Ancient Debris Minecraft: BEST TIPS FOR MINING

What does ancient debris do in Minecraft?

Why would you want to get a netherite gear?

After the update 1.16 or “The Nether Update”, not only Mojang added a lot of new content to the Nether dimension, but also a new gear that tops even the diamond one – netherite gear. It’s way harder to get compared to the diamond one(if you struggle to get even the diamond one, check out our previous article on how to easily find lots of diamonds), but it’s also significantly better in a lot of ways. That is exactly why this new gear became the center of players’ attention in the race for the best gear in the game.

TIP

Start mining Minecraft ancient Debris on your own Minecraft server!

How to make netherite armor in minecraft?

With the main reason why you would like to get it out of the way, the follow up question occurs: how do you get this gear? Well, as it was mentioned before, the gear isn’t obtained so easily. First, you need to find and mine ancient debris, then find some spare gold ingots in your chests(or also mine them), melt the debris in the furnace to get netherite scraps, and finally craft one netherite ingot using 4 gold ingots and 4 netherite scraps. That is a lot of work for just one ingot, isn’t it?

How to upgrade gear in Minecraft?

Luckily, you don’t need 35 netherite ingots to get a full set of armor and tools like with other gear. You only need one netherite ingot to upgrade one piece of armor or tool using a smithing table. Important note: if you are playing on version 1.20.x or newer, to upgrade your gear you would also need a smithing template, which can be either found as loot or crafted. So you only need 9 netherite ingots to fully upgrade your gear, though, it is still quite a lot, considering how hard it is to craft those. Let us help you and give you tips on how to get ancient debris faster and easier.

The best Minecraft ancient debris Y level you should Mine at

Compared to mining diamonds, with ancient debris it’s way easier to determine the best Y level to mine them on. The general range of where you should mine ancient debris is Y 8 to Y 22, however, ever since the release of Minecraft version 1.16 the best Y level for mining debris is Y 15.

Y 15 is the best choice as it has the highest ancient debris spawn rate. Additionally, this applies to both Java and Bedrock versions of the game.

The best mining strategies

Following the logic of our previous article about mining diamonds, one thing is to know where to mine, another is to know how to mine. So, let’s get right to it, the best mining strategies for ancient debris.

The simplest one is to get yourself a diamond pickaxe with Efficiency V enchantment(you can use other pickaxes for mining, but ultimately you would still need a diamond one or better to mine the ancient debris) and just mine. The basic block used for nether generation is netherrack and it has very low durability. Meaning that you can mine it really fast even with normal pickaxe, but if you have a diamond pickaxe with Efficiency V enchantment, then you break netherrack instantly. This is crucial, as knowing that, you can just go into the biome called “Nether Wastes” which is mainly made of netherrack, mine down to the Y 15, hold your left mouse button and just go crazy mining in every direction. It’s quite fun, fast, you can find plenty of ancient debris this way and it’s not as complicated as other methods. Although, be careful while mining and check your pickaxe’s durability once in a while, to not accidentally break it.

Nether Strip Mining

Another method is strip mining. We’ve covered it in the previous article about mining diamonds, and the logic of it is still the same in this case. Go to “Nether Wastes”, mine down to Y 15, mine a long tunnel, then mine shorter tunnels to the sides of the main one with 2 blocks in between them. A lot of players prefer this method over the previous one because it is more organised, but both of them work just fine.

Lastly, the explosion method. Remember how netherrack has a very low durability? Well except for being easy to break, this also means that an explosion will destroy a lot of blocks around its center. And since the ancient debris do not burn in lava and are immune to explosions, we can utilize this to create a very efficient mining method. This method has two submethods: one uses TNT, another - beds. Let’s go over each of them.

TNT Mining

Explosion method: TNT. For this method, make sure to grab a lot of TNT with you and a flint and steel(or another item that lets you detonate the TNT, like a redstone torch). Go to “Nether Wastes”, mine down to Y 15, mine a long tunnel, then on your way back to the start of the tunnel place TNT blocks with 3 blocks of distance between them. Finally, when you reach the start of the tunnel, or run out of TNT, detonate the last TNT you’ve placed and wait for all of them to explode in a chain reaction. Then, walk through the tunnel and look for ancient debris, just be careful to not fall into lava. Repeat as many times as needed, until you find enough ancient debris.

Bed Mining

Explosion method: bed. You might wonder, why bed and how will it help create an explosion? Well, in Minecraft there is a game mechanic that doesn’t let you sleep in Nether or End dimensions. In fact, if you try to sleep, after right clicking on bed will be greeted by a big explosion. Now, you might be able to guess where this is going? Grab a bunch of beds with yourself, go to “Nether Wastes”, mine down to Y 15, mine about 3 - 4 blocks in front of you, place a bed and right click it. After the explosion, look for any ancient debris, mine them and repeat as much as necessary. This method is pretty good, it can be a great alternative to the TNT, since finding and crafting beds are easier. However while using it be careful not to blow up yourself, for that, place one any block in front of you in a way that you can still detonate the bed, but you would also have some cover.

Additional tips

The Nether is very dangerous, even if you have pretty good gear, so here are things to keep in mind while mining. First of all, put on at least one piece of any golden armor, so you won’t be attacked by piglins(you might encounter them on your way to the mine, or in the mine itself as they can just spawn there). Second, take some fire resistance potions, a couple of golden apples or totem on undying if you have one. Night vision potions might come in handy while mining as well.

Other ways to find ancient debris

Like with diamonds, ancient debris(netherite scraps or netherite ingots) can also be obtained through looting. Although the variety of options is way more narrow compared to the diamonds, as ancient debris(netherite scraps or netherite ingots) can be only found in Nether, specifically in bastion remnant chests. Here’s the table on that matter:

Brew your potions and enchant your pickaxes, it’s adventure time!

That is all you need to know regarding ancient debris to quickly and easily mine or find them for your new netherite gear. We sincerely hope that this article was useful and interesting, thank you for reading and good luck!