian blocks and a flint and steel—Gather these in case you need to build another portal to return to The Overworld. (You’ll also need 10 blocks to build the portal to get to The Nether, so aim for 20 in all.) See “Creating and Mining Obsidian” on page 225 if you need help finding obsidian.

Image Lots of torches!—Stock yourself with as many as a full stack if you can. Torches are mostly useful for creating a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back to your portal. (It’s ridiculously easy to become lost down there.) Also consider bringing some jack-o’-lanterns because they are easily spotted across a longer distance.

Image A stack of wood blocks of any kind and around 20 iron ingots—You can use these to create a crafting table and additional weapons, tools, and ladders, as needed.

Image An iron door and some iron bars—Use these to create a temporary shelter for crafting, healing, taking a breather, and so on. Wooden doors can burn when hit by fireballs in The Nether, even though they are immune to fire in The Overworld. Don’t forget to bring some iron buttons so you can open the door.

Image Food—Aim for bread and cooked meats—at least half a stack of each. You need to keep your hunger bar full so that your health continually regenerates.

Image A chest—An Ender Chest is fantastic, but you may not have been able to make one yet. Any other chest will do.

Arrange one of each weapon in the hotbar slots, along with the torches, shovel, gravel, cobblestone, and a couple of food stacks. You can leave the rest in the upper section of the inventory.

Ready? Let’s go. The first order of business is to put up a portal.

Portal Magic

A Nether portal acts as an interdimensional transport between The Overworld and The Nether. Follow these steps:

1. Create an obsidian frame with an inner dimension that is at least three blocks high by two blocks wide (see Figure 12.3). Make the corner blocks from any material, or even leave them blank. The frame must be vertical, and it can be either free-standing or built against any type of surface.

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FIGURE 12.3 Build your gateway to the underworld (I mean The Nether) with an obsidian frame.


Caution: Portals Are a Double-Edged Sword

Once you’ve built a portal in The Overworld, a second one appears in The Nether. Neither belongs to you exclusively, and they allow mobs to travel back and forth, so expect to see quite a few more Zombie Pigmen in The Overworld in the near future. (They can even spawn near them in The Overworld without coming from The Nether.)


2. Use a flint and steel to light the top of either of the two bottom blocks. The interior springs to life with a shimmering blue and purple transparent texture, as shown in Figure 12.4.

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FIGURE 12.4 Once lit, the frame stays that way unless it’s hit by a ghast’s fireball, but you only need to worry about that with the companion frame in The Nether.

3. Okay, take a last long look at The Overworld and hope that you won’t see it for a while because if you do, it probably means you’ve respawned. Now, jump into that frame!

4. If Minecraft needs to download terrain files, wait until you see a wavy animation that covers the whole screen and then step through the portal to enter The Nether.

Once in The Nether, you’ve got some work to do. Remember that your main goal is to find a Nether fortress.

The Nether has some very extreme terrain, so you may need to make use of any of the following techniques:

Image Dig tunnels and stairs by mining the Netherrack with your pickaxe to move up and down cliffs. Fortunately, Netherrack breaks extremely fast, so it’s easy to get around, but be prepared for lava to break through. It flows faster down there and can catch you quite unawares.

Image Remember to place torches or jack-o’-lanterns as you go, always ensuring that you can see the last one placed from the next position. If you become hopelessly lost, consider building another portal to take you back to The Overworld. You may pop up quite some distance away from where you left, though, because every block traveled in The Nether is the equivalent of eight blocks traveled in The Overworld.

Image Deal with mobs carefully and don’t attack Zombie Pigmen because doing so will bring an entire horde of them down on you. Your biggest risk as you explore comes from ghasts and their fireballs, but the fireballs are slow, and you can knock them straight back at a ghast with a well-timed sword swing or arrow. Zigzag if you decide to retreat so they don’t keep a bearing on you with the next volley. See “Nether Mobs,” later in this chapter, for specific strategies.

Image Use the sneak key (left Shift) when you’re close to any cliffs and lava lakes to avoid taking a tumble.

Image Crank the screen’s Brightness slider all the way to the right in the game’s Options > Video Settings menu and ensure that Render Distance is set to its furthest setting if your computer can support it. This will help you spot Nether fortresses.

Image Stop to pick up a few things as you go. The bright glowstone, red and brown mushrooms, soul sand, and Nether quartz all exist in abundance and are useful crafting and brewing ingredients.

Image Pause every so often to take a good look for the fortress. They’re recognizable at a distance by their wide expanses of Netherbrick, long exposed walkways and bridges, rows of windows, and, often, tall walls. You’re looking for any straight-geometric structure within the geological randomness of the cave system. Figure 12.5 shows the ramparts of a Netherbrick wall, signifying a fortress. Luck dictates how quickly you find one. It might take just a few minutes, in which case you can rush in, get things done, head back, and have almost all your possessions intact. Or it could take hours of hard slog. Nether fortresses generate along the north/south axis in long lines, so the easiest way to find one is to try to head east or west. A compass won’t help as it will spin randomly in The Nether, but you can use the F3 (fn+F3 on a Mac) trick in a pinch. The x-axis is aligned east/west and the z-axis north/south, and your direction is clearly called out in the debug data. If you don’t see a fortress after traveling 160 blocks or so, head about 40 blocks north or south and try again.

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FIGURE 12.5 You can spot fortresses from below by looking for the walls that extend down to the lowest levels of a cave. When looking down from above, you’ll see long straight walkways and rows of window spaces.

Image If you enter a fortress from below, use your pickaxe to dig out the Netherbrick and ascend until you reach a corridor. If you’re coming from above, just work your way down to a walkway and enter the fortress or come in through a sidewall. You may need to navigate around broken walkways or cave-ins, but fortresses are massive, so if a viable entry isn’t obvious at first, just look around until you can find a way in.

Now you’re almost done. There is a bit of combat ahead, and then you can head back out to The Overworld.

Surviving the Nether Fortress

Every fortress presents a similar experience: traipsing long mazes of corridors before stumbling into a moment of extreme terror! Actually, it’s not that bad. You will find many long corridors. You’ll also find numerous chests filled with some of the most valuable and rare items in the game. Then, once in a while, you’ll probably find a small balcony containing a spawner churning out blaze mobs (see Figure 12.6), wandering wither skeletons, and magma cubes.

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FIGURE 12.6 Try not to pause in this position: There’s a blaze spawner in the middle and a floating blaze on the left, emitting smoke during its cool-down period.

Follow these tips to survive:

Image Place torches on the ground as you pass intersections so that you can find your way back to your original entry point and then back to the portal.

Image Use blocks to create temporary barricades when attacking or being pursued by mobs. This proves particularly useful in long corridors where it’s impossible to dodge away from an arrow-wielding wither skeleton or when ducking out to attack the blazes springing from a spawner.

Image Loot every chest you find. It’s always worthwhile!

Image Avoid spending too long on open walkways, where you’ll be vulnerable to ghast attacks.

Image Look for the bright red Nether wart growing around the base of wide stairways. It’s the base of all potions, and a few potions will help you complete the final part of the game.

Image When you find a blaze spawner, put up a two-block-high barricade nearby and then wait just behind the nearest corner to attack blazes as they approach from the other side. You can duck in and out, timing your attacks for when they’ve finished throwing their fireballs. If all goes south, retreat back to the barricade and rebuild your health.

Image Remember, you’re here mainly for the blaze rods. Collect them from each killed blaze until you have 10 or so and then head back to the portal and the bright, sunny, verdant Overworld.

Image Place your spoils of victory in a chest near the fortress entry point now and then, just in case you die. You can come back and pick them up later or grab them on the way out after you’ve hit your quota.

That’s all there is to it, really. It’s not so difficult on Normal difficulty, and it becomes quite easy once you’ve done it a few times.

Nether Mobs

You’ll meet an interesting mix of mobs while exploring The Nether. If you’re properly equipped, they won’t present too much of a problem:

Image Zombie Pigmen—I first introduced these in Chapter 5 (“Zombie Pigmen,” page 99). Avoid fighting them because, as with zombies, you’ll get rushed by a mob, and they tend to not give up for quite a while. Their drops aren’t really worth the risk, and you’ll find a lot more swag in a fortress.

Image Ghasts—With a fittingly ghastly moan, these huge floating mobs attack you from a long distance (see Figure 12.7). They’re quite slow moving but spit out dangerous fireballs that can cause as much damage by an indirect hit—setting the Netherrack around you on fire—as they do directly. Take care of them with two to three fully charged arrows and dodge the fireballs by moving just a few blocks out of the line of fire. If you’re brave enough, you can also fish them in with a fishing rod and hack at them with a sword. Ghasts drop magma cream and ghast tears, both useful for brewing, but you’ll need to find one over land or pull it in with a fishing rod so the drops don’t burn up in lava.

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FIGURE 12.7 Ghasts typically float through The Nether’s sulphurous air, but they can also sink into a lava lake and take potshots at you, sniper-style.

Image Blazes—You might find blazes floating down the corridors of a fortress, but they’re usually near a spawner. They have a distinctive attack pattern, spinning up for a few seconds while emitting a fire effect and then firing off three quick fireballs at you. They then cool off for a while. Attack them while they’re chilling down or early on, when they’re spinning up. Swords work well if one separates from the pack; otherwise, use arrows and then make a dash past the entryway to the spawner to pick up the blaze rod drops.

Image Magma cubes—These burning cubes split like slime mobs in The Overworld. They’re slower but far more dangerous and harder to kill. Attack the large cubes and middle-sized cubes from a distance with arrows and then finish off the small ones with your sword. You pick up a lot of experience points and the handy magma cream.

Image Wither skeleton—These tall versions of the regular skeleton stalk the hallways of fortresses. They usually use swords but occasionally can pick up a bow, and getting hit by one causes the wither effect, a type of soul-destroying poison that darkens your health bar for 10 seconds while causing additional damage. They’re best attacked with an arrow from a distance. You can also turn the odds in your favor by creating a bolthole that’s just two blocks high. The wither skeleton is a little taller than the regular skeleton and can’t follow you through. The wither skeleton will occasionally drop a wither skull. After you have three of these, you can, if you care to dice with death, create a wither boss. See “Introducing the Wither Boss” next for more information.


Note: Introducing the Wither Boss

The Wither Boss is a player-created hostile mob, and it’s incredibly tough to defeat. It can destroy every block in Minecraft except bedrock and end portal frames, and it attacks all other mobs by flinging out black and blue skulls. It also drops a Nether star on defeat, and you’ll need one of those to create a beacon (discussed later in the chapter). The Wither Boss is created by placing soul sand from The Nether dimension in a T shape, much like with the iron golem, and then placing three wither skulls along the top row of the T. There’s no need to create a Wither Boss to get through the game, but if you want to have some fun, spawn one by typing the command /summon WitherBoss. Visit http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Wither to learn more.


Image Endermites—This little critter sometimes spawns when an Enderman teleports or when you teleport by throwing an Ender Pearl. They are easily defeated with a couple of swift thrusts of even an iron sword.

With some blaze rods in hand, you have what you need for the final journey. The End, as they say, is nigh.

The End Game

Are you ready to start the final phase? Just as you prepared for The Nether, you’ll need to gather a few items for The End. There are two parts to the conclusion: finding a stronghold and finding The End portal and then defeating the Ender dragon. You don’t need to get everything on this list, but it will give you an idea of the level of preparation:

Image Eyes of Ender—You’ll need about 15 of these, and you can get them either by trading with priest villagers or by crafting. You may need up to 12 to activate The End portal, and you’ll need the rest to find the stronghold. If crafting the eyes, spend some time defeating 15 Endermen to collect 15 Ender Pearls. Endermen are easiest to find at night. Place the blaze rods you collected from The Nether on the crafting grid (saving at least one for a brewing stand if you plan to concoct some potions) and collect the blaze powder. Combine that with the Ender Pearls to create the Eyes of Ender.

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Image Weapons—Bring a diamond sword (hopefully with a sharpness enchantment) and a couple of bows with infinity enchantments or at least two stacks of arrows. Also bring some string in case you need to build additional bows.

Image Armor—Diamond armor is ideal, including boots with a feather fall enchantment because you’ll probably suffer a couple of long drops while fighting the dragon. Bring a helmet and a pumpkin and consider using the latter so that you don’t antagonize the numerous Endermen into a fight.

Image Potions—Brew up potions of regeneration and healing. Strength potions can help, but only when you can attack the dragon with a sword. You’ll mostly use a bow and arrows. See Chapter 10, “Enchanting, Anvils, and Brewing,” if you aren’t familiar with enchanting and brewing.

Image Food—Pack about half as much as recommended for The Nether expedition.

Image Tools—Bring a couple of stacks of dirt or gravel and of course an iron shovel because there will be some pillar jumping involved. Also bring two iron pickaxes because you’ll need to dig down to the stronghold, and they’ll help you in The End region.

Image Ladders—Using ladders is an alternative to pillar jumping. Just plan for whichever you prefer.

Image Obsidian—Bring about 12 blocks, just in case you need to build a bridge that the Ender dragon can’t destroy.

Image Bed—You can’t use it in The End region, but you may need it while finding the stronghold. Once you have a bed, you can set it up in the portal room to create a new spawn point.

Image The kitchen sink—Bring anything else you can think of to set up a small shelter in the stronghold to act as your base, such as wood and iron blocks for tools, additional diamonds, a crafting table, a furnace, a brewing stand, and so on. At least be prepared to make a small shelter in case you need to spend a night on your way to the stronghold.

Finding a Stronghold

Each Overworld generates with three strongholds located between 640 and 1,152 blocks from the world’s original spawn point. You might be lucky and find the stronghold in just a few minutes; your search shouldn’t take any longer than 20 minutes. The strongholds are spaced at equidistant angles from the spawn, 120 degrees apart, with no part rising above the general terrain. They are, however, cut by natural terrain features such as ravines and valleys, so while in most cases they’re buried deep underground, there’s a chance that you could stumble across an exposed section. You may even find just a stronghold’s portal room sitting on its own in water.

Follow these steps to find your first stronghold:

1. Climb to a high spot, ideally with some clear space around it, and then throw an Eye of Ender. It will float into the air and zoom off in the direction of the nearest stronghold.

2. If the eye floats to the ground a short distance away (which it does in four out of five cases), pick it up to use it again, and you’re already on your way to the stronghold. In some cases, the eye just explodes instead. Don’t worry; just head in the same direction.

3. Keep traveling for quite some way so you don’t use too many eyes; then throw another. The eyes float high when the stronghold is distant and float quickly to the ground when you’re close or over the top of the stronghold. In the PC edition, the eye homes in on The End portal room, whereas in the console edition it takes you to the center of the dungeon; you need to explore the dungeon from there to find the portal room.

4. When you think you have zeroed in on the dungeon’s location, start digging. Use normal mining techniques to create a staircase and turn regularly so that you stay in the same general area. You’ll know you’re there when you start to dig up stone or mossy bricks. Keep going until you break through into the portal room or a corridor, but don’t dig straight down, or you could fall into a lava pool (see Figure 12.8). If you need to work your way down into the room, open the roof a little and sneak-place blocks against the wall to create steps.

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FIGURE 12.8 Eureka! Breaking through into The End portal room.

The portal room contains a silverfish spawner. These mobs are best defeated in one blow, using a diamond sword with at least a sharpness level 1 enchantment. Taking more than one blow alerts others, and you could end up with a swarm, but they’re not impossible to handle without an enchanted sword. Just try to dispatch them as quickly as possible. Silverfish can also appear when breaking a Monster Egg block, a type of block that looks just like ordinary stone, cobblestone, or brick. You’ll only stumble across these in strongholds and, very rarely, an extreme hills biome.

Once you’ve cleared the room, there are just a few more preparatory steps:

1. Destroy the spawner with a pickaxe.

2. Block up the entrance you used to enter the portal chamber, assuming that you didn’t saunter in through the iron door in the anteroom.

3. Place a bed and sleep in it to reset your spawn. If you die in The End (which is very likely), you’ll come straight back here, which will save you the overland trek.

4. Place a torch in the anteroom to prevent other mobs from spawning.

5. Check the chest that’s in the anteroom to see if there’s anything useful there, and then dump almost everything else you’re carrying in the chest. You only want to take with you the armor you’re wearing (including the pumpkin that you should place on your head), one of each weapon, about two dozen food items, a pickaxe, some potions, and a shovel.

6. If you want to just take a look at The End region first, store everything you have in the chest except for a dozen or so dirt blocks or obsidian, a pickaxe, and a cheap bow and half a dozen arrows. This approach can help if you spawn in an awkward position and need to first build a bridge from obsidian to the main island. If you get swept into the void by the Ender dragon, you’ll be able to come back and complete the job, bringing a complete set of tools once you’re sure you can get across. Any dropped items are not recoverable after respawning, although items placed in a chest in The End will survive. When you’re ready to return, just die in some convenient way, pick up the main set of supplies stashed in the stronghold, and head back through the portal.


Caution: Don’t Destroy the Portal!

Be extra careful not to destroy any End portal blocks. There’s no way to repair them, and you’ll then have to find one of the other two dungeons to continue your journey.


Now the final magic moment: activating the portal. Climb the steps and place Eyes of Ender in any of the empty slots on top of the stones surrounding the portal. You’ll see it spring into deep black life, as shown in Figure 12.9.

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FIGURE 12.9 The End portal, ready for action.

The portal is now ready for action...are you? That dragon has no idea what’s coming. Go ahead and jump in. Then press Esc to pause and read on.

Defeating the Ender Dragon

The End region generates as a fairly small island comprised of end stone, floating in an endless void, dotted with obsidian towers and numerous Endermen. Your spawn point is probably located on this island, but it can also be underground (in which case you can use your pickaxe to dig out a staircase to the surface) or on an even smaller platform floating a small distance away from the mainland. If that’s the case, you’ll need to build a platform across, using your dirt blocks or obsidian, and keep your bow handy so that you can shoot the Ender dragon if it attacks so it doesn’t push you into the void.

The Ender dragon is no quick kill. With 200 hit points and the ability to knock out up to half your health in a single blow, its wings are not easily clipped, and while it will spew acid at you if you spend too long standing still, it’s also no Smaug. There’s also nowhere to hide. When you get near the towers, even burrowing into the ground won’t save you because the dragon can fly through the ground and any structures to reach you.

Defeat the dragon following these steps. It’s actually not difficult but can take a few attempts. Always keep your hunger bar topped up so your health can continually regenerate.

The dragon draws healing power from the Ender crystals located atop eight obsidian towers of varying height, arranged in a broad circle around the portal back to The Overworld (see Figure 12.10). You won’t defeat the dragon without knocking out every one of those crystals, and the portal won’t activate until you’ve knocked him out. Follow these steps:

1. Put the pumpkin on your head so you don’t annoy any Endermen. They’ll needlessly sap your health, so it’s worth having a reduced field of view, as shown in Figure 12.11. Crank up the brightness in your video settings if you’re having trouble seeing your surroundings.

2. Head toward the nearest pillar. You’ll be able to shoot out the Ender crystal on top with a single arrow shot if the pillar is low enough and not protected by an iron cage; otherwise, you need to pillar jump to climb to the top. When you see the dragon’s health bar appear, you know it is close by. Take a look around and try to fire an arrow into its head (its most sensitive part) if it’s on an attack run heading straight for you. Otherwise, continue pillar jumping a few more seconds and then look again. Keep in mind that the dragon will attack you by firing acid balls, and you can also get knocked off by the dragon’s wing when it’s just flying by. That’s when armored boots with a feather falling enchantment are very handy. It may also destroy some of your ladder. If that happens, just climb back up as fast as you can, fill in the gaps, and continue to the top.

3. Break any cage surrounding the crystal, then try to hit the crystal with an arrow. This is best done from a position of cover, such as on the ladder while a block or two from the top. It’s best to stay as far away as possible from your target because the resulting explosion can cause substantial damage. (That explosion can also knock out other nearby crystals, so it may benefit you.) Also, if you have diamond armor with a high-level protection enchantment, just whack the crystal with impunity.

4. Take a good look around from the top of the tower and shoot out any other crystals that are within range.

5. Head back to the ground and use your shovel to dig out the dirt blocks you placed.

6. Repeat steps 2–5 until you’ve taken out every crystal. You should be able to spot any you’ve missed by looking for the white beams that show up as the dragon draws power.

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FIGURE 12.10 You’ll probably first spot the Ender dragon in the distance. Look for the line of shimmering power as it passes by an Ender crystal.

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FIGURE 12.11 Wearing the pumpkin requires a bit more scanning to get the full picture, but it doesn’t take too long to get used to it.

Now it’s Ender dragon time. Follow these steps to deal it a deathly blow:

1. Position yourself near the final portal in the middle of the circle of towers. The dragon will alight there now and then turn to face you, spewing out acid. Just keep your distance and fire arrow after fully charged arrow into its head.

2. Keep your bow fully charged, with the arrow ready to fly with a critical hit. You can also take off the pumpkin helmet at this point to improve your vision because you really only need to look up at the dragon, so you’re unlikely to antagonize any Endermen.

3. Take your time waiting for the dragon to start its attack run. It flaps around in the distance for a while. Don’t waste arrows firing at the dragon until it turns to face you from its perch, but be ready to step sideways to dodge any acid balls it will throw your way when it’s flying around. Figure 12.12 shows the moment you should unleash the arrow. Aim your crosshairs directly at the dragon’s head to cause maximum damage. (My aim is a little off in that screenshot. Let me just say that it can be quite difficult to fight an Ender dragon and take screenshots at the same time!)

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FIGURE 12.12 The Ender dragon, on the final stage of its attack run.

4. Still aiming directly for the Ender dragon’s head to cause maximum damage, shoot an arrow. After you hit the dragon, you’ll see it flash red and quickly change direction. With correct timing, you can repeatedly hit the dragon without taking any damage.

5. Repeat your attack until you’ve knocked the dragon’s health down to zero. Then stand by for a striking purple-strobed explosion of splendid proportion (see Figure 12.13).

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FIGURE 12.13 The final moments of the Ender dragon.

Congratulations! Notch yourself up as a dragon slayer because you’ve just defeated the toughest mob in Minecraft! Enjoy the spectacle; it’s probably been a long time coming and is over far too fast.

Watch for a portal to appear directly beneath the dragon’s last position as soon as the fireworks finish (see Figure 12.14). It will have a dragon egg perched atop—a shrine, if you like, to the dragon’s defeat, or a celebration of your victory. Maybe both.

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FIGURE 12.14 Grab that dragon egg for your trophy cabinet back home.

You’ll also see the End gateway portal (see Figure 12.15), a way to get to the other islands in The End region. The portal entry is one block in size, so the only way in is by throwing an Ender Pearl at it. There are a few islands scattered around.

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FIGURE 12.15 Use the gateway portal to jump instantly to other islands.

Throw in the Ender Pearl from different sides of the portal to visit each one, and then enjoy exploring their End cities (see Figure 12.16) and ships (see Figure 12.17), and collecting the chorus fruit from the regions odd-shaped trees. Just beware the purple-colored Shulkers, a projectile-firing mob that exists only on these islands. Getting hit by one will cause you damage and also make you levitate for a short while, making you an easier target. Fortunately, their homing projectiles travel fairly slowly.

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FIGURE 12.16 End cities contain a range of treasures, although you might have to travel some way to find them.

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FIGURE 12.17 Although not easy to reach, the ships in The End stash a few goodies in their hold, including a brewing stand. You’ll also find something else you can’t get anywhere else: a dragon’s head at the prow.

Before you take the fast route home by jumping into the portal, stop to pick up the numerous experience orbs dropped by the dragon. You’ll collect up to 70 XP levels. You can also keep the pumpkin helmet on and start wailing on Endermen to gather experience, but you’ll need to do so without the pumpkin for them to drop Ender Pearls. That’s a somewhat dangerous exercise, so it’s best to make a safe exit and then return when you’ve restocked your weapons, armor, and supplies. You can always return through any stronghold portal later.


Tip: Wanna Grab That Egg?

Getting the dragon egg is a little tricky, and the egg itself doesn’t serve any purpose except as a trophy piece to put in an item frame back home. But why not? Build a small platform up to the egg and hit it with any tool to knock it to the ground. (Actually, it teleports, but not too far.) There’s only one way to crack this egg, and that’s by digging two blocks under it, placing a torch on the lowest block, and then knocking out the one directly under the egg. Jump in to pick up the dropped egg and scramble out of there.


And that, as they say, is that. When you’re ready, jump feet first into the portal to view the End Poem (it’s worth a read) and game credits—or press Esc to skip (see Figure 12.18). You’ll return to your last spawn point in The Overworld.

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FIGURE 12.18 A sneak peek of the End Poem.

Beckoning a Beacon

The Wither Boss is the toughest mob to defeat, and the Nether star it drops also happens to lead to the most difficult item one can build in Minecraft: the beacon.

A beacon throws into the sky a light beam that is visible from the furthest render distance set in the video options. This makes it a useful marker, as it is often visible from far away. However, more importantly, the beacon casts an aura in a square shape that bestows those within range with special powers; this is called an effect. The way this works is quite interesting and perhaps just a little complicated. Here are the key characteristics:

Image The beacon block must form the apex of a pyramid created from mineral blocks that are one to four layers deep. The block material doesn’t matter. You can use blocks of iron, gold, diamond, and emerald, in any combination. Remember that a single block is formed from nine pieces of the base material.

Image The beacon’s capabilities depend on the height of the pyramid on which it is placed, as shown in Table 12.1. Beacons of one to three layers provide one of five primary powers. A beacon of four layers adds a secondary power of regeneration, but you can choose instead to boost the primary effect. Figure 12.19 shows beacons atop all four pyramids.

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FIGURE 12.19 Nether beacon pyramids, from one layer to four. Materials can be placed in any order and even mixed up in the one layer.

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TABLE 12.1 Combat Enchantments

Image Multiple beacons can share the same base pyramid blocks, as long as there is a regular square pyramid shape under each beacon. Even the materials can be mixed (see Figure 12.20).

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FIGURE 12.20 Beacons can share the same pyramid blocks as those adjacent, with each beacon projecting a different effect.

Image Change the color of a beam by placing stained glass above the beacon so that it intersects the beam (see Figure 12.21). Use multiple stained glass blocks to create any color in the visible spectrum. Using different colors is a useful way to identify different locations from afar.

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FIGURE 12.21 Changing beacons with stained glass blocks. Combine different colors to create the same color combinations you get from dyeing leather.

Given that pyramids work the same no matter from which mineral they are made, it makes sense to focus on using iron as the base material as it’s far more plentiful than the rest. Also note that pyramids do not need to be aboveground. You could start with a single-layer pyramid and then dig into the ground to add additional layers in the future, boosting its effective area.

Top the pyramid with a beacon crafted from obsidian, glass, and a Nether star and then right-click the star to open the special Nether beacon interface, shown in Figure 12.22.

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FIGURE 12.22 Configuring a beacon.

1. Select a primary effect. Only those that meet the level requirements for your pyramid are active, although all are shown.

2. If you’ve built a four-layer pyramid, also choose a secondary power of regeneration or boost the primary effect.

3. Place a piece of emerald, diamond, gold, or iron ore in the slot to confirm—and in the future change—the beacon’s configuration. You can use any of the materials.

4. Click the checkmark to proceed or the X to cancel.

Although beacons provide only quite localized effects, you can always pick them up by mining them with any tool or your bare hands, and take them with you to a new location.

The Bottom Line

With The End game complete, you may be wondering what to do next. The End region has plenty to offer. Establish a base in the End city and build a railway network through the gateway portals. (You can avoid throwing away Ender Pearls by traveling in a minecart, a boat, or even when riding a pig). Defeat the dragon again (it respawns indefinitely) and collect its breath in bottles for potions. Back in the Overworld, you also have a stronghold to explore, and at some point you may want to get home, but in any case, I have some good news. The end of Minecraft is actually just the beginning. Build, explore, survive, and thrive. You will learn how to dramatically expand the experience in Chapter 13, “Mods and Multiplayer.” Customize your experience, modify Minecraft to the hilt, and join a multitude of servers with worlds, options, trading systems, combat scenarios, and a whole host of extraordinary things to do. The possibilities are as endless as The Overworld itself.

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