How to Find Netherite in Minecraft

Netherite is a resource used to craft the most powerful weapons, tools, and armor in Minecraft. The gear made from netherite is even stronger than diamond, especially in terms of durability.

As an added bonus, all netherite items do not burn when thrown into lava and will even float! Unfortunately, wearing netherite armor alone does not let you swim in lava without taking damage. For swimming in lava, you’ll need to get fire protection enchantments or potions.

Mining for Netherite

The best way to find netherite in Minecraft is by mining “ancient debris” blocks in the nether. These blocks can be smelted into netherite scraps which can then be crafted into ingots. Once you have ingots, you are able to convert your diamond armor into netherite armor using an anvil.

Unfortunately, using fortune enchantments will not increase the amount of ancient debris blocks dropped while mining. You will always get one ancient debris block dropped for every block mined.

Ancient debris blocks look like a red-brown cobblestone and do not really look like other “ores” in Minecraft. To see what one looks like, check out the picture below.

Source: ender-chest.com

Finding Ancient Debris

Ancient debris blocks are very rare and the process is a different than mining for diamond ore. You will have to mine tunnels anywhere from a y-coordinate of 8 to 119, however the best y-coordinate to mine for ancient debris is at 15. If you’re not sure what y-coordinate you are at, you can view it in the F3 menu.

Note that ancient debris blocks are never found naturally exposed in the nether. You will never find them while “spelunking” or casually walking around the nether and must dig deeper into the walls and ground to find it.

Bastion Remnants

There is one more way to get netherite in Minecraft: from treasure chests in Bastion Remnants in the nether. Bastion Remnants are essentially naturally spawning castle structures which can show up throughout the nether. These chests can contain either ancient debris or netherite scraps.

When you think about the amount of time involved in finding Bastion Remnants and the low number of scraps found in chests, it is more time efficient to mine tunnels at level 15 than to search for Bastion Remnants.

For more information about netherite ingots, check out this minecraft.net blog article.