How to NOT be horrible at Minecraft

Minecraft is a popular game. Actually, let me rephrase that: it's the best-selling video game in the entire world. The community is massive and the fields are vast. It can really be said that it's not possible to master literally every aspect of this game. But, let's not talk those big words before we actually become good at something. Here's a short little guide to not be horrible at the game!

Combat

You'd expect this - combat is everywhere in games. The following content apply to both PvP and PvE. In Minecraft, there are mainly 2 branches of PvP: Pre 1.9 and Post 1.9. Here I will talk about only Post 1.9 on Java Edition (yes there is a difference) since I never played 1.8.9. So first of all, you need gear, if you see a foe with significantly better gear, don't even bother. Instead, work on the last and best of the 36 stratagems: retreat. One vital thing in post 1.9 combat is shields. Shields can block any regular physical attack from the front, so when done well, swords will deal no damage. On the bright side, axes can temporarily disable shields. They also deal a decent amount of damage. One downside of axes, however, is that axes have a significantly longer cooldown. Hence, one tactic is to disable shields with axes and then switching to swords to deal damage.

Other important aspects of combat are utility items like buckets and potions. We will not go into that as it's not the most important thing in combat. Critical hits (A.K.A. crits) are a major player in the field. You deal crits by attacking while falling and shooting arrows with fully charged bows. You also deal extra damage when your charge bar (located at the center of the screen, displays when the melee weapon is aimed at an entity) is filled.

Building

Okay, let's say you're a master at everything else, but when it comes to building, you still build horrible roofs that blend in with the walls, houses out of diamond blocks and so on. After all these years of training, you are still considered quite a bad player. Seriously, look up some building tutorials if you don't know how to. You don't have to be exactly talented but it's good to learn about details like depths, patterns, palettes, and decoration blocks.

Enchanting

Enchantments can be really important. Examples like Protection IV, Sharpness V, Infinity and Mending are a such blessing. Learning how enchantments work and you can build your perfect gear in the game. They can help speed up a lot of processes and in some cases, save you from death!

Redstone

I get it, Redstone can be hard, but learning some of the basic stuff shouldn't be. I'm not talking the Mumbo Jumbo level of basic, but you should understand basic circuits and how most redstone-related blocks such as observers work. Also, I won't suggest checking old designs for some big redstone projects, since minor updates can completely break many of those old contraptions.

Parkour

This is definitely not something easy, parkour isn't just about knowing how it works. Parkour can be vast and can involve a lot of blocks with unique mechanics such as slime and honey blocks. Thus, despite being mostly about momentum, you might as well have to learn about certain mechanics for this.

Villagers

Alright alright, I get it, villagers can be really annoying. But the one thing you can't argue about is how important they are in the game. They can give brilliant trades such as enchanted gear, enchantment books and ender pearls. They are also vital for some automated farms, including iron farms. Villagers operate with workstations. Workstations are blocks that give villagers a job and consequently trades. You can assign them a workstation and keep breaking and placing it until you find a trade you like. Afterwards, you can simply trade with them and lock the profession. From this point on, their profession no longer changes and you cannot change their trades anymore.

Sometimes prices may be higher than what you can afford, you can of course trade with them frequently to reduce the prices. But the most effective way is actually making a zombie infect them, turning them into zombie villagers. You can then proceed to tossing a splash potion of weakness and feeding them a golden apple. This cures them back into regular villagers and it reduces the prices. If you perform this twice, the prices go down to 1 emerald for the emerald trades. However, check your difficulty when doing this, in peaceful and easy modes, villagers will die when zombies attack them, whereas in normal mode, there is only a 50% chance of them being infected. Hence, always make sure you're on hard mode when doing this.

Another way you can reduce prices is by getting the Hero of the Village achievement. This method involves beating a raid and is not recommended as it is much more difficult.

There's one type of villager called the nitwit. Nitwits wear green clothes and are pretty much useless except for breeding and summoning iron golems. When you try to assign them a job and realize that it doesn't work, don't be dissatisfied and just go ahead kill them, as that would raise the prices and ruin your reputation amongst villagers.

General Knowledge

Just, knowing a bit of everything really does help. You should watch some minecraft videos if you find yourself clueless.

Be legitimate and nice

Lastly, don't cheat. Cheating can really ruin your experience and it provides you an unfair advantage against other players. It also ruins your reputation amongst communities and can potentially get you banned. Also, just be nice. It doesn't hurt you to be polite to other players and you might as well make some new friends on the servers!

On a side note, it's better not to play the game cracked. I just bought the game 2 days ago and not only the experience is completely different, but you will also be supporting the Mojang dev team.

Thanks for reading people! Hope you liked it and will no longer be terrible at the game. Have a nice day! c: