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In the meantime, those jumping into the game once more will have to face the necessity of grinding for experience points, especially in survival. Minecraft is one of the more tedious games to grind experience points for, but thanks to the many ways available for XP grinding, players can choose which activity to focus on.
XP In Minecraft
Experience points in Minecraft can be tracked on the progress bar at the bottom of the screen, above the hotbar. In the middle, players can see their current level represented in numbers. When players collect experience orbs, the bar will go up, and once it reaches the end, they will earn another level.
The levels are used to enchant items in Minecraft. The enchanting table offers three levels of enchantment for an item, the third, bottom one being the most powerful. In order to get access to it, players will need to have at least 30 levels in the bank.
Experience points are also used to repair items with Mending enchantment on them. When a player holds an item with Mending, the experience points are not absorbed to the experience bar, but rather increase the durability bar of the item, therefore repairing it. This is important to keep in mind so the player doesn’t accidentally try to farm levels while holding a Mending item in their hand.
Best Ways To Farm XP In Minecraft
Below are generally all the methods players can use to farm XP in Minecraft. Some of them are more efficient than others, and some also require a lot of planning or preparation. Each method has been rated with a general difficulty and effort level of Easy, Medium, or High, as well as an efficiency level of Slow, Moderate, or Fast.
Go Fishing
Difficulty: Easy Efficiency: Slow
Fishing only requires the player to have a fishing rod in Minecraft, and that’s it. It’s an extremely slow process that mostly yields food and the occasional lucky treasure. Those with a good fishing rod with Lure II, Luck of the Sea III, and Unbreaking, however, will be able to get tons of resources on top of a bit of XP.
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Players can expect to get between 1-6 experience points each time they reel the bobber back in. The best method is to build an AFK fishing farm that also lets players have access to treasure fishing.
Go Mining
Difficulty: Easy Efficiency: Moderate
Mining is one of the most basic activities players will have to do in survival Minecraft. The good thing is, it gives players a ton of experience points if they dedicate enough time to it. Some, more precious ores, also provide more XP than others. Nether Quartz is considered one of the best easy to find ores to mine for XP in Minecraft, according to this table.
Source: Minecraft Wiki
Tame And Breed Animals
Difficulty: Easy Efficiency: Slow
Animals in Minecraft are typically tamed and bred for food in Minecraft. Because of this, most players will end up building a farm with cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. This is a small and handy way of getting XP on the side, though it’s an incredibly slow process since most baby animals take about 10 minutes or so to grow up.
Breeding an animal has the chance of dropping between 1-7 XP points for the player. Those looking to make this their primary way of earning XP should invest in larger animal farms.
Use Mob Farms
Difficulty: High Efficiency: Fast
Mob farms are distinguished from XP farms by the fact that they’re usually meant to help the player get their hands on mob drops like bones from Skeletons, gunpowder from Creepers, and so on. Their primary purpose isn’t to actually generate tons of XP, but they definitely can if built correctly.
There’s a ton of different mob farm designs out there. Some use the light levels as a means to spawn mobs, and others are built around mob spawners. These mob spawners, when destroyed, actually drop a bit of XP as well, but it’s best to keep them intact since they’ll continue to spawn mobs infinitely, which basically means infinite XP for the player.
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The best mob to farm without too much of a hassle with a spawner block is the Blaze in the Nether, which drops 10 experience points per kill. Players not afraid of a big building commitment can also build a Guardian farm, which also yields 10 points per kill. Baby hostile mobs also drop up to 12 XP, so look for baby zombies when desperate for XP.
Defeat Bosses
Difficulty: High Efficiency: Slow
There’s a total of 3 primary bosses for players to defeat in Minecraft: the Ender Dragon, the Wither, and the Elder Guardians. One could also consider the Evoker, Ravager, and Piglin Brute a fourth, fifth ór sixth one. These bosses are difficult to defeat, but they provide massive XP gains which makes them worth preparing for.
XP Farms
Photo by 15_Redstones on Reddit.
Difficulty: Medium Efficiency: Fast
Earlier, mob farms were mentioned as a way to get mob drops and some XP, but there are actually separate farms that are dedicated to only churning out experience points. The most well-known version of this is the bamboo and cactus farm, which is completely automated and uses furnaces to store XP for players to get at a later time.
The best version of this is by OMGCraft, though other talented creators like Avomance have also showcased their unique designs on this simple concept. These designs should still work in 1.18. It’s impossible to say how much XP can be gained from an XP farm since they are quite design-dependent.
Use A Bottle O’ Enchanting
Difficulty: High Efficiency: Slow
The Bottle o’ Enchanting in Minecraft is a special and pretty rare item that can only be purchased from a Cleric villager or potentially found from buried treasure, a shipwreck, or even a pillager outpost. To use the bottle, simply toss it on the ground.
One bottle will release up to 11 XP and a minimum of 3 XP, so it’s pretty clear that the XP gains are not that great for this method.
Trade With Villagers
Difficulty: Medium Efficiency: Slow
Players will eventually start trading with villagers in hopes to get their favorite enchanting books easily. Luckily, trading isn’t all just spending and spending. Each trade brings in a bit of XP for the player, too.
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Normally, villagers will grant between 3-6 points of XP when traded with. However, if all is well and they are ready to breed in the village, the villagers are happier and consequently, the XP gain will be boosted to between 8-11 points.
Complete Advancements
Difficulty: Medium Efficiency: Moderate
There are a few great advancements that players can challenge themselves with to gain some experience points. Some are fairly easy to complete, while others require a bit of preparation and investment. Some easy ones to complete are the following:
There are other challenges to complete, but they are significantly harder than the ones listed above.
Minecraft was released on November 16, 2021, and is available on PC, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and many other platforms.
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