Tutorials/Defeating temples

This page documents how to locate and defeat temples.

Desert temple


To find a desert temple, you can either look above ground, or search while mining. If you are underground and you run into a large, square formation of sandstone, it is a desert temple.

There is also a tool that can find desert temples for you, in case you don't want to search them yourself.

You can also use the command ( in java edition). Note: Using the locate command can only locate the nearest temple, no matter what kind of temple it is. It can be a desert temple, jungle temple, or even a witch hut or igloo. But if you're in a desert there's more chance for the nearest temple to be a desert temple. The same is with jungle (jungle temple), swamp (witch hut), and snowy tundra (igloo). As of Java Edition 1.13, desert temples, jungle temples, igloos and witch huts have their own seperate /locate commands.

When attempting to enter the hidden chamber, the player must take care not to step on the pressure plate at the bottom of the pit, as the plate is connected to 9 blocks of TNT just under the hidden chamber's sandstone floor. The pressure plate is situated directly under the blue terracotta. The TNT will cause an explosion sufficient to kill most players (and may even destroy the player's drops), as well as destroy all four of the chests, including their loot.

To avoid the trap, you can dig out one of the blocks orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to the center block, and reach the chamber by any of conventional methods. Or, if reached from below, it is possible just to mine the way into the chamber.

To see better in the treasure room, it is actually best to destroy the blue terracotta in the upper chamber first. During the day, the light from the sun will shine down into the room, reaching into the treasure room if the terracotta is removed.

There are a number of ways one can get down into the treasure room:
 * Build a staircase spiraling downward along the walls.
 * Dig out the blue terracotta and use a water bucket to get down.
 * Dig vertically below your feet to descend, digging a vertical channel down one wall. After ransacking the room, step back into the vertical channel, and, using the blocks you collected on the way down, jump into the air while placing one of the blocks below you. In this way you can ascend back up the wall.

After reaching the bottom, your first act should be to mine the pressure plate in the center to avoid accidentallly triggering an explosion. Don't forget to dig out the TNT after raiding the chests.

Finding
The dense foliage of jungle biomes tends to block jungle temples from sight. The easiest way of clearing the path is to burn the foliage with flint and steel.

The command can also be used and it's explained in the desert temple section.

Entering
A jungle temple is made up of 3 floors. The top 2 floors are just entrances, windows, and walkways - all the treasure, puzzles, and traps are on the bottom floor. There is an entrance already made on the 2nd floor, but sometimes it is buried in the ground.

If the entrance is in plain view, it's usually easiest to enter through the entrance. Otherwise, you can either excavate the entrance, or just bust a hole in the wall and go through that way. If hardly any of the temple is visible, it may be best to go through the roof. It is strongly recommended to enter on the 2nd or 3rd floor and make your way down, so that when you enter the temple, arrows shooting at you is not the first thing you must deal with.

Once you've entered, make sure to kill any monsters in the temple and light up everything with torches. When doing this on the ground floor, be careful not to step on any of the tripwires.

Puzzle


In each jungle temple, there is a puzzle, composed of a set of levers on the lower level. When the levers are flipped into the correct positions, a block on the middle level of the temple is removed from the floor, and a small room with a chest inside is revealed.

Alternatively, breaking through the walls with a pickaxe is an effective method of bypassing the puzzle and taking the loot.

Trap


When attempting to open the chest, the player must take care not to step on the tripwire in the middle of the hall. It looks like mossy cobblestone, but hidden behind some vines is a dispenser filled with arrows. The dispenser will fire when the tripwire is stepped on or broken without shears. If the player can't break it, hugging the right hand wall will cause the arrow to fly harmlessly past the player.

Tip: A good way to tell where the tripwires are is by running your mouse cursor over the floor, and you will know when it hits a tripwire.