Tutorials/Diamonds

Diamonds are some of the most sought-after items in Minecraft, due to their use in crafting the strongest tools, weapons, and armor available in the game. Diamonds are also some of the rarest items in Minecraft, found only in the deepest levels of rock. This makes diamonds extremely difficult to find and severely limits players' supplies of diamonds. This tutorial is intended to help players who want to obtain, maintain, and expand their diamond supply.

You must have an iron pickaxe, and preferably a water bucket, iron sword, and iron armor in order to mine diamonds, in addition to the usual caving supplies.

Finding Diamonds


Diamonds can be obtained from diamond ore, an extremely rare block that occurs in 0.1276% of stone from levels 1-15. There are two methods for locating ore: by caving or by mining. Either way, you'll need an iron pickaxe to mine the diamonds (also any gold and redstone you come across), but to save the durability on the iron pick, you'll want to also bring a stone pickaxe (and the means to make more) for clearing plain stone and lesser ores. You'll also want a supply of torches and wood for more (you'll likely find plenty of coal along the way). If you're caving, you'll want the usual supplies for that, notably armour and weapons.

By Caving
Caving is less resource-expensive (except in torches) than mining, but is more dangerous and time-consuming, since it requires you to explore a multitude of dark, monster-filled caves. To locate diamond ore by caving, simply explore any caves you find (either by locating surface entrances or digging) and work your way downward until you're below level 15 (the debug screen will help you check your depth). Ravines and shafts can provide shortcuts to the depths—creating a waterfall can help you get down (and back up) safely. Finding subterranean lava pools is a good hint that you're in the right depth range, but those are actually not the best place to find them—besides the hazard of lava, they can replace part of the ore body, leaving you with fewer diamonds to mine. (It's actually better to start mining whole stone, once you've established that you're at the right depth.) If you do see diamond ore veins exposed near a lava pool, use a water bucket to convert the surface of the pool into obsidian... then leave the area flooded while you mine. That way, if there's more lava under the diamond ore, the water will quench it before the lava can destroy your newly mined diamond(s). If you don't see diamonds immediately, don't give up - diamonds aren't considered rare for nothing. Search for more caves at similar levels, or switch to the next method: mining.

By Mining
Mining is safer and more reliable than caving, but consumes more tool-crafting resources. It also generates a lot of spare cobblestone, although in some cases this may be viewed as a downside rather than a benefit.

To create a diamond mine, first get down to the diamond layers. Besides following existing caves, you can just dig a vertical shaft, quarry, or staircase down to the diamond-containing layers (as you do this, remember the cardinal rule: don't dig the block you're standing on!). Most players prefer level 11, where diamonds are generally believed to be most common. Once there, begin branch-mining or mining long, level hallways two blocks high and one block wide. Sooner or later (often later) your mining will expose a diamond ore vein.

It's likely your mine will intersect several caves. Since any cave you locate while mining for diamonds is, by definition, at the right level for diamonds, it's a good idea to explore (and light) the cave before proceeding with your mine.

Mining Diamonds


Once you find a block or vein of diamond ore, you'll need to mine it to get the diamond gem it contains. Before you do this, though, make sure the area is safe: after all, you don't want to lose any diamonds!

First, if you've located the diamond ore by caving, light up or block off any nearby dark areas so you won't get blown up, shot, or eaten while attempting to mine. Next, dig away all blocks directly adjacent to the vein, both to expose the whole vein and to make sure the diamonds won't drop into lava and burn. If you encounter any lava, get rid of it before you mine the blocks.

Now that it's safe to mine, use an iron or diamond pickaxe to break the blocks. The blocks will drop one gem each, unless your pickaxe is enchanted with the Fortune enchantment (Fortune III, the highest level, will make ore drop as many as four diamonds, and on average nearly triples the yield of a diamond vein). The gems will be picked up into your inventory when you walk over them, provided your inventory has available space.

Now that you have diamonds, it's best to proceed directly to a safe place to stash them in a chest; this could be your home base or a secure mining outpost. Be careful to make the chest secure from attacks by creepers, or your precious new-found wealth could go up in smoke.

Using Your Diamonds
Now that you have diamonds, you can begin crafting some of the best items the game has to offer.

Diamond Tools
Diamonds can be used to make Shovels, Pickaxes, Axes, and Hoes that work faster (gold mines faster but is really weak) and lasts longer than any other tools. Most players use their first three diamonds to make a diamond pickaxe, the only tool in the game that can harvest Obsidian blocks.

Diamond Weapons and Armor
Diamond swords deal the most damage of any sword - seven points - and diamond armor protects the wearer better than any other form of armor. As with Diamond tools, they also last longer than swords and armor made from lower-quality materials.

Other Diamond Items
Diamonds are also used to make Jukeboxes, decorative diamond blocks, and, most importantly, Enchantment Tables, which allow players to convert Experience into valuable tool-improving enchantments.

Maintaining and Expanding Your Supply
Once you've realized how useful your first diamonds are, you'll probably want more. To this end, you'll need to continue mining. If you want to become truly diamond-rich, though, you'll need to do a few other things first.

Getting a Fortune III Pickaxe
You'll want a pickaxe with the Fortune Enchantment, preferably level III, for your next diamond vein so you can significantly improve the amount of diamonds you get. To enchant, you need an enchantment table, and to get an enchantment table, you'll need two diamonds. If your first vein was smaller than that, store what you have and return to the mines until you've gotten at least two gems.

Once you have at least five diamonds, use three of them to make a diamond pickaxe. Use the pickaxe to mine at least four blocks of obsidian. Bring the obsidian back to your base. Then get at least one piece of leather(cows drop 0-2 of them upon death), locate at least three Sugar Canes (sugar cane grows along shorelines in most Biomes), craft paper and then craft them into a book.

Now you can craft the enchantment table. You'll also need bookshelves to get a high-level Fortune III enchantment, so you'll want a sugar cane farm. See the page on enchanting for instructions on setting up the bookshelves.

You'll need to refer to the enchanting page for directions on enchanting tools as well, but in order to get Fortune III on an iron or diamond pickaxe you'll need to use nearly 30 levels of experience points, so an experience grinder is suggested unless you're willing to settle for a lower-level enchantment.

Once you've got a fortune pickaxe, return to mining as usual, reserving the pickaxe for veins of diamond or other valuable ores.

Repairing Tools
Repairing two tools doesn't just add their durability up - it adds some extra uses as well (10% bonus). Don't repair enchanted tools until they're just about to break, though, unless you don't mind wasting the precious experience you used to enchant them.

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 * Tutorials/Quarry
 * Tutorials/Branch Mining
 * Tutorials/Vertical Mine Shaft With Water Drop