Minecraft: How to Craft and Power a Beacon
You've built your grand fortress, conquered the End (see here How to Find the End Portal), and now you're ready to place a beacon to signal your victory to the world. A beacon is a block that produces a beam of light into the sky that can be seen from far away. But creating a beacon requires rare and precious materials to activate its powers. Are you up for the challenge?
In this guide, you'll learn how to craft and power a beacon in Minecraft step-by-step. We'll show you how to find and mine the necessary resources, assemble the multi-tiered beacon structure, and choose from the beacon's buffs to boost your abilities. With a fully powered beacon, you'll receive special status effects like Speed, Jump Boost, and Regeneration to help you adventure through your world.
So grab your best pickaxe and sword, prepare for an epic mining expedition, and get ready to build a beacon worthy of signalling your supremacy across the Overworld! This ultimate endgame challenge will test your combat skills and push your crafting talents to the max. Can you construct a beacon to stand the test of time? Let's find out!
What Is a Beacon in Minecraft?
A beacon is one of the most useful blocks in Minecraft, acting as a conduit of power that provides you with special status effects. To activate a beacon, you’ll need to construct a pyramid below it using valuable resources like gold, diamond, emerald or netherite blocks. The higher the pyramid, the more powers you can access!
Once your pyramid is built, the beacon will emit a beam of light straight up into the sky, visible from far and wide. This makes beacons ideal for marking locations or pathways. You’ll also gain special powers like speed, jump boost, resistance or regeneration over a large area around the beacon.
To choose your powers, simply interact with the beacon’s interface. The first power is activated with a single layer of blocks, the second power with two layers and so on up to four layers for the maximum power level. More powerful beacons provide benefits over a much wider range, so build as high as you can for the best effects!
A beacon’s abilities make exploration, building and combat so much more rewarding. With powers like speed or jump boost active, you’ll get where you’re going faster, and regeneration means you can keep on adventuring without fear of defeat. Resistance gives you an edge in battle, and haste means faster mining or tree-felling.
Once activated, your beacon’s powers last until its pyramid is broken. So defend your beacon well, and it will serve you faithfully in making your world more vibrant and adventures more epic.
Gathering Materials to Craft a Beacon
You're going to need a few key items to craft your very own beacon in Minecraft. First, gather 3 obsidian, 5 glass, and the most important ingredient - a Nether Star! To get a Nether Star, you'll have to defeat the Wither boss.
Once you have the necessary materials, it's time to build the beacon's pyramid base. This can be made of iron blocks, gold blocks, emerald blocks, diamond blocks, or netherite blocks. The higher the tier of blocks used, the more powerful your beacon will be. Arrange the blocks in a square pyramid shape, with a 3x3 base and 5 blocks high.
Place your crafted beacon in the centre of the pyramid, and just like that, you'll have an operational beacon! But it's not very useful yet. To activate your beacon's special powers, you'll need to fuel it with ingots that match the material of your pyramid base. Add the ingots to the beacon interface until it reaches full power.
Now for the fun part - selecting your beacon's effects! You can choose between regeneration, speed, strength, jump boost and more. The higher the pyramid, the more effects you can choose. Once you've selected your effects, your beacon will beam a coloured light into the sky, indicating it's powered on and ready to bless you with its buffs.
Enjoy your new beacon and all the superhuman abilities it provides! Whether you're building, exploring or battling mobs, your beacon's got your back. Now get out there and show the Overworld what you're made of, you unstoppable champion you! The world is your oyster with a beacon by your side.
How to Build the Beacon Pyramid
Building a beacon pyramid in Minecraft is no small feat, but the rewards are well worth the effort! To craft this powerful structure, you’ll need dedication, resources, and a little bit of patience.
Gathering Resources
The beacon pyramid requires a whopping 81 resource blocks, with each side having an equal number of blocks. You can use Iron, Gold, Diamond, Netherite, or Emerald blocks. Netherite and Diamond blocks are the most durable but also the hardest to obtain. No matter which material you choose, mining and smelting this many resources will take serious time and dedication!
Building the Pyramid
Once you’ve gathered your resources, find a suitable location for your beacon pyramid. Each layer of the pyramid must be one block smaller than the layer below it, so plan a 9x9 base and build up from there. Place the blocks carefully, making sure each layer is centred. Use a guide or template if needed.
The pyramid must be at least 4 levels high, but more levels means more power! A full 9-level pyramid will give you the maximum effect range and buffs. Reach the top, and your hard work will be rewarded – the pyramid will begin to glow when activated by the beacon.
Activating Your Beacon With a Nether Star
You did it - you defeated the Wither and obtained that precious Nether Star! Now it’s time to put it to good use and build your very own beacon. A beacon is not only a status symbol in Minecraft, showing other players your accomplishment, but it also provides helpful status effects like Speed, Jump Boost, Haste, Regeneration and more.
To activate your beacon, follow these simple steps:
- Craft a beacon. Place 3 obsidian blocks in the bottom row of the crafting table, 1 Nether Star in the middle box, and 5 glass blocks in the remaining boxes. This will give you 1 beacon.
- Build a pyramid. You’ll need a pyramid-shaped structure made of iron, gold, diamond or emerald blocks with the beacon at the very top. The pyramid must be at least 1 block wide at the top, and 9 blocks wide at the bottom.
- Right click the beacon. Once your beacon is placed on the pyramid, right click it to open the interface. Here you can choose a status effect like Speed, Regeneration or Haste. The more blocks in your pyramid, the more status effects and higher levels you can choose from.
- Select a status effect. Pick the effect you want, like Speed I, II or III depending on your pyramid size. Speed will allow you to move faster, great for exploring! Regeneration will slowly heal you, and Haste will allow you to mine blocks quicker.
- Power up! Once you’ve selected an effect, the beacon will activate. You’ll see the beam of light shoot up into the sky, indicating your beacon is ready to provide the selected effect to all players within a 100 block radius! The effect will last as long as the beacon remains activated.
Congratulations, you now have an activated beacon providing a helpful status effect! Your Nether Star was well worth the effort. Time to take advantage of your new Speed boost and race around the map, or perhaps start a new mining project with Haste! The possibilities are endless once you have a beacon powering you up. Enjoy your reward!
Using the Beacon Beam Effect
Congratulations, you now have a fully powered beacon in Minecraft! With this beacon pyramid, you’ll gain status effects like Speed, Jump Boost, Haste, Resistance, and Regeneration. Let’s talk about how to use this awesome power-up.
To activate the beacon beam and gain its effects, you need to select a primary power and a secondary power. The primary power provides stronger effects, while the secondary power gives smaller bonuses. You can choose the same effect for both primary and secondary, or mix and match for the perfect combination!
Speed and Jump Boost
Want to feel like The Flash? Choose Speed or Jump Boost for zipping around and leaping over obstacles. At the highest level, Speed II will make you sprint faster than a cheetah, while Jump Boost II lets you jump higher than an Olympic athlete!
Haste and Resistance
If you’re planning some heavy-duty building or mining, Haste and Resistance are invaluable. Haste II cuts block breaking times in half, allowing you to dig like a machine. Resistance II reduces most damage by 40%, so you can worry less about creepers sneaking up on you while you work.
Regeneration
For exploring dangerous areas like the Nether or End, Regeneration provides gradual health restoration. At the highest level, Regeneration II restores 1 heart every 2.5 seconds, keeping you fighting fit.
The beacon beam effect lasts as long as the beacon has power and you remain within its range. Step outside the radius, and the effects will disappear until you return. The beam also provides a handy marker, allowing you to spot your base from far away. Enjoy your new super-status and happy crafting!
Conclusion
You did it! After mining all that obsidian and gathering those rare resources, you now have a fully operational beacon in your Minecraft world. Activate that pyramid and choose your effect - regeneration, jump boost, resistance or speed. Whatever you pick, get ready to experience Minecraft in a whole new way. With your beacon's power coursing through you, no challenge will be too great. Build higher, dig deeper, explore further - the possibilities are endless now that you've unlocked this pinnacle of technological achievement. Congratulations, you've earned this power and the adventures that await you. Now get your Minecraft Server Hosting and get out there and make the most of your newfound abilities! The world is your cube-shaped oyster.