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Being a sandbox game, there is no true end to Minecraft. However it is possible to 'complete' the game upon killing the ender dragon.

This tutorial shows the steps necessary to locate and enter the End dimension, and then defeat the ender dragon, as well as killing the wither.

Notes:

  1. You need to be advanced in the game to complete the boss fight and win the game.
  2. These steps can be done in any game mode (Survival, Hardcore), but cannot be done on Peaceful difficulty, as eyes of ender are not obtainable, because although ender pearls can be traded from village priests, there is no other way to obtain blaze rods without killing blazes.

The first section of this article is a brief overview on how to get to finish Minecraft. If you would like to have a more detailed explanation, scroll down and you will find many steps explaining in great detail how to get to the End and how to kill the ender dragon.

Overview

When first beginning a game of Survival or Hardcore (recommended for true adventure style), collect wood from nearby trees. Wood is needed to create a crafting table and a wooden pickaxe. The wooden pickaxe is necessary to harvest cobblestone, which will allow you to create a stone pickaxe and a minimum of 1 furnace, although 3 are recommended. Also useful at the cobblestone level, a stone sword is advised as one needs to tech to iron next, and it is likely that night will come before then, and some degree of protection is advised. After a stone pickaxe is obtained, use it to harvest a minimum of 3 iron ingots and a minimum of 1 coal. It is recommended to harvest 33 iron ingots to create iron armor and an iron sword, along with an iron pickaxe and bucket for water.

Next, a minimum of 3 diamonds must be harvested. Then, if you find two more make an enchantment table to enchant a pick of at least iron with Fortune for your next vein of diamond. It is recommended to find a naturally occurring cave or fissure that drops to the last 16 levels of the world. It is also recommended to look around lava, because you will see more open rock at once. It has never been proven or confirmed that diamonds are generated more around lava pools. Remember, upon finding diamonds, dig around them first to ensure that they won't fall into lava and burn. A bucket of water is found to be very useful as one bucket can diffuse an entire lake of lava, and still retain the bucket. If 2 more diamonds can be found, it is recommended to craft a diamond sword. If you happen to find any more, you could use them to make an Enchantment Table. Once a minimum of 3 diamonds have been harvested, craft a diamond pickaxe. If still in the bowels of the world, it is likely obsidian may have been spotted. A minimum of 10 obsidian must be harvested to create a frame for a nether portal. If you collected those extra diamonds, take 4 more pieces. You'll need them to make the rest of the game easier. Once a minimum of 10 obsidian has been harvested, return to the surface, collecting 1 flint from gravel on the journey up. 1 iron ingot will also be needed. However, you can also find diamond from structure (adventurer) such as Desert Temple, Dungeon, Jungle Temple, etc.

Once breathing fresh air again, decide whether to collect ender pearls or collect blaze rods first. Note that ender pearls can aid in traversing nether terrain, however ender pearls are valuable resources. If you decided to harvest ender pearls, aim for a bare minimum of 12, though a highly recommended number is between 15 and 20. If you chose to collect blaze rods, proceed to build a nether portal frame, and craft a flint and steel. Using 10 obsidian blocks to build a portal, simply negates the use of the corners of a proper frame. It is also recommended to have a stack of dirt or cobblestone to use as markers when venturing through the nether. Activate the portal with the flint and steel, and enter the nether. Once in the Nether, locate a nether fortress, proceed to locate blazes, and neutralize them until you have harvested enough blaze rods to account for half of the ender pearls you have or plan on having. It is recommended to obtain 10 blaze rods. 1 blaze rod will create 2 blaze powder.

Once ender pearls and blaze powder have been obtained, combine the two to create eyes of ender. 12 are necessary to activate an empty frame, though most frames have 1 to 2 frames already filled. Launch an eye of ender to obtain a starting direction, and head that way. Launch another eye of ender once in a while to ensure the correct path is being followed, and that the nearest portal hasn't been passed. Ensure that the eyes are recollected at every given chance. When an eye heads into the ground, a portal has been located. At this point, one can attempt to find a cave that leads to the stronghold (true adventure style), or mine a spiral stair all the way down, so as to avoid digging straight down. Try to avoid falling into the pit of lava which is found under every portal. In Bedrock Edition, eye of ender usually lead you to village because stronghold is under the bottom of village well. Once the portal has been physically located, activate every frame and the portal to the end will be revealed. Enter and prepare for a long and somewhat uneventful fight. A bow and 64 or more arrows are recommended, along with a pumpkin used as a helmet.

Fighting the dragon is relatively easy. Use arrows or snowballs to shoot the end crystal on the towers, or [[ender pearls to teleport on top of the towers and destroy the crystal. This is necessary as even one crytal left alive will keep the dragon alive. Once the blocks are destroyed, all damage negated from the dragon will not return. Kill the dragon and finish Minecraft!

Step 1: Building the Nether Portal

After you have played in a Minecraft world for a while, hopefully you have acquired at least four iron ingots along the way, whether you smelted them or found them in a chest. You will need to craft three of the ingots into at least one bucket that will be used to create obsidian for a nether portal. The only other way to make a nether portal without buckets involves mining already-created obsidian with a diamond pickaxe. Acquire a piece of flint, as well.

The easiest way to make a nether portal without a diamond pickaxe:

1) With your iron, craft a bucket. One bucket is all you need, but the more buckets you have, the more efficient this job is going to be.

2) Fill a bucket with lava. If you have more than one, fill all but one with lava, and the last one with water.

3) Make the shape below using dirt and lava.

4) Place water over the lava blocks. The lava should have turned to obsidian. If it turned to cobblestone, then the lava was flowing and not a solid source block.

5) Place on the top of the previous blocks following:


6) Place water over the two lava blocks.

7) Do step 5 and 6 two times more on top of the current layer.

8) Finish the top with a shape similar to the bottom.

9) Remove all dirt blocks. From the side, it should look something like this.

10) Make a flint and steel with your flint and iron and use it to light the portal.

Step 2: The Nether

First of all, gear up. The nether is extremely dangerous, especially with all the lava and the creepy hostile mobs. Pack away anything unrelated to weapons and food. Equip yourself with following items:

Nether

Screenshot from the nether.

  • 2 stacks with cobblestone or other block with blast resistance over 30.
  • A full set of diamond armor, better when enchanted.
  • A trident with Loyalty III or diamond sword/axe, better enchanted with at least Sharpness IV or Smite II.
  • A bow and a stack of 64 or more arrows (if your bow is enchanted by Infinity, bring only one arrow)
  • A pickaxe (avoid diamond, golden or Efficiency-enchanted pickaxes, because they mine very fast through netherrack)
  • A stack of steak or cooked porkchop, or another good food.
  • Golden apples (optional) for emergency healing
  • Enchanted golden apples Optional (only found in dungeon, mineshaft, desert temple or woodland mansion chests) gives the status effects Fire Resistance and Resistance for 5 minutes, Regeneration for 20 seconds and Absorption (8 extra hearts for 2 minutes).
  • Shields are recommended to deflect damage.
  • Potions of Fire Resistance to defend fire damage
NetherAndFortressBlazeAccidentalSkeletonMIME

A nether fortress. Search for blazes and other useful items in this structure.

  1. Enter the Nether by standing in your portal.
  2. Look around. Familiarize yourself with the surroundings. Watch out for ghasts and other hostile mobs. Attention: If you have just begun this world and you are not familiar with many things of the Nether, do not go on. Head back and do more mining.
  3. Explore the nether until you find some blazes. This would be easiest if you find a nether fortress as these often have blaze spawners in them. Make sure to mark your trail so you can find your way back. It would be a good idea to use cobblestone, because ghasts cannot destroy it. If you need resistant building blocks and are running out of cobblestone, smelting some netherrack for crafting nether bricks can be a good idea.
  4. Defeat them until you have at least sixteen blaze rods. The reason for that is that you will need at least 4 of those for finding the End. It is hard. The rest are for fixing the end portal. This task would be made easier if you had a potion of fire resistance, which requires an additional rod to craft a brewing stand and fuel for it.
  5. Craft the blaze rods into blaze powder.
  6. Along the way, be sure to try and kill any wither skeletons that you may come across. These are important if you want to try for the other major boss battle in the game, against the wither.
  7. Try to find nether quartz ore and glowstone, if you like to use redstone.

Step 3: Finding a Stronghold and Entering The End

  1. Back in the Overworld, find some endermen and defeat them (endermen also rarely spawn in the Nether).
  2. Craft the ender pearls you got from the endermen with the blaze powder into eyes of ender. You are likely to need a lot.
  3. Throw one of your eyes of ender. You do this by right clicking.
  4. The eye of ender should fly up in the air. Follow it and when it falls down pick it up and throw it again. If it breaks use another one. The eye of ender should eventually lead you to the stronghold in which the end portal is located. Do this until the eye of ender goes into the ground.
  5. Do not dig directly down where the eye of ender enters. There is the risk of falling into the pit of lava surrounding the end portal. Other potential methods of going down are staircase mining and attempting to find a cave that leads into the stronghold. In Bedrock Edition, if eye of ender goes into the ground at village or close, just dig under the well and lead you to entrance of stronghold.
  6. You will come to a stronghold. Search for the room with the end portal. Your eye of ender can help if you throw it will lead you directly to the end portal room.
  7. In the room there is a square made out of end portal blocks. Be careful. There is a silverfish spawner in every end portal room. Some of the end portal blocks have eyes of ender in the top. Right click on the ones which don't have an eye of ender. This will consume the eye of ender. Do this on all the blocks that do not already have eyes of ender. A end portal should form.
  8. Jump into the portal and you will be teleported to the End. Make sure you are prepared, because you cannot get back out until you destroy the ender dragon! (Of course, suicidal actions like falling into the void will also put you back into the Overworld, but if you are in Hardcore mode, the map will never be able to be played in Survival mode again.)

Step 4: Killing the Ender Dragon

For a full guide, see: Tutorials/Ender dragon slaying

The End

Screenshot from The End in Minecraft 1.9 with the ender dragon flying around.

At this point, you are in the End. It is made up of end stone and is filled with endermen. There is also a single ender dragon flying around, assuming this is your first time in the End in that world. Note that you can come back to The End at any time after you have killed the ender dragon, and it will not have respawned, if you do not respawn it. You cannot get out of the End until you destroy the dragon.

Prepare yourself with following items:

  • At least 2 stacks of building blocks (Recommended cobblestone or dirt).
  • A diamond sword (high-enchanted).
  • A bow with Power III or higher should also be enchanted with Infinity, or at least 3 stacks arrows.
  • Snowballs or eggs (bring only if the bow is not enchanted with Infinity) to throw at the end crystals.
  • TNT or bed (optional) for the end crystals protected by iron bars.
  • Water can also be used to climb up to the protected crystals.
  • A pumpkin (optional, not recommended) to prevent endermen become hostile when looked at.
  • Enchanted iron or diamond armor with Protection III+ or Projectile Protection III+.
  • A pickaxe if the player spawns underground.
  • Ender pearls to teleport from the void or to the main island if the player spawns on a platform floating above the void.
  • Splash potions of Healing, Regeneration, Swiftness (optional), Golden Apples (preferably enchanted ones), and Potion of Slow Falling (optional).
  • Food (high saturation), such as beef or porkchops).
  • A shield (optional), can be used to block attacks from both the dragon and the enderman.

The fight:

  1. Destroy all the end crystals with a bow, snowballs, eggs, or another projectile. This is because the end crystals will heal the ender dragon. You could destroy them by hitting them with a sword, but they explode when destroyed, so it is best to destroy them from afar. If for some reason you do not have a bow or snowballs, you can use ladders or ender pearls to get to the top of the obsidian towers. You can also 'climb' up with water, but be careful while on top, as the ender dragon might knock you off.
  2. Now you have to defeat the ender dragon. This is the hardest task, as an ender dragon has 100 hearts (200 HP) and can deal a large amount of damage. You will see a pinkish-purple bar at the top showing the ender dragon's health. You must also be wary of endermen, which are very abundant in the End. It is wise to wear a pumpkin as a helmet, (so the endermen don't bother you) and at least one piece of diamond armor. The best way to damage the ender dragon is with a bow and arrows, so having at least one stack of arrows just for the ender dragon is recommended. Enchanting a bow with the "Infinity" enchantment removes worry of running out of arrows, allowing you to focus on defeating the dragon. When the dragon gets low on health it will fly to the middle and sit on the end fountain. When the dragon is sitting on the end fountain, it is immune to projectile damage, so you must hit it with a sword or an axe to kill it.
  3. When it dies, it will burst into lights and disintegrate, dropping lots and lots of experience. An end portal will appear below its death location. A dragon egg will also appear, which you can collect with a piston or other methods.

Step 5: Finishing Off the End

  1. Collect the dragon egg. Currently there is no purpose for the dragon egg, besides keeping it as a keepsake.
  2. Jump into the end portal, the end poem will be displayed.
  3. Read the story, the credits and the quote. If you do not want to read all this, press escape.

Step 6: Prepare For the Wither

  1. Get your strongest and most protective bows, swords and armor, enchant them to the max. Bring 2 stacks of tipped arrows of Healing II, unless your bow has Infinity, which use normal arrows, in which case you only need one arrow.
  2. Brew potions of Swiftness, Regeneration, Strength, and splash potions of Healing.
  3. Potion of the Turtle Master, optional (to avoid many injuries)
  4. Totem of Undying, optional
  5. Jump into a Nether portal and find a nether fortress.
  6. Slay as many wither skeletons as you need until you get three wither skeleton skulls. It is advisable to carry and use Looting swords, as they increase the chance of getting a skull.
  7. Go dig some soul sand. You'll see why in a moment!

Step 7: Creating the Wither

  1. Pick a suitable spot for the boss fight. It should be far away from any of your creations or buildings.
  2. Place four soul sand in a "T" shape, then place two of the skulls that you obtained earlier on top. Do not place the last skull on top until you are prepared to fight.

Step 8: Fighting the Wither

  1. The wither will be immune to attacks for a few seconds, when it is blue. After the health bar is filled up, the wither will release a massive explosion.
  2. It shoots wither skulls, both of which inflict the Wither II effect on Normal or above. The black skulls create explosions that are similar to that of a creeper. The blue skulls create a special explosion, which can destroy obsidian. It is advised to bring a bow as the wither flies around often out of the player’s reach. The wither can heal itself by draining the health of passive mobs, so keep far away from large groups of them.
  3. Once half its health is drained, an effect called Wither Armor comes onto the wither. It is represented by white stripes on the wither, which protects it from projectile attacks. When hit with a sword, the Wither Armor glows red. This status also negates its ability to fly, so the arrows aren’t necessary anyway. When it reaches half health, just beware of its dash attack and wither skeleton summoned (Bedrock Edition). Also, its more challenging in this edition, due to double health.

Step 9: Completing the Game

  1. Once the wither is slain, it will drop 50 experience and 1 nether star. This is used to craft a beacon. Check out the page to see how it works, and how it is crafted.
  2. Once you've defeated the wither and crafted a beacon, you have officially completed Minecraft! Congratulations!

Step 10: The Ocean Monument (Optional)

In the middle of a vast ocean, there may lie a gigantic ocean monument, with treasures of blocks of gold and wet sponges. The mobs inside are dangerous, however. It is the place where 3 Elder Guardian, which considered as a Boss in Bedrock Edition spawn.

  1. It is recommended to come with Protection III or higher diamond armor, as well as potions of Night Vision, Regeneration, Water Breathing, and the Depth Strider enchantment on your boots.
  2. Potion of Invisibility is also recommended.
  3. The guardians inside are formidable with their lasers and all, but the true challenges are the elder guardians. They prevent you from mining the treasures before you defeat all the elder guardians in the structure due to a Mining Fatigue effect.
  4. There are 8 block of gold inside monument, as the main treasure.
  5. To locate the ocean monument, first go to village and see for cartographer villager, then buy the ocean explorer map, follow the mark destination and preferentially use the boat to cross ocean.
  6. When you see it, drink Potion of Water Breathing and Night Vision before approaching the monument, then don't wear any armor and use invisible potions, now carefully enter monument, without attacking the guardians outside monument (you can sprint-swim), they can't see you, so they will instead only harm the squid in the area.
  7. After enter the gate of the ocean monument, go to another room before wearing your armor (to avoid guardians from outside enter and attacking you).
  8. Make your way to right wings, left wings and top most room to kill all 3 elder guardians (see the elder guardian section in Combat).
  9. After they killed, mining fatigue effect will end and you can collect all sponge and 8 block of gold. You have finally defeated the third boss in Bedrock Edition.
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