Item rarity is a mechanic in Minecraft that colors items with different hues when they are in the hotbar, which represents how useful or powerful they are, as well as how easy they are to obtain. Common items are white, while Uncommon ones are yellow. Rare items have a cyan coloration while the most elusive Epic items have a purple hue.
Those seeking to mine every kind of block and craft everything possible should be sure to keep an eye out for a few select items that will grant the player insane potential or lead to a recipe that will.
Thanks to these amazing updates, items are added to help players experience these updated areas. While some can be easily found while exploring the several areas, there are other items that can be more challenging to obtain. Thankfully, this list will help players find these rare items, and to help indicate which items truly are the rarest in Minecraft.
17 Elytra
Added during the 1.0 Update, the Elytra is a rare item that can be found only in the End Ships. The wings are the first and only item that will allow players to fly in Minecraft. After players defeat the End Dragon, they will need to scale the perilous land upwards towards the End Cities, where more mobs called Shulkers will prevent players from reaching the treasure room at the end of the End Ship. The Elytra will be hanging on an item frame in that room.
Flying is a dangerous and risky activity in Minecraft, especially for those in Hard Mode. Thankfully there are ways that players can avoid fall damage if they fly at a low enough speed or at a shallow angle. The Elytra can be enchanted for mending and can be repaired by Phantom Membranes.
16 Sponges
For the builders looking to work with water, this is a great block to utilize to move heavy amounts of liquid. The sponge block that is fairly uncommon and can be hard to obtain, but useful. By placing the block in water, it absorbs a big chunk of the water (7 units in 6 directions) to allow players to build in the ocean, ponds or rivers, or to simply catch their breath if they’re exploring underwater caves.
There are two ways that players can get this block. One is by killing an Elder Guardian. The next area is to explore the Ocean Monuments, where each room can contain around 30 wet sponges. After gathering the wet sponges, players will simply need to smelt the sponge with any fuel to create just a regular sponge. Another way to dry the sponge is to set it in the Nether, where it dries instantly. Or if placed in a dry biome in the Overworld, it will only take a few seconds for the sponge to dry.
15 Dragon’s Breath
The Dragon’s Breath is a brewing item that can be used when crafting lingering potions. The potion is really useful for those wanting lingering effects on their splash potions, however, it is pretty dangerous.
For the brave players wanting to obtain this potion aid, players will need to get to the Ender Dragon with as many empty bottles as they want. Players will need to scoop up the Ender Dragon’s breath attack, or the purple clouds that are caused by the fireballs, into the empty bottle. Thankfully, if players can withstand the Dragon’s attacks, they can most likely gather a lot of Dragon’s Breath.
14 Sea Lanterns
Sea Lanterns are a beautiful block that can help illuminate areas, and is especially useful to light underwater areas. To gather this resource, players will first need to enchant a tool with Silk Touch. When mining the Sea Lanterns, two or three Prismarine Crystals will drop.
The Sea Lanterns are found in Ocean Monuments and Ocean Ruins. Once five Prismarine Crystals are gathered, players will need four Prismarine Shards, which are found when defeating Guardians and Elder Guardians, to craft one Sea Lantern. It’s a lucrative chore, but it’s a great look for builds, as well as activating a conduit.
13 Heads (As Helmets Or Trophies)
These mostly decorative blocks can be found from various sources as drops, though only 6 are obtainable by normal methods in the base game. Most commonly, these Uncommon-tier rare things are acquired as drops from enemies, for example, wither skeletons can drop wither skeleton heads when they are slain.
In addition to looking nice as a trophy in one’s home, they can be worn as a helmet, which actually decreases the detection range that mobs can spot the player and can be quite useful for sneaking about. Those in need of a particular banner pattern can also make use of these heads, as some of them are used in crafting specific banner designs.
12 Nether Star
Few items are as tedious to acquire as the Nether Star, due to one needing to slay the Wither boss in order for it to drop. As such, it is strange to learn that this four-pointed piece of brilliance is only an Uncommon item and not one of higher rarity.
It is the most important component to making the vibrant and luminous Beacon decorative item, which sends up a pillar of light into the sky.
11 Totem Of Undying
These immensely helpful little effigies are Uncommon items that can be dropped by foes. If the player is holding one in their hands and takes fatal damage, the Totem of Undying will restore the player’s hearts with vast amounts of healing and defensive buffs.
However, the only mob that drops them is the Evoker. These spell-casting adversaries can be found in Woodland Mansions of the Dark Forest and Dark Forest Hills biomes.
10 Heart Of The Sea
This rare item of underwater beauty cannot be crafted, therefore players will have to delve into shipwrecks and ocean ruins to acquire a Heart of the Sea. They are only located in chests of buried treasure, which are normally quite tough to find, though, this Uncommon item can be sniffed out.
By feeding a raw cod or raw salmon to a dolphin, the friendly cetacean will lead the player to the nearest buried treasure, shipwreck, or ocean ruin. Keep in mind, however, that the Heart of the Sea is not a mere bobble to trinket, but is actually the core component to an even rarer item: a Conduit.
9 Conduit
This Rare underwater implement grants plenty of boons when deployed in water deep enough to completely submerge a player (3x3 blocks of water). It grants those within a wide range of the deployment site the abilities to breathe underwater, mine faster while submerged, and vision that can pierce the dark waves. It can also hurt enemies within the same range for two hearts of damage every two seconds.
These incredible abilities will be difficult to acquire, however, as the two ingredients required to craft it are also quite tough to get a hold of. In addition to the Heart of the Sea, the player will need eight Nautilus Shells, which are items that can be found while fishing, though not very often.
8 End Crystal
These sinister crystals are most infamous for residing in The End atop many obsidian pillars for the purpose of healing and respawning the Ender Dragon. They shoot the mighty draconic fiend with a beam that grants the Regeneration effect in huge quantities.
They also cause explosions around themselves when struck or destroyed by most conventional means. If the player desires, they can craft these strange and usually harmful Rare items. To craft an End Crystal, one will need seven blocks of glass, a Ghast tear, and an Eye of Ender.
7 Beacon
Beacons are one of the brightest blocks in the game. They are a Rare item that emits a beam of light pointing to the sky. They can be useful in helping one find their way back home or as impressive decorations. To get their cubic hands on them, players will need to craft these luminous ornaments from some tough-to-find ingredients.
The five blocks of glass needed are easy enough to craft, however, the three blocks of obsidian will take some exploration or lava harvesting to obtain. The most challenging component to acquire will be the Nether Star, which is only dropped by the fearsome mob boss known as the Wither.
6 Enchanted Weapons & Armor
Normally, players must enchant items and weapons using an Enchanted Book, an item created by putting a regular Book into an Enchanting table and infusing it with an effect. This Enchanted Book must then be placed onto an Anvil alongside the desired weapon or piece of armor to bestow the sought-after attributes.
However, weapons and bits of armor that are already enchanted can spawn on mobs such as zombies. This is fairly rare and the enchantments upon the gear will always be random.
5 Golden Apple
This lustrous orb is a Rare item as well as a type of food that, upon being eaten, grants the player the Absorption I effect that provides two bonus golden hearts that act as armor, though only for two minutes. It also gives the eater the Regeneration II effect that heals half of a heart every 0.4 seconds over the course of five seconds.
It is possible to craft a Golden Apple, though it will require a fair bit of Gold Ingots. Eight to be exact, all arranged around an Apple on a Crafting Table.
4 Music Disc
There are 13 unique music discs that exist in Minecraft. Each has its own tune and different colored appearance. Their tracks range from ominous ambient sounds to cheerful melodies and even jazz numbers. They can only be played after being placed into a Jukebox.
Each of these songs can be found in chests from dungeons, Woodland Mansions, Bastion Remnants, as well as in buried treasure. These are at the top of the list for all true Minecraft collectors.
3 Banner Pattern
Banner Patterns are Epic items that only serve a cosmetic purpose in creating different images upon a chosen Banner when placed alongside one in a Loom. There are six in the Java version of the game but seven in the Bedrock Edition.
Each pattern can be crafted by combining paper with a specified item on a Crafting Table. Some of the patterns require a simple non-paper component like an Oxeye Daisy, though others can be tricky to come across, like a Wither Skeleton Skull.
2 Dragon Egg
This egg should be familiar to all players, as it is the trophy that all seek in their first playthrough. It only spawns once in The End and the player must defeat the Ender Dragon before the portal back to Minecraftia opens and the Dragon Egg becomes available near to it.
However, players can’t mine it by normal means, as it will teleport if someone tries to hit it with a pickaxe. To harvest it properly, players need to push it off of its pedestal with a Piston, which will cause it to drop as an item as opposed to being a solid block.
1 Enchanted Golden Apple
These upgrades to Golden Apples function much the same, just with better effects. Enchanted Golden Apples grant the effect Absorption IV, which bestows a whopping eight hearts of golden armor for two full minutes. It also grants Regeneration II or V, depending on whether one is playing the Java version or Bedrock Edition respectively. In addition, it gives Resistance I and Fire Resistance I for five minutes.
Such wondrous yellow spheres cannot be crafted, unfortunately, and since they are an Epic-tier item, players will have a hard time coming across them. Players can find them in chests from dungeons, mineshafts, Bastion Remnants, Desert Temples, Ruined Portals, and Woodland Mansions, however, in each location, they have between a 1% and 7% chance of spawning.
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