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 bucket, tools do not stack in the inventory. Tools can be repaired; see Item Repair.

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output	Description
Axes	Sticks + Wood Planks or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamonds		Used to chop wood-related blocks and pumpkins faster than by hand.
Pickaxes	Sticks + Wood Planks or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamonds		Required to mine stone-related blocks, iron-related blocks and ore.
Shovels	Sticks + Wood Planks or Cobblestone or Iron Ingot or Gold Ingot or Diamond		Used to dig dirt, grass, sand, gravel and snow faster than by hand. Shovels are required to dig snowballs.
Hoes	Sticks + Wood Planks or Cobblestone or Iron Ingots or Gold Ingots or Diamonds		Used to till dirt and grass blocks to prepare for crops (carrots, melons, potatoes, pumpkins, wheat).
Flint and Steel	Iron Ingot + Flint		Used to create fire.
Bucket	Iron Ingots		Used to collect and transport water, lava and milk.
Compass	Iron Ingots + Redstone		Points to the player's original spawn point.
Maps	Paper + Compass		Will create an image of an area explored while held. This can be used for path-finding.
Clock	Gold Ingots + Redstone		Displays positions of the Sun and Moon.
Fishing Rod	Sticks + String		Used to catch fish. Can also be used to pull mobs and other entities.
Carrot on a Stick	Fishing Rod + Carrot		Used while riding pigs to direct them.
Shears	Iron Ingots		Used to collect dead bush, leaves, tall grass, vines and wool from sheep. Also breaks leaves, wool, and cobweb faster than by hand. Shears can be used to collect tripwire without triggering a redstone pulse.
Fire Charge	Blaze Powder + Coal/Charcoal + Gunpowder	3	Can be shot out of dispensers. Also can be used to create fire and to light blocks and entities on fire.

[edit] Best tools

Fastest tools to mine specific blocks:

Tool	Material	Blocks	Notes
Axe	Plants	Cocoa Jack 'o' Lantern Pumpkin Vines	Shears are required to collect vines.
	Wood	Bookshelf Chest Crafting Table Daylight Sensor Fence Fence Gate Huge Mushrooms Jukebox Note Block Sign Trapdoor Wood Wooden Door Wood Planks Wooden Pressure Plate Wooden Slabs Wooden Stairs
Pickaxe	Ice	Ice
	Metal I	Anvil Block of Redstone Brewing Stand Cauldron Iron Bars Iron Door Hopper Weighted Pressure Plate	Pickaxe is required to collect a block. Door can also be collected by destroying their top part without a pickaxe.
	Metal II	Block of Iron Lapis Lazuli Block	Stone, iron, or diamond pickaxe is required to collect a block.
	Metal III	Block of Diamond Block of Emerald Block of Gold	Iron or diamond pickaxe is required to collect a block.
	Rail	Activator Rail Detector Rail Powered Rail Rail
	Rock I	Block of Coal Block of Quartz Bricks Coal Ore Cobblestone Cobblestone Wall Dispenser Enchantment Table End Stone Ender Chest Furnace Hardened Clay Monster Spawner Moss Stone Nether Brick Nether Brick Fence Nether Quartz Ore Netherrack Sandstone Slabs (non-wooden) Stained Clay Stairs (non-wooden) Stone Stone Brick Stone Pressure Plate	Pickaxe is required to collect a block.
	Rock II	Iron Ore Lapis Lazuli Ore	Stone, iron or diamond pickaxe is required to collect a block.
	Rock III	Diamond Ore Emerald Ore Gold Ore Redstone Ore	Iron or diamond pickaxe is required to collect a block.
	Rock IV	Obsidian	Diamond pickaxe is required to collect a block.
Shears	Leaves	Leaves	Shears are required to collect a block. Leaves will drop their alternative items if any other tool is used.
	Web	Cobweb	Shears or sword is required to collect string.
	Wool	Wool
Shovel	Ground	Clay Dirt Farmland Grass Block Gravel Mycelium Sand Soul Sand
	Snow	Snow Snow (cover)	Shovel is required to collect snowballs from snow and snow cover.
Sword	Plants	Melon
	Web	Cobweb	Shears or sword is required to collect string.
Any (all tools are equally efficient)	Circuits	Button Lever
	Glass	Beacon Glass Glass Pane Glowstone Redstone Lamp
	Other	Bed Cake Carpet Hay Block Ladder Mob head Monster Egg Sponge
	Piston	Piston Sticky Piston
	Plants	Cactus
Any (instantly breaks; doesn't damage tools)	Circuits	Redstone Comparator Redstone Repeater Redstone Torch Redstone Wire Tripwire Tripwire Hook	Destroying the tripwire while not holding shears will trigger a redstone pulse.
	Other	Command Block Fire Flower Pot TNT Torch	Command Block will only drop when broken with a pickaxe (but since 13w18a it will never drop).
	Plants	Carrots Dead Bush Fern Flowers Lily Pad Melon Stem Mushrooms Nether Wart Potatoes Pumpkin Stem Saplings Sugar Cane Tall Grass Wheat	Dead bush, fern and tall grass can be collected with shears.
None (unbreakable)	Dragon Egg	Dragon Egg	Dragon Egg cannot be mined directly - hitting the egg causes it to teleport.
	Liquid	Lava Water	The source block can be picked up with a bucket.
	Portal	End Portal End Portal (block) Nether Portal
	Rock V	Bedrock

[edit] Item durability

Main article: Item durability

Some tools are not block-breaking tools: This includes the hoe, bow, fishing rod, carrot-and-stick, and flint-and-steel. Such tools are no better than bare fists at breaking blocks, but they do not take damage from doing so -- they only take damage by being used in their own various manners.

For block-breaking tools, 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.

Note that certain uses cause either no damage or extra damage to the tool:

1. Axes, pickaxes, and shovels:
   • Breaking a block that breaks instantly counts as no uses.
   • Breaking other blocks counts as one use.
   • Hitting a mob (hostile, neutral or farm animal) counts as two uses.
2. Hoes:
   • Tilling dirt or grass counts as one use.
   • Breaking a block counts as no uses.
   • Hitting a mob counts as no uses.
3. Shears:
   • Shearing a sheep counts as one use.
   • Breaking cobweb, leaves, tall grass, tripwire, and vines counts as one use.
   • Breaking other blocks counts as no uses.
   • Hitting a mob counts as no uses.
4. Swords:
   • Breaking a block that breaks instantly counts as no uses.
   • Breaking other blocks counts as two uses.
   • Hitting a mob counts as one use.
5. Fishing Rods:
   • Breaking a block counts as no uses.
   • Casting the line and reeling it in empty, counts as no uses.
   • Reeling in a fish counts as one use.
   • Catching the bobber/hook on a block, then reeling it in, counts as two uses.
   • Using the line to yank on a mob counts as three uses.
6. Buckets have no durability.

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.

• Gold - 33 uses
• Wood - 60 uses
• Stone - 132 uses
• Iron - 251 uses
• Diamond - 1562 uses

Notes:

• Although gold tools have the lowest durability, they make the fastest tools.
• 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. As of 1.4, this is no longer possible.
• Using the /give command can give you tools with custom damage values. For example, /give <player name> 278 1 1500 will give the player a diamond pickaxe with 61 uses left.

[edit] See also

• Item Repair
• Digging