What You Need To Know About Lodestone In Minecraft

 

The 1.16 Nether update added a lot of new content to Minecraft, some of which hasn't gotten nearly as much coverage as it deserves. For a long time, one of the most difficult challenges for players was navigating other dimensions such as the Nether and the End without using the F3 screen or having to build tall cobblestone towers.

The lodestone, a special stone that can be used as a waypoint marker, was introduced by Mojang as a solution. However, not everyone is familiar with the details of how the lodestone works, where to get it, or how to make it. Here's a short guide to the lodestone, your greatest salvation, if you're having trouble using a compass and finding your way.

It's possible to use it to bind compasses.

While lodestones are attractive and can be used as expensive decorative blocks, their primary purpose is to hold compasses together. Simply right-click on a lodestone with an unbound, normal compass in your right hand to tie the compass to it. If you're not sure how to construct a compass, check out our tutorial here.

Your compass will now still point to the direction of the lodestone, no matter where you go inside that dimension. When you want to easily mark a spot without having to enter the F3 debug screen and write down your coordinates, this is awesome. Simply put, it's more immersive.

A pickaxe is needed.

Although the lodestone contains Netherite, it does not need a diamond-tier pickaxe to break. When it comes to breaking and picking up your lodestone, any pickaxe of any tier, from wooden to Netherite, will suffice.

You should be aware that attempting to smash the lodestone with something other than a pickaxe would not only take a long time, but will also fail to drop the lodestone. Since lodestones are costly to craft and difficult to find, always have a pickaxe with you when putting or picking them up.

Breaking it frees it.

Another thing to keep in mind when breaking a lodestone is that any compasses attached to it would be unbound. This means you'll need to repair the lodestone and rebind the compasses to get your waypoint marker working again.

Compasses that are attached that aren't in your inventory can unbind themselves from a broken lodestone until you pick them up from a chest or other container.

Tied To An Advancement

With the 1.16 update, a number of new features were added, one of which was the lodestone feature. This advancement is unlocked when you first tie a compass to a lodestone.

Take Me Home, Country Lode is actually a clear reference to John Denver's popular Take Me Home, Country Road album. Given how costly and uncommon lodestones are, it's possible that you'll have to wait a while to unlock this progression.

Works In Every Dimension

The lodestone's main strength comes from its ability to work in each of the three dimensions: the overworld, the Nether, and the End, as previously mentioned. Previously, compasses would have been entirely useless in the last two dimensions, but lodestones enable compasses to work in both.

Exploration in a perplexing dimension like the Nether or the End becomes ten times simpler as a result of this. Lodestones can be used to mark Nether portals so you always know where you are going, or they can be used to mark structures you come across, such as faraway End Cities or Nether fortresses.

In Bastions, they're always found in bridge chests.

Lodestones can only be found in a Bastion Remnant, which is the only spot in the game where they can be found. These structures spawn at random in the Nether and are notorious for housing a large number of Piglins and a small number of Piglin Brutes. Gold, Netherite, and the Pigstep music disc are among the other valuable items found inside.

If there is a so-called Bridge chest within Bastion Remnants, lodestones have a 100% chance of spawning. These chests will often have a lodestone inside, so keep an eye out as you explore for a particular Bastion kind.

Compasses that are bound have a distinct appearance.

Regular compasses and bound compasses will have distinct appearances, making inventory management easy. A bound compass in the Java Edition has a classic enchanted, iridescent sheen to it, and the compass is called "Lodestone Compass" when you hover over it in your inventory.

Bound compasses in the Bedrock Edition have a turquoise or cyan glow that distinguishes them from standard compasses.

It is possible to make one, but it is expensive.

It is also possible to craft a lodestone if finding one proves difficult. The catch is that the recipe is very costly, since it necessitates the use of one Netherite ingot.

To make a lodestone, combine one Netherite ingot with eight Chiseled Stone Bricks. If you have a Stonecutter, the Chiseled Stone Bricks are simple to make; otherwise, they can be found in some ocean ruins.