Beacons are essential for a Minecraft base. Their light beam serves as a location marker that can be spotted from far away, while their buffs give players huge advantages when they are in a specific area. Because of this, Beacons are one of the most popular rare blocks in the game, despite how hard it is to get one.

In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase how to make a beacon in Minecraft 1.19.

Beacon
Beacon In Minecraft

1. How to craft a beacon block in Minecraft

Firstly, you need to craft the beacon block itself. Here are the required materials for one single beacon block:

  • 3x Obsidian
  • 5x Glass
  • 1x Nether Star

The first 2 materials are fairly easy to get. Obsidian can be mined using a diamond pickaxe after pouring water into lava. Glass can be created by smelting sand in a furnace. The Nether Star, however, is a bit trickier.

How to get a Nether Star

In order to get the Nether star, you must defeat the Wither, which is a boss mob in the game.

To summon a wither in Minecraft, you need to get three Wither Skulls by farming Wither Skeletons. Get a sword with Looting III and start working on it - you might need to kill hundreds of skeletons to get them. At least this Minecraft mob is not too challenging. You can also try to lead a Charged Creeper through a portal - its explosions guaranteed a skull drop from Wither Skeletons.

Summon a Wither
Summon a Wither in Minecraft

Build a T block with Soul Sand or Soul Soil, then place the three skulls on top. Upon spawning, the Wither would cause a big explosion, clear out everything in the area.

As the Wither is essentially Minecraft's strongest enemy, you need a full set of end game gear to beat the Wither in a straight fight. A full set of diamond/netherite armor and weapons are required, along with lots of healing, regeneration potions and food. You also need Milk to cure the Wither effect as well.

Upon death, the Wither drops a Nether Star, which can be used to craft a beacon.

2. How to build a beacon in Minecraft

For a beacon to work, players need to place it on top of a pyramid-shaped foundation made from blocks. The beacon must also have access to the sky. The base can be made from the following block types: Iron, Gold, Diamond, Emerald, and Netherite.

Overall, the cheapest option is Iron, as you can mine plenty of it everywhere. Farming a village's Iron Golem is also an option. If you happen to have an efficient Villager trading system, you can also use emeralds.

How to farm iron from village

Iron golem farming uses the automatic spawn mechanic of villages. However, there are a couple of requirements that players need to fulfill for that to happen:

A villager would attempt to spawn an iron golem if there are no golems alive within a 16 block radius around the villager, and more than 30 seconds have passed. An iron golem needs an available volume in which to spawn (at least 3 transparent blocks above the spawning surface).

Iron Golem
Iron Golems can be used as protection for villages or players.

Players can cage a zombie inside the village to increase the spawn rate of iron golems. If the zombie is seen by villagers, they panic and try to spawn golems.

Afterwards, build a two-floor sleeping bunker with 10 beds on each and a stairway between them. Add at least one doorway to at least one bridge that rises up high enough to fit an iron golem underneath.

common farm design
A common farm design with 20 villagers, beds and spawn platforms.

Afterward, make 7-8 blocks of spawning area all around the bunker. (starting 1 block higher than the lowest floor of the bunker). Things are easy from here on - players only need to build a channel to guide the iron golems into a killing area, which requires a block of lava, a hopper, and a collection chest.

How to build the beacon pyramid

There are four possible pyramid heights. More pyramid levels make more powers available in a wider affected vicinity. The type of mineral block used to build the pyramid is entirely cosmetic and has no functional effect. Several different block types can be mixed without affecting functionality.

Beacon Pyramid
It is recommended to build the 4 layer pyramid, as it provide one extra power and has the biggest area of effect.
Level Mineral blocks Materials Layers
1 9 81 3×3, beacon
2 34 306 5×5, 3×3, beacon
3 83 (1 stack + 19 blocks) 747 7×7, 5×5, 3×3, beacon
4 164 (2 stacks + 36 blocks) 1476 9×9, 7×7, 5×5, 3×3, beacon

Full powered beacon

This design allows you to have multiple powers selected at any time, while also using as few blocks as possible to build the foundation.

It requires a total of 244 mineral blocks, with a base layer of 10 by 11.

Efficient Beacon
Players can gather all 6 beacons and place them on a slightly bigger base to get all the powers at the same time.

How to change beacon colors

The beacon ray can also be colored by placing a dyed glass block on top of the beacon block, which adds a nice element of customization.

Minecraft Colorful Beacons
Colorful beacons

3. How to select beacon powers

To set the beacon's powers, right-click on it to bring up the interface. To start using beacon power, players must give it either a Netherite ingot, an emerald, diamond, gold ingot, or an iron ingot. This does not depend on the material of the pyramid.

The five Primary Powers are:

  • Haste I: Increased mining and attack speed.
  • Speed I: Increased movement speed.
  • Jump Boost I: Increased jumping distance and height (2-level pyramid required).
  • Resistance I: Decreased nearly all incoming damage (2-level pyramid required).
  • Strength I: Increased melee damage (3-level pyramid required).

The Secondary Powers available with a 4-level pyramid are:

  • Regeneration I: Regenerates health.
  • Increasing the Primary Power to level II.

When powers are changed or a player travels outside the area-of-effect, the powers persist for 5–9 seconds, or 13-17 seconds with a full pyramid.

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