We all know some of the simplest ways to gain Experience in Minecraft are by mining, defeating mobs and players, trading, fishing or even burning things in the furnace.
But some of these just takes a little too much of your time and will bore you to tears watching the XP meter go up ever so slowly.
So what exactly are the quickest and current ways to get XP in Minecraft without having to exert much effort?
Check out this list for the Top 10 Best Ways to get XP in Minecraft!
10. Mining for Nether Quartz
The Nether Quartz Ore will spawn in a pattern (as shown above)
One of the easiest and fastest ways to gain XP is to mine nether quartz found in large amounts in the Nether. The Nether Quartz Ore is one of the new blocks in the 1.5 update of Minecraft and one block drops one nether quartz and 2 – 5 Experience Points when mined with any pickaxe.
How does Mining for Nether Quartz work?
- Firstly, you’d need to find a block of nether quartz ore to dig up. Which should be easy to spot as these quartz are fairly abundant in the Nether. It will appear as a group of lighter coloured blocks.
TIP: A Potion of Night Vision helps if you’re having trouble looking for it in the dark. To mine the nether quartz, you need to dig up the nether quartz ore with a pickaxe. Click here to see the crafting recipe for various kinds of pickaxe.
NOTE: Trying to dig up the nether quartz ore with your hand or other tools will not work.Continue to dig ‘til the block breaks and the nether quartz will appear on the ground.
Make sure you pick up the nether quartz before it disappears. Once you pick it up, you will find it in your hotbar.
Another tip is to go on Peaceful and mine as much as you want (without facing ghasts and other hostile mobs in the Nether).
9. Killing the Ender Dragon
One of the most dangerous creatures you will probably ever face in Minecraft is the Ender Dragon, giving you a hefty 12,000 XP. “So how can I kill it if I’m still pretty new and still looking to get more XP?” Well, it can be done, with the right weapons and tools of course. Then, the only things you’d need to know are – How to get to the End, What to bring, and How to defeat it.
How does Killing the Ender Dragon work?
- To get to the End, essentially, you will need at least 12 Eyes of Ender to find the End Portal. To obtain this, you must kill as much Endermen as you can in the Overworld and gather the ender pearls. And kill some blazes in the Nether to collect their blaze rods. Combining these two will give you the Eyes of Ender.
- When preparing for the dangerous journey ahead, bring some cooked food, a bed, Ender Pearls, Obsidian (This and the End Stone are the only blocks the Ender Dragon won’t be able to smash through.), Diamond armor and Diamond Helmet or Pumpkin Helmet (helps with the Endermen), Diamond sword and pickaxe, bows and arrows (It is highly recommended to enchant these items), and potions of healing and regeneration.
- There are two stages to defeating the Ender Dragon. First, you must destroy the End Crystals (found on top of the Obsidian Pillars) as these cause the Ender Dragon’s health to regenerate once it gets near.
TIP: Prepare to dodge when destroying these as the Ender Dragon will fire an attack when they break. - Once all the crystals are destroyed, target the Ender Dragon with your bow. Aim for the head to deal more damage and let go of the arrows when it starts to hover over you. Dodge the attack when necessary and use your sword when it gets close. After it flies away again, you should have enough time to heal yourself and wait for its next attack. Repeat until the creature falls. There will be an explosion of orbs to collect and a TON of XP.
8. Breeding
Arguably, the most convenient and cheapest ways to gain XP by far is by breeding. With only a small amount of food and two trapped animals of the same kind, you will be able to breed and have readily available resources at the same time. Each breeding will get you 1-7 XP.
How does Breeding work?
- Collect food (according to what animal you want to breed) and harvest some wood.
- Build the enclosure. Whether a small pen or a large field, the best way to do this is by using fences and gates as they are 1.5 blocks high making it difficult for the mobs (animals) to jump out.
- The next thing you’ll need to do is find the animals, use a specific food item according to the animal (See the breeding formula here). Once the animal notices that you’re holding its favourite food, it will follow you anywhere allowing it to be fenced in.
TIP: Hold any other item other than the food so the animal won’t follow you out of the enclosure. - Now, you can start breeding them. Just hold out the food, right-click on the animal and let nature take its course.
7. Creating a Simple Mob Farm
While it is slightly time-consuming, a highly efficient way to get XP is to build a simple Mob Farm. This is one of the easier farms to build and makes use of mobs that spawn in natural conditions. You will only need a dark room to spawn mobs and then various options to funnel them into a central location so you can start hacking away at them and gain XP easily.
How does Creating a Simple Mob Farm work?
- The first and most important thing to consider in building a simple mob farm is to know the right location. Farms floating in the sky (in Superflat worlds) provide the best spawn rates in day or night time as you are far away from the caves and becomes the only viable spawn ground. Under the ocean is also a great location as there are fewer natural caves to compete with, hence, more spawn rates.
TIP: Setting the difficulty to Hard will spawn more mobs. - Next is crafting a simply designed Mob Farm. For this, essentially, you will only need cobblestones or any block you’d like to use and a couple of buckets of water.
- First, create the tower. Each side of the tower should be two blocks wide and about 26-28 tall (The mobs will weaken when falling to the ground from this height.) This should look like a 28-block-tall tower with a 2x2 space in the middle.
- At the top, add seven blocks on each side of the tower which should result with 4 branches in total and 8 blocks in length pointing out from the hole. (This is because the water, you will put in later, will stop running after 8 blocks.)
- Next, create a two-block-tall wall around the branches to prevent mobs from jumping out once they fall in. Then fill in the area between the branches. This should look like a large rectangular platform with 4 canals pointing to the hole.
- Then build a wall two blocks high around the platform.
- Add water at the end of each canal. (The water’s current will direct all the spawned mobs to the hole in the center and falling down a 28-block-high tower).
- At the very bottom, open up 2 blocks to see the collected mob that has spawned over time and begin hacking at them while getting the dropped XP and resources.
6. Going out on a Killing Spree
If you are confident with your killing skills and have pretty decent armour and weapons, then you should wait until night time, go out into the darkness and slaughter a few mobs freely wandering about. This is another great way to gain XP quickly.
How does Going out on a Killing Spree work?
- Before going out on a killing spree you must first know how to handle each of the mobs and learn their weaknesses. (Refer to the video above)
- To prepare, make sure you have enough cooked, some pretty good weapon (the best one would be a Diamond Sword) and a few bows and arrows.
- It’s best to go to a desert/mesa/plain or other “flat” biomes for it’s easier to spot mobs and there are higher spawn rates.
- For zombies and spiders, they are fairly easy to kill and a sword will suffice.
- For skeletons, it is best if you also use a bow and arrow (same as them).
- Once you hear hissing sounds, then it’s probably a Creeper. You may also use a bow for them.
- If you see Endermen, avoid looking at them in the eyes as they will teleport next to you. Try wearing a Pumpkin Helmet so they won’t see you (Although it might limit some of your vision).
- Killing these monsters will drop 3-5 XP per kill. And 12 XP for killing Baby Zombies and Baby Zombie Pigmen. So you might want to hunt for these little bastards if you can.
5. Mining Certain Blocks
It might sound very basic as mining is basically the entire point to the game. And while the Nether Quartz Ore might be one of the blocks to drop the most XP, what we might not notice is just how much XP the other blocks can provide as well. From Coals to the rare Emeralds and Diamonds, you might not know, but mining these will actually drop from 1-7 XP.
How does Mining Certain Blocks work?
- For the rare ores, Emeralds can be found in an extreme hills biome, Diamonds are found beneath layer 16 when mining or spelunking (or cave exploring), Redstone ore forms in veins and can be found below layer 14 (Mining it with a Fortune enchanted pickaxe will increase yields) and the highest concentration of Lapis Lazuli Ore is found between levels 13 and 16.
- It is best to use iron or diamond pickaxe when mining these ores. This is because iron is pretty common and has a greater mining speed and durability, the same goes for diamond.
- Blowing up TNT is one of the fastest ways to mine and as of version 1.14, TNT will drop 100% of its items. Although, it will require you to kill a large number of creepers for gunpowder and obtain lots of sand.
- Destroying Mob Spawners, a rare type of block, will also drop from 15 to 43 XP!
4. Collecting Bottles O’ Enchanting
Collecting Bottles O’ Enchanting is also an easier way to gain XP. It is a bottle that releases experience orbs and each bottle when thrown, will drop 3-11 XP. Now, all you need to know is where and how to find them.
How does Collecting Bottles O’ Enchanting work?
- One of the known ways to obtain this is through Trading. Master-level cleric villagers sell bottles o’ enchanting for 3 emeralds as part of their trade.
- Another way is through Natural Generation. They can be found in 14% of shipwreck treasure chests and 60% of pillager outpost chests. Meanwhile, in Bedrock Edition, they can be found in about 12% of buried treasure chests in stacks of 1.
- To find out more about Bottle O’ Enchanting, Click here.
3. Using Enchantments/Special Items
Enchantments or Enchants are special bonuses or abilities that can be applied to armour, tools or weapons. When you’re already in the further levels, and you have access to some great enchants, you can level up your mining and gain even more XP.
How does Using Enchantments/Special Items work?
- It may be applied to items through the use of an enchantment table or an anvil if the player has acquired Enchanted Books.
- One of the best Enchantments to use to boost your Experience is using Experience III on your pickaxe when mining as it grants 37.5% chance for mobs and ores to drop double experience orbs.
- Silk Touch is another great enchantment to use when mining. It grants players to harvest blocks that are normally very difficult to obtain and allows them to get the exact item that they mined for.
- Sharpness (level I-V) is a pretty common enchantment to use for swords or axes. And can be great for killing monsters to gain XP fast as it makes the weapon do extra damage (for example an iron sword’s amount of damage will equal to that of the diamond sword). The same goes for Smite, a rarer enchantment that will deal greater damage when hunting for the undead.
- Some special items can also boost your XP. An example is the Lapis Armor Set (including Helmets, Boots, Leggings and Chestplates). Using a single Lapis Armor item will grant 50% bonus experience when mining ores and when using, perhaps 4, you will gain 200% more XP when mining!
2. Building a Spawner Trap
Monster Spawners or Mob Spawners are these cage-like blocks you can see in dungeons. When mined with a pickaxe, it will easily break and drop about 15-43 XP but if mined without a pickaxe or with a different tool, it will give NO XP at all. But other than that, using mob spawners to build traps is also a highly effective way to gain XP without using many resources.
How does Building a Spawner Trap work?
- First, you will have to find a Zombie or Skeleton Spawner (Skeleton is preferable for the number of resources you will also get). You will most likely find them in dungeons or caves.
- Once you do, wall it in having a gap of 3 blocks above the spawner and 4 blocks below and 4-block gaps on the sides. After, you should have a room that’s 8 blocks high and 9x9 blocks wide with a floating spawner in the middle.
TIP: While building you can place some torches to prevent mobs from spawning. - Pick a side of the room to stand on and start placing water on one side of the room. You will notice that the water will stop flowing after 8 blocks.
- At the 9th block, dig down 2 blocks right across. Put a bucket of water on both sides of the dug up trench, find the center where the mob spawner is and where the two streams of water meet and dig a hole horizontally allowing the water to flow across and put signs to stop the water.
- Begin to place water upwards (so the Zombies/Skeletons will move upwards as they get dragged by the water’s stream) along with the signs until you reach the 24th block.
- At the top of the upward stream, note where the mob spawner is and dig 5 blocks across to the opposite side. On the 5th block, dig down and put a sign to stop the stream of water and dig further downwards to make a 21-block drop.
- At the bottom (21th block) is where the Zombies and Skeletons will land. Make a little room down there and light it up to make sure nothing spawns in the room. (This is where you’ll be in to kill the Zombies and collect the resources and Experience). Close off the Zombie hole, leaving only enough space for your sword to kill them.
1. Automating XP Farms
The most popular way to automate farms is probably through the use of Redstone. It is one of the more advanced and current concepts in Minecraft. Redstone dust, obtained by mining Redstone ore, can be spread across the ground as wire, attach it to levers or doors and craft it into torches and repeaters to build machines. It can also automate Spawner traps to make a wire leading to a switch or a button and will definitely make for a more modern XP farm. Learn more about Redstone Dust and its various uses here.
How does Automating XP Farms work?
- Aside from Redstone, another way to automate your XP farm would be through the use of Mob Grinders. Mob grinders could be used for the last part of a mob farm and are used to kill mobs in massive amounts while also collecting all dropped items in a convenient location such as chests (using hoppers attached to these chests can also automatically store your resources and XP).
- There are countless of ways to automatically kill Mobs, one example is by using Lava Retrieval Traps. You can direct the water canals so that the last part will be lava. Once a Zombie/ any other mob touches the lava, it will automatically die leaving behind XP. You can craft a design to suspend lava so that the resources falling down won’t burn and be able to safely store in chests.
This list is not ranked in any order. Some of these methods may work for you depending on how much experience and knowledge you have about the game. Some of these methods are friendly to new players and some are for old players to discover and try out.
