Minecraft guide

Tools

Tools are needed to gather resources quickly and easily. There are five tools in Minecraft. The pickaxe, the shovel, the axe, the hoe, and the sword. Basically I shall not talk about the sword in this chapter.

Here are the main functions of tools.

Axe-Used to cut wood quickly and easily. (Faster, basically) This is the only tool to get wood in adventure mode. It functions quickly for wood related blocks, including crafting tables and bookshelves.

Pickaxe-The main thing we all love. Used to mine and gather resources to get stronger stuff. These are the only things that can mine stone and other mine-related resources in survival mode itself, so that rule will stay the same in adventure mode.

Shovel-This is basically used to get gravel, dirt, and sand faster. Particularly useless as those resources cannot do anything other than getting flint from gravel and smelting sand for glass. However, it is the only tool to be able to get snowballs from snow covered parts of the world. You cannot get dirt, sand and gravel without a shovel, in adventure mode, so if you need flint, you are in trouble if you so not have a shovel.

Hoe- The only tool in both creative, survival and adventure to make dirt suitable for farming. When you "hoe" a patch of dirt, it will become a different texture which allow you to put seeds on it.

In creative mode you cannot get the block itself since you hit a block it breaks, so it is impossible to her any resources by spamming around with anything in your hand trying to get stuff in creative, unless a free block drops onto you, or you break a chest or furnace.

Here are the relative strength of tools made of different materials. In terms of durability, from weakest to strongest, gold, wood, stone, iron, and diamond. Yes, gold is the weakest, and breaks after breaking just a few blocks. However, in terms of speed of gathering, from weakest to strongest again, wood, stone, iron, diamond, and gold is relatively the fastest. There are some drawbacks from using a golden pickaxe though. Mentioned in next paragraph.

A gold pickaxe is able to mine only regular stone, coal ore, and cobblestone faster than that of a diamond pickaxe. However, a gold pickaxe is unable to mine other ores, including iron ores. Mining iron, gold, diamond, emerald, with a gold pickaxe is just like using your bare hands on those. A long time later, the mined block will break but nothing comes out. As gold is also a lot rarer than iron, it is basically very useless and it is recommended for it to be used as a decoration block instead. Iron is also a useful material when crafting other things like buckets, etc.

When using tools to do things which is does not specialise in their particular function, it will not work as well. Example-Using a pickaxe to cut wood will have the same speed as that of using your bare hands, and decreases the durability as well. Another one-Using a axe to dig dirt will also have the same time as that of using a hand. Decreases durability. It does not matter whatever the material is in these situations. However, a hoe cannot be replaced by other things as they can only basically destroy the dirt, not sow it.

Note-Emeralds cannot create tools, I think.

Desired materials to make the identical material tool goes as follows. Wooden tools with wooden planks, stone tools with cobblestone, iron tools with iron ingots, gold tools with gold ingots and diamond tools with the diamonds.

Note-Diamonds have to be mined with only diamond or iron pickaxes like mentioned before and DOES NOT REQUIRE SMELTING unless enchanted with the silk touch. This will of course be mentioned in enchantments.

Here are the crafting recipes for tools. ALL OF THE TOOLS REQUIRE TWO STICKS AND WITH ONE IN THE COMPLETE MIDDLE AND ONE BELOW IT. THEY CAN ONLY BE CRAFTED ON A CRAFTING TABLE. Enjoy.

Axe-Two sticks (like mentioned) and 3 of the desired material. With the two sticks already in place, put a piece of the mat (from now on I shall call the desired material mat.) on the top left corner, one to its right, which is basically above the middle stick, and another to the bottom of the first mat, also considered to be the left of the middle stick. It can also be done the opposite way, the two mat on the complete left moved to the right sides instead. You will get the desired axe.

Pickaxe-Two sticks again and three mat. Put one mat above the middle stick, another to its right, and lastly once to its left. You should create a T formation. Easy.

Shovel-One mat and two sticks. Just put the mat above the middle stick.

Hoe-Two mat and two sticks. One mat above middle stick. Then one to either the first mat's right or left.

Using a tool to do a function (which does not include mowing) which it does not specialise in will be 2 uses for the tool. Example, using a diamond tool which have 874 uses left will have 873 after mining once, its function, but using it to cut wood instead will cause it to have 872 uses.