Breaking



Breaking, digging, punching, or mining is one of the most fundamental activities in Minecraft, performed (by default) by holding the left mouse button while the cursor is over a block. Digging is used to create passages and tunnels, to clear away unwanted blocks, and is also the primary way of acquiring blocks for future placement or crafting.

Basics of digging/mining
Digging is accomplished simply by the "Attack" control (normally holding the left mouse button) while the cursor is over a block. If the player is within a range of about 4 meters of the target (the player's reach in a straight line is just under 4 meters/blocks; testing shows about 3.975. Diagonally the player can reach 2 and 13/16th blocks); the player will begin swinging his/her hand, making a repetitive "thump" noise as the player hits the block, and cracks will begin to appear. When the player is in range, the block will also be marked with a wireframe cube outline, showing the current target. After the cracks completely cover the block, it will break, and depending on the type of block and the tool being wielded, it may be harvested for resources.

Although many blocks can be harvested with bare hands, the harder ones require the use of a tool. In particular, to get resources from stone or metal-type blocks, the player will need to use a pickaxe. For harder blocks like iron ore or obsidian, not just any pickaxe will do; the player needs one made from sufficiently hard materials. The player can also use shovels and axes to speed up digging of dirt and wood-type blocks (respectively), although they are not required to get the resource drop. The downside is that tools have durability, and so they eventually wear out.

The player will continue to dig as long as the mouse button is held down, although there is a slight pause of 0.25 seconds between destroying one block and beginning on the one behind it. The player can move freely while digging, and the player can even dig while jumping or swimming. Although there is a speed penalty for the latter two, see below. This makes it easy to dig long tunnels or to clear away a large volume of material.

A potentially dangerous thing that many new players do is dig directly down. This can lead the player into falling into a cave without any light source, being killed by mobs, or falling into lava. For similar reasons, it is not recommended to dig up either, due to the fact that a monster or lava can fall onto the player. Another common mistake made by new players is to stand right next to the wall at which the player is digging. If there is a monster right behind it, it will be able to attack the player. Also, at lower levels, the player might dig into a pool of lava that could potentially kill them, but with proper precautions, this can be avoided.

The player can lose his/her digging progress if the target block changes while digging, so it is best to target the middle of a block's face. Progress is also reset whenever the mouse button is released. This can be used to the player's advantage because of a quirk in the handling of the "cooldown" between blocks: the 0.25 second cooldown is reset when the player releases the mouse. Thus, with proper timing the player can "click mine," increasing the player's overall digging throughput. The "thump" noise is helpful for gauging this: it plays exactly 5 times per second, starting as soon as the player clicks. For example, mining stone with an iron pickaxe takes 0.4 seconds, so there are two thumps plus a little extra time before the block breaks. It used to be possible to "switch mine" by switching targets right as the block broke to accomplish the same thing, but that no longer resets the cooldown. However, moving (walking/etc) while breaking does seem to reset the cooldown; tools enchanted with efficiency and a slight diagonal aim are the best way to use this.

Digging speed
The speed at which the player digs is controlled by three factors: The block the player is breaking, the item the player is currently wielding, and the mining penalties affecting the player. Every block has a hardness, which determines the base amount of time to break that block if the player hits it with his/her bare hands. The base time in seconds is the block's hardness multiplied by 1.5. The first adjustment to this is based on whether the player can harvest the block with current tool. If the player cannot, then the base time is multiplied by 3.33.

Assuming that the player can harvest the block, the next check is whether the player's tool helps speed digging for this block. By and large, pickaxes speed up (and are required for) mining, axes help chop wood, and shovels dig dirt/gravel faster.

If the tool helps, then it increases digging speed by a constant multiplier, given in the following table:

Although swords do not count as "helping" to harvest a block, they perform 1.5 times better (regardless of material) than bare hands or other items on some blocks (see: Sword), although swords take double durability loss when harvesting blocks. All swords have a speed multiplier of 15 against cobwebs. Shears have a multiplier of 15 against cobwebs and leaves, and 5 against wool.

Lastly, digging can be slowed if the player is not on the ground. There is a 5x penalty (digging takes five times as long) if the player is not standing on the ground while digging. There is also a 5x penalty to digging while in water. If the player is swimming, (underwater and not walking on the bottom,) then the two combine for a whopping 25x penalty, making it very difficult to dig even with tools. However, if the player cannot harvest with the current tool then only the original 3.33x penalty applies, and none of the other adjustments are made.

Blocks by hardness
The following table shows the time it takes to break each type of block. Values with a red background indicate that it cannot be harvested by that quality of tool. If there is no tool that helps speed up mining the block, the five "tool" columns are left empty. Few blocks are harvested faster with shears or a sword. These speeds are listed in the last two columns, but only if it's different than "nothing".

Note that some blocks, don't drop anything even when they are mined with the proper tool; these are marked with a yellow background.

edit values

Best tools
Fastest tools to mine specific blocks:

Mechanics of breaking and efficiency, and insta-break, in detail
The "time" it takes to break a block is 30 ticks per unit of hardness, assuming a tool with a total speed of 1. Hands on a hand-harvestable block (most axe or shovel blocks) are an example of this. This can be called the "Break Units" for the block.

Each tick, your tool will do its speed value; when the total equals or exceeds the block's Break Units, then the block is broken. If it is _exceeded_ by the tool, then the block is broken instantly, without the 1/4 second (5 tick) pause.

Efficiency, if non-zero, adds in E^2 + 1 for the level of efficiency. So, efficiency 1 adds in 2, while efficiency 5 adds in 26.

Some examples will make this clearer.
 * 1) Grass has a hardness of 0.6, so it has 18 Break Units. By hand, this is 18 ticks, or 0.9 seconds as shown in the chart. E3 has a bonus of 10 (3*3 + 1). So a tool with a speed of 8 (diamond shovel), at efficiency 3, should break a grass block in one tick, but still have a 1/4 second delay between multiple blocks.
 * 2) A total of 19, however, will break the grass instantly, with no delay. E4 has a bonus of 17 -- 4*4 +1. So a tool with speed of 2 (wooden shovel) will break a line of grass with no delay between blocks.
 * 3) Stone has 45 Break Units. E5 is a bonus of 26, so even a gold pickaxe (+12) will only be 38, and still takes two ticks to remove. Add in a haste beacon, and E6 is a bonus of +37. A diamond pick is +8, so an E5 diamond pick, and a haste 1 beacon, make a total of 45 -- remove the stone block in one tick, but still have the quarter second delay.
 * 4) A gold pick, with E5 and a beacon, will remove stone instantly (the tool is effective against stone), but will not harvest most ores (most ores require a higher mining level than a gold pick). So this setup allows for rapid removal of stone around ores, leaving the ores exposed for retrieval with a fortune 3 pick.
 * 5) A normal diamond pick has a speed of 8; an E1 diamond pick has a speed of 10. Stone takes 45 to break, so a normal pick takes 6 ticks, and an E1 pick takes 5 ticks. An E2 diamond pick has a speed of 13, and takes 4 ticks. An E3 diamond pick has a speed of 18, and takes 3 ticks. An E4 pick has a speed of 17+8=25, and takes 2 ticks. Note that this means that an E4 diamond pick and an E5 diamond pick both take 2 ticks to harvest the stone block, but an E5 pick benefits significantly from a haste 2 beacon.
 * 6) The highest natural speed in vanilla is an E5 gold tool, at 26 + 12 = 38 Break Units. The highest long-lasting speed is an E5 diamond tool, at 26 + 8 = 34 Break Units. For most blocks, the difference is insignificant; for an ender chest (hardness 22.5, or a block total of 675), E5 diamond takes 20 ticks, and E5 gold takes 18 ticks. In comparison, an E4 diamond pick (17 + 8 = 25) would take 27 ticks.

Once the time is less than 1 tick, further speed improvements are meaningless. So, while the breaking table above lists speeds that are less than 1/20th of a second (less than 0.05 seconds), there is no effective difference.

In practical terms, with un-enchanted iron and diamond tools, this only makes a difference when the block's total is 5 or less. An iron tool will do 6; a diamond tool will do 8; both will break a block with 5 or fewer Break Units instantly. For vanilla blocks, the hardness is always a multiple of 0.1, so this only affects blocks with a hardness of 0.1 -- snow layers will be picked up by an iron shovel at one layer per tick.

When gold tools are considered, or efficiency enchantments, then there are many cases where "better" is not faster -- for many cases, gold and diamond are the same instant-break, for example (hardness of 0.2 or less), or at efficiency 2, iron and diamond are equal for 0.4 or less.

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