What is the Point of the Nether in Minecraft? (15 reasons)
If you are here, it’ because you have already heard about the Nether in Minecraft but don’t really get the reason why you should spend some time in it. The goal of this article is to show you why it might be really useful in any Minecraft game.
The Nether is useful for many things in Minecraft, a lot of blocks and loots can only be found in this world. For example, quartz, soul sand and lava are easy to find in the Nether. Same thing for mobs loots like blaze rods and ghast tears, that are essential to create potions.
That’s it for the short answer, but there are many other reasons you should not skip the Nether in your game, I will give you 15 reasons to visit it in this article.
Find Netherrack
Let’s start with a few blocks you can only find in the Nether.
Netherrack is the main block in the Nether world, you’ll find it everywhere.
It’s not the most interesting block, but there is one property that you can’t find elsewhere: you can create a fire on it that will never stop.
You can create a chimney in your house, just by placing a block of Netherrack and using a lighter to start the fire. Just make sure to not burn your entire house with this, if the fire propagation is enabled, the house on the picture will burn pretty quickly ๐
Get Nether Bricks
There are two ways to get Nether bricks in Minecraft:
- Smelting Netherrack in a furnace (1 Netherrack gives 1 Nether Brick ingot, you’ll need 4 Netherrack blocks for 1 Nether Brick)
- Or directly mine them in a Nether fortress
They are more useful to create builds at your base, for example to create a dark roof it could be nice:
For a long time, Nether Bricks were the darker block, so the only way to create a mansion like this. Now we have concrete and terracotta that are probably better for that kind of build.
Farm some Quartz for your Builds
Also, to build houses, you can definitely use Quartz blocks, especially in modern buildings.
Most modern houses are created with Quartz, Concrete and Wood.
Here is an example:
Quartz can be found almost everywhere in the Nether, each block give a few gems (depending on your Fortune enchantment level) and you need 4 gems to create one block.
Grab some Glowstone
Glowstone is also a block we can only find in the Nether, and that often used in house decoration.
It’s the best lighting source, and much cleaner that using torches in your modern house ๐
You can also use it to craft Redstone lamps.
You will usually find it in a cluster at the ceiling of the Nether. Not the easiest block to farm, but you shouldn’t miss it.
Use a pickaxe with the Silk Touch enchantment to directly get the entire block.
Mine some Magma blocks
Probably not the most useful block in the Nether, but you can only find it here, so I have to mention it in this article.
You can use Magma blocks in some mob farms, like slime farms for example.
I don’t think you’ll use it in your buildings, or at least I have no idea why ๐
The Easiest Way to Get some Lava
Lava is really useful in Minecraft. It can be used for lighting, as a fuel in a furnace, for decoration purposes.
You can also use it for traps and farms, to kill mobs automatically for example.
It’s a block you can also find in the Overworld, but it will be much quicker to find it in the Nether, especially if you need a lot of it and don’t have a lava lake near your base.
Quickly Find some Mushrooms
Same thing for mushrooms, you can find them in the Overworld but only in specific biomes, and it’s pretty hard to find.
In the Nether, it’s easier to get them, as they can grow everywhere. You’ll find them directly on the ground.
If you don’t have any mushroom in your chests, that’s a great way to get the first ones. You can also find them in swamps, but maybe you don’t have one close to your position in the Overworld.
Once you have the first ones, don’t forget that you can create giant mushrooms (with bone meal) to farm more of them, it will be faster than waiting them to spread.
Get Blaze Rods for your Brewing Stand
After these few interesting blocks we can find in the Nether, let’s continue this list with the mobs that only spawn in the Nether and can be useful for your developement.
The first one is Blaze. It’s an aggressive creature you can only find in the Nether.
It might be difficult to find them if you are a beginner or haven’t yet a good stuff, but they provide blaze rods, essentials to craft a brewing stand and create potions after that.
Blazes are also the best mob in Minecraft to farm XP (check this link for more details). They give 10 XP for each kill, so you can keep a spawner and arrange it to farm XP at this place. There are many patterns you can use, here is a great video about this:
Ghasts only Spawn in the Nether
You probably won’t like them for your first tours in the Nether. Ghasts flying creatures that shot fireballs to you. Nice eh?
Why do we need them? Ghasts can loot ghast tears when you kill them. This item is mandatory to create a potion of regeneration in Minecraft.
Also, there is an achievement you can get if you manage to kill them with their own fireball ๐
Farm Wither Skeleton
Wither skeletons are black skeletons you’ll find in fortress in the Nether.
It’s also a mob pretty hard to fight for beginners or with a low stuff. If you take a hit from them, your health bar disappear, and you get a poison effect, giving a lot of damage.
Anyway, Wither skeletons are useful because they have a low chance to drop a wither skeleton skull.
That’s the only way to summon a Wither in Minecraft (one of the bosses).
Looting this skull will also give you an achievement.
Get Gold Nuggets from Pig Zombie
The last interesting mob you can find only in the Nether is the pig zombie.
It’s not recommended fighting them because if you hit one, all the others with try to kill you ๐
But, it can be useful because they drop gold nuggets when they die.
With 9 nuggets, you can craft a gold ingot, so it might be a good option to farm gold.
You can also use them to craft other items like glistering melon slices and golden carrots.
If you are interested in them to get gold, building a farm is recommended. There are many patterns, it depends on the amount of gold you need to farm. Here is a massive example:
Find Chests in Nether Fortresses
Except from blocks and mobs, fortresses are also something special you can find in the Nether.
The first thing you can find in a fortress in chests. In general, you won’t find awesome items in them, but you can have some surprises, and they might be required in multiplayer, for example:
- Some ingots like gold, iron and even diamonds
- Horse armors of any kind
- Saddles
- Nether warts
- Gold items like armor pieces or sword
- Obsidian
- Flint and steel
You’ll never get more than 10 items, in general, it will be between 1 and 3 of each item.
But that’s still something interesting you can do in the Nether. They are many chests in each fortress, and they are not so hard to find, so it might be a decent way to farm these items.
Grab your firsts Nether Warts
Another interesting thing you can only find in Nether fortress is Nether wart.
They are critical to create any potion (you need them for all the recipes), and you can find them only in the fortresses:
You can farm them anywhere, even in the Overworld. So, get them in one fortress, and create a farm in your base.
They will grow like wheat, except they don’t need water, just put them on soul sand and wait ๐
Use the Nether Properties to Move Faster in the Overworld
They last two reasons are bonus options, you don’t really need them, but it can be useful to know they exist.
The first reason requires understanding how the Nether works. There is a main concept to know about the nether: it’s 16 times smaller than the overworld. That’s to say, if you move one block in the Nether, it’s the equivalent of moving 16 blocks in the overworld.
You can use this concept to move faster in the overworld. Let’s say you have farms far away from your base (spawners for example). You can move faster to this farms by using the Nether as a gateway.
To do this, you’ll need to create a new portal in the Nether. The easiest way to do this is to create a Nether portal in each of your farm in the Overworld, it will create a new one in the Nether, that will be pretty close from the other one.
If it’s the first time you read about this, I’m not sure if it’s clear enough, so let’s take an example:
As you can see, the yellow and orange portals in the Overworld are pretty far away. But there are only a few blocks away in the nether. So to move from yellow to orange in the Overworld, it’ll be way faster to use the Nether portals ๐
Try to build tunnels in the nether to protect you while you move between two portals (especially if they are not as close as on the picture). It’s faster to move in the Nether, but more dangerous.
Unlock new Achievements
And the last interest of the Nether I want to mention before finishing this article is the achievements.
Indeed, there are several achievements in Minecraft that can be done only on the Nether.
I gave you two of them in this article, and you can read this page on the Wiki if you want the entire list.
That’s it, you know everything there is to know about the Nether in Minecraft. I hope it will motivate you to try using it more often.