Minecraft has been out for over a decade, and each new update adds a bunch of extra items and tools to use. Even with so many new items, some tools are timeless and will forever be useful, like the pickaxe. Without these items, Minecraft would have a basic building system, and luckily players get to experience so much more.
This list will rank some of the best items in the game that are more useful than they initially may seem. From swords to furnaces, here are the best and handiest items in the game of Minecraft.
Updated September 10th, 2021 by Michael Caruso: Some items in Minecraft are essential while others aren’t necessary for your survival; however, there are many useful items of both varieties. Learning about the best items to craft first is important so that you can be the most efficient crafter possible. Here are a few more items that are very important in Minecraft.
20 Enchanting Table
Enchanting tables have been essential for creating powerful tools since their introduction into Minecraft. Even with all the new items added to Minecraft over the years, the enchanting table remains one of the most effective for upgrading your tools with unique effects.
You can even place bookshelves around an enchanting table to increase its effectiveness, which makes each enchantment more powerful.
19 Potato Seeds
There are lots of foods in Minecraft that can be grown on your farm; however, potatoes stand as one of the best foods in Minecraft because they heal five hunger after being cooked in a furnace.
If you want to farm food that grants the most hunger bar healing, then you can plants tons of potatoes near your house or town. You can harvest up to four potatoes once each of your potato seeds is fully grown.
18 Brewing Stand
Potions come in many types, including ones that can heal you or damage your enemies. Before using any potions, you’ll first need to obtain a Brewing Stand because it’s the only way to acquire a regular supply of potions.
Potions cost ingredients to craft, but it’s well worth it for their powerful effects. You’ll need to travel to the Nether to acquire a Brewing Stand because a Blaze Rod is one of the ingredients required to craft it, along with three cobblestones. Alternatively, you may get lucky and find one in a pre-generated building.
17 Shears
Shears are most useful at the beginning of a new world because you and your friends will need beds to sleep in, which may require lots of wool depending on how many friends are present in your world.
You can obtain wool by killing sheep; however, a more effective and long-term method for farming wool blocks is using shears to remove the wool coat from a sheep and then capturing the sheep with fences. Shears can grant one to three pieces of wool after shearing a sheep, so you can craft many beds while using this item.
16 Coal
Furnaces are great for smelting items such as ore and food, but they can’t function without fuel. Many items can be used as fuel, including wooden planks and other wooden objects, but coal is much more efficient than other items since it’s found in abundance underground, and it smelts eight items per piece of coal.
You can find coal in cave systems. If you need to smelt items, then coal is both a powerful fuel source and easy to find.
15 Ancient Debris
If you’re excited to wear a new set of Netherite armor, then head to the Nether and get digging because you need to find a lot of Ancient Debris.
It’s one of the newest ores in Minecraft that can be smelted to obtain a Netherite Scrap. Combine four scraps with four gold ingots to get one Netherite ingot and begin upgrading your diamond tools. Ancient Debris may be rare, but it is well worth it. Try searching around Y-level 15 for the best luck possible.
14 TNT
TNT has been a well-loved tool by griefers over the years, which is quite frustrating for the average player. However, it also has excellent strip mining potential. It was previously quite dangerous to use while searching for diamonds and also incredibly expensive.
Now, it’s the best tool for the job when it comes to mining for Ancient Debris. The Debris is blast-resistant and fireproof. Just pop some of the TNT in a line, light the fuse, and watch the magic happen.
13 Gold Armor
No, this entry isn’t a joke. Nobody could have ever foreseen gold armor being useful, especially in the Nether, where mobs are even more dangerous than in the Overworld. Well, it turns out that the new Piglin mobs are quite attracted to its beautiful yellow sheen.
Wearing gold armor makes them neutral towards you. This not only provides safety but allows you to barter with the Piglin for some useful items too. You’ll want to do this for Crying Obsidian.
12 Respawn Anchor
This one beautiful purple block finally allows for Nether bases to exist beyond just an exercise in decoration. It works similarly to beds in the Overworld but requires Glowstone to charge it. When fully charged, the Respawn Anchor will allow you to return to it four times upon death before being exhausted.
Like with beds in the Nether, attempting to use the Anchor in the Overworld will create an explosion. Interestingly, Hoglins are scared of the Anchor, so it can also be used as base protection.
11 Lodestone
If you get lost often, then the Lodestone will solve all of your problems. Crafted with eight Chiseled Stone Bricks and one Netherite Ingot, the Lodestone may be expensive, but it is well worth it. By using a Compass on it, the compass transforms into a Lodestone Compass, always pointing in the direction of the block.
It works in all three dimensions, making it exceptionally useful for exploration. After all, nobody wants to keep writing down base coordinates all the time. Well, you should still probably do that, but the Lodestone allows you to always find your way home again.
10 Redstone
Redstone is an item that mirrors the technology of the real world. You can build devices and contraptions within the world of Minecraft using basic redstone and also all of the items that you can craft from it.
Redstone is one of the most useful items in the game because of all the ways you can use it. Redstone is found underground, and although it’s not the rarest ore, it’s still considered valuable to crafters that happen to find it.
9 Shovel
Every Minecraft player occasionally has to trim down a hill to make room or land for their new house. Shovels get the job done quickly, and early ore shovels such as stone and iron are easy to craft even during the early game.
Every crafter has a chest full of shovels somewhere in their world, and for a good reason, because they are a necessity for landscaping. This tool is one of the best items in the game, for sure.
8 Chest
You can use chests to store all of your items. You can only fit a certain amount of items in each chest which is why most crafters have a chest room full of all of their treasures and junk.
It’s hard to go through every item, which is why chests are useful to store items that aren’t useful just yet but may come in handy later. Master crafters wouldn’t know what to do without chests in Minecraft, and there are few items more useful than this one.
7 Axe
You need wood to craft everything from crafting tables to elaborate structures, and without axes, it would be a long and tiresome journey to collect all this wood. Luckily axes are easy to craft, especially if you only desire a wooden or stone tool.
For only a few cobblestones and a stick or two, you can have a shiny new axe to chop down the forest with. Because of their easily accessible crafting recipe and their usefulness, axes earn a spot as a useful item.
6 Furnace
Furnaces are used for smelting everything from stone to food, and players couldn’t survive without one of these tools. Furnaces are easy to craft and only require a few cobblestones.
To smelt with a furnace, you must first find fuel in the form of either coal or wood, among a few other items. Fuel for a furnace is abundant throughout the world, and you won’t have a tough time finding it.
5 Bow
Melee weapons are invaluable; however, sometimes, a battle calls for a weapon with a bit of precision and range. You can use bows for fighting skeletons along with fights against the ender dragon and other powerful mobs.
Bows require arrows to shoot; however, there is an enchantment within Minecraft that stops your bow from using arrows and replaces them with magical arrows that spawn with the bow. Every crafter needs a bow to battle scary skeletons.
4 Sword
Swords are one of the most powerful tools in Minecraft both because of their damage output and also their ability to scare off other players on a server. Diamond swords make for the best variety, and although they can be hard to come by, it’s definitely worth the gems.
You should be careful not to venture out at night without one or two of these in your inventory. Bows are great, but they can’t replace a trusty sword in close-range combat.
3 Minecart (+ Tracks)
Minecarts are used to get around quickly, and the tracks can be placed down on most surfaces to help get you where you’re going. Building a rollercoaster also requires a minecart and a bunch of different tracks.
If you have multiple houses spread out throughout your world, then you should make sure to build a track of some sort that requires mostly iron and redstone. These two items are great, and a lot of crafters couldn’t survive without them.
2 Pickaxe
Pickaxes are an important item in Minecraft because mining is one of the main mechanics in the game. Without pickaxes, you couldn’t get ahold of shiny gems such as emeralds and diamonds.
Pickaxes come in different varieties; however, the most powerful one is the diamond pickaxe. It’s blue and shines bright like a diamond, which is to be expected. You should always carry multiple pickaxes when you go mining.
1 Crafting Table
You couldn’t do anything in Minecraft survival mode without the most useful item of all, crafting tables. They allow you to craft any item that can’t be crafted in your inventory, and without these, nothing would get done in the Minecraft world.
Crafting tables have been an important item since survival mode was introduced, and they are, without a doubt, the most useful item in Minecraft. You should always have at least one crafting table inside your shelter to make sure you can craft any item you desire.
NEXT: The Best Skin Packs For Minecraft Bedrock Edition
