Tutorials/Complete main adventure

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) and difficulty, although it is harder to beat the whole game only on Peaceful because finding a village to get Eyes of Ender from villager priests can be more time-consuming than fighting hostile mobs to obtain the required materials for locating and activating the End Portal.

Below 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.

Adventure Style
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 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 cobblestone pickaxe is obtained, use it to harvest a minimum of 3 iron ingots and a minimum of 1 coal. It is recommended to harvest 30 iron ingots to create iron armor and an iron sword, along with an iron pickaxe. 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.

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/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 directly down, taking care not to fall into the pit of lava under every portal. 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 floating blocks on the towers, or ender pearls to teleport on top of the towers and destroy the blocks. This is necessary as even one block 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 bellow 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

 * 1) 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.
 * 2) Enter The Nether by standing in your portal.
 * 3) 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.
 * 4) 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 can not 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.
 * 5) 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 is 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.
 * 6) Craft the blaze rods into Blaze Powder.
 * 7) 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.
 * 8) Try to find Nether Quartz ore, 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.
 * 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 the Enders 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.
 * 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 without an Eye of Ender already.  A portal should form.
 * 8) Jump into The End portal.  Make sure you are prepared, because you can not 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 over-world.)

Step 4: Killing the Ender Dragon
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 re-spawned. You can not get out of The End until you destroy the Ender Dragon.


 * 1) Destroy all the Ender Crystals with a bow, snowballs, or another projectile. This is because the Ender 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.
 * 2) Now you have to defeat the Ender Dragon. This is the hardest task, as an Ender Dragon has 100 hearts and can deal a large amount of damage. You will see a bar at the top showing the Ender Dragon's health. You must also be wary of Enderman, 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, as this will make the Ender Dragon unable to directly harm you.  They are still be able to push you around, so be careful near cliffs. 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. As of Minecraft 1.1 you can enchant bows, which can help greatly against the Ender Dragon, especially the "infinity" enchantment (but snowballs are good too).
 * 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 method.

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 ending story 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 arrows.
 * 2) Brew Swiftness, Regeneration, and Healing potions.
 * 3) Jump in a Nether portal and find a Nether Fortress.
 * 4) 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.
 * 5) Go mine 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 anyways.

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! Now you can return to real life. (what's that? Is it a mod?)