Tools
This article is about the in-game items. For program enhancing software, see Programs and Editors.Tools are items used by the player while held to perform actions faster and more efficiently, to gather materials not obtainable by hand, to gain information, or to perform completely new actions. With the exception of the clock, compass, and Fire Charge, tools do not stack in the inventory. Tools can be repaired; see Item Repair.
| Name | Ingredients | Input » Output | Description | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Axes | Sticks + Wooden Plank or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamond Gems |
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Used to chop wood-related blocks faster than by hand. | |||||||||||
| Pickaxes | Sticks + Wooden Plank or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamond Gems |
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Required to mine stone-related blocks and ore. | |||||||||||
| Shovels | Sticks + Wooden Plank or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamond Gems |
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Used to dig dirt, grass, sand, gravel and snow faster than by hand. Shovels are required to dig snowballs. | |||||||||||
| Hoes | Sticks + Wooden Plank or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamond Gems |
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Used to till dirt and grass blocks to prepare for crops. | |||||||||||
| Flint and Steel | Iron Ingot + Flint |
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Used to create fire. | |||||||||||
| Bucket | Iron Ingots |
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Used to hold and transport water, lava and milk. | |||||||||||
| Compass | Iron Ingots + Redstone Dust |
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Points to the player's original spawn point. | |||||||||||
| Maps | Paper + Compass |
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Will create an image of an area explored while held. This can be used for path-finding. | |||||||||||
| Clock | Gold Ingots + Redstone Dust |
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Displays positions of the Sun and Moon. | |||||||||||
| Fishing Rod | Sticks + String |
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Used to catch fish. Can also be used to pull mobs and other entities. | |||||||||||
| Shears | Iron Ingots |
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Used to collect leaves, tall grass, vines and wool from Sheep. Also breaks Wool faster than by hand. | |||||||||||
| Fire Charge | Blaze Powder + Coal/Charcoal + Gunpowder |
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Used to create fire and to light blocks and entities on fire. Can also be shot out of dispensers. |
Contents |
[edit] Item durability
- Main article: Item Durability
A use is counted only if a player completely breaks apart one block or hits a mob. If a block is partially broken this is not counted as a full use. If a player happens to use a tool that is not suitable for the task at hand (e.g. Using an axe to dig through stone instead of a pickaxe, or fighting a mob with a shovel instead of a sword), will count as two uses rather than one as this is not using the item in hand for its designed use.
Proper use of tools will maximize their durabilities. Assuming a player uses a tool appropriately, the following list shows the maximum durabilities for tools of each material type.
- Wood - 60 uses
- Stone - 132 uses
- Iron - 251 uses
- Gold - 33 uses
- Diamond - 1562 uses
Note: Although gold tools have lower durability, they do the work fastest.
Note: A Diamond Shovel does the same damage as a Wooden Sword. This might come in handy.
[edit] Video
[edit] Diamond tools vs. Gold tools
Gold tools mine blocks the fastest of all tools in the game and have the highest enchantability (making it possible to get Silk Touch with a level 1 enchantment, which is impossible with another tool tier), however they also have the fewest uses (33) and cannot harvest most ores. Most players with the resources use diamond tools instead , which are nearly as fast and have 1562 uses before breaking. Since enchanted tools often gain unbreaking or efficiency, which are of limited use on a golden tool, making and enchanting a gold tool is wasteful, unless the player is trying to get silk touch with the fewest experience levels spent as possible. Fortune is also of little use on a golden pickaxe, which can't mine important ores like diamonds. However, since gold is now renewable, players may prefer gold tools over diamond tools in small scaled mining operations since they may want to reserve the rare, non-renewable diamonds for large scaled projects.
[edit] History
Jeb told us around 1:30 in his DreamHack presentation that it would be possible to upgrade tools, which is now known as Enchanting.
From snapshot 12w18a, wooden tools became able to be used as fuel for furnaces in case players didn't want to repair them or finish using them.
[edit] Trivia
- If you switch from a more valuable to a less valuable tool, without releasing the mouse button, just before a block breaks, the time required will be similar to using the former tool, while the mined block will be counted against the latter's durability. This is true for shovels, axes and pickaxes. However, in the case of pickaxes, this only works if the latter can mine this type of block, e.g. for iron and stone pickaxe while mining iron ore it would work, but for diamond and iron pickaxe while mining obsidian it wouldn't. The time and material saved from this method is, however, limited.
