Nether Fortresses are large structures that spawn in the Nether. It is essential to explore them to progress, as they are the only places you can find blaze rods and wither skeleton skulls. Furthermore, it is also one of the two places where nether warts spawn. In this article, we are going to showcase how to find and defeat a nether fortress in Minecraft.
How to find a Nether Fortress
You should be prepared to venture several hundred blocks, possibly even thousands, in multiple directions to find the nether fortress in Minecraft. A Nether Fortress is a large structure that stands out from the ordinary red (or grey or blue, depending on your biome). The usual Fortress is massive, made out of dark red bricks and filled with dangerous monsters. It is common to get lost or killed here if you are not careful.
How to locate a Nether Fortress
If you create your nether portal near your spawn point in the Overworld, the portal on the other side will be near the world center in the Nether. Explore the 4 regions surrounding it first to try to find a Fortress: northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast directions. A Fortress will not spawn in a zone that already has a Bastion.
Cheats to find Nether Fortress
- If you have the seed of your world you can enter it into a number of online apps that will show you where all the nether fortresses in your world are.
- If you are annoyed with trying to find a nether fortress and have cheats turned on, you can run the command /locate fortress which will return the coordinates of the nearest nether fortress.
How to beat a Nether Fortress
The Fortress can get really hard to navigate, as it looks like any other terrain in the Nether. When exploring, try to mark your entrance with torches. Place torches liberally to create a route that you can follow in case you need to get out. Always put torches on the right-hand wall, or if you must, on the floor. To get out again, just follow torches on your left.
Prepare the following items when exploring the Nether Fortress in Minecraft:
- Iron weapons and armor (or better)
- Bow and arrows
- Iron pickaxe or better
- Food, golden apple, potions, lots of torches.
Don't dawdle around or waste time. Always pay attention to your location - especially if you want to check your inventory. Make a 2 block tall arch every now and then to escape wither skeletons. Try to find as many chests as you can, and take the loot.
There are two levels in a fortress, the corridors and the bridges. Your key prizes are a nether wart plantation and a blaze spawner. If you find a nether wart plantation, dig up all nether warts and soul sand. The plantations are usually in an intersection, be sure to block off the tunnels with a non-flammable block before harvesting warts. The blaze spawners are on top of the bridges, partially enclosed by fences. Surrounding it with Glowstones to summon blazes.
How to defeat specific monsters
To beat the Nether Fortress, you have to defeat all the zombies and monsters there. Here's the way to go.
- Wither Skeletons: Sprint attack them, like creepers, or shoot them with arrows
- Skeletons: Block with shields and hit/shoot
- Piglins: Same as skeletons
- Zombified Piglins: Ignore them, as they are just too much trouble for their worth.
- Blazes: Kill them with fire resistance as they deal no damage if you have the status effect.
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