Now you gotta build yourself a couple mob farms for xp, something I've done in the last week, was a headache making sure it worked but was def worth it.

My survival base:



Skeleton farm:



Cave spider farm:



The cave spider farm consists of two mob spawners, you can kinda see the other mob spawner water flow on the left side. As you can see I was also lucky enough to get a skeleton spawner very close too, which is amazing because I never have to worry about arrows.

Nice spawners. I've built a few. My first 3 absolutely sucked. I had a zombie spawner that just stops spawning after 6 guys. My 2 spider spawners, I wasn't able to get done because they go through 1 height openings. I finally built a zombie spawner that uses a water elevator and drops them 22 levels. Works great. I get XP so easily, it feels like cheating.

My two spider spawners are relatively close to each other, so I think I'm going to try to redo them into a single output. I think I'll watch this video and see if his cave spider design is doable.



I'd like to build a mob farm too, to get gunpowder. I tried one design, but it is so slow it's almost worthless.

BTW, jl2579 has a tutorial on a mob farm, but it would be ridiculous to build on survival mode.



You can download his map here: http://www.mediafire.com/?d3lq14iufx36peq

Yeah I wanted to do one of those cave spider grinders using pistons and repeaters and stuff but I'm honestly not even close to pro enough to construct those types of things.

if you want efficient mob farms, you should try an enderman farm in the end. level 0-30 in about 5 minutes! i've never built one myself, but i've seen lots of videos...

I would be pretty unhappy with an enderfarm that was that slow. They used to get you to level 50 in that time but now they are more powerful

I downloaded an enderman farm that will get you from 0 to 30 in less than a minute! Unfortunately, in my real map I haven't even reached The End yet.

Alert for Xbox Minecraft players: Minecraft was updated to correspond roughly to Beta version 1.8.2 of the PC version. So it adds creative mode, endermen, hunger, steak, and chicken. But you still can't breed animals, which makes farming still more annoying than it needs to be. Also get new biomes, NPC villages, abandoned mine shafts.

Despite my complaint, it's a pretty significant update. (From looking at the PC version change log, 1.8 was one of the more significant updates). Significant enough that my daughter and I are going to abandon our 1.6.6 world and start over again (if you don't update your world, any place you previously explored can't have the new biomes, villages, etc.).

Speaking of The End, what's a good way to get the Ender Pearls? The advice I've seen online basically say "wander around at night, you'll eventually run into them." But there has to be a better way of doing that, right? The problem with that advice is that endermen spawn 10% as often as other mobs, so it'll take a while to get the Ender Pearls you need to get to The End.

It's a pain in the butt, but get a looting 3 sword and it's much easier.

Deserts are the best biome to go endermen hunting.

I actually traveled there for the first time today, I already had 7 pearls but I needed more to activate the end portal (with blaze powder to make eyes of ender). Luckily I had a Sharpness IV combined with Looting III so when I killed two they dropped 6 total so I had enough.

Essentially just go to the desert and you will find at least two or three, and with a diamond sword it really isn't that tough to kill them.

Originally I started finding a stronghold the legit way but I realized it would take a lot of eyes of ender, so I use AMIDST to locate one. I know it's cheating in a sense but I used it originally to look at the geography around me. AMIDST does this:

a super easy but for some reason unknown to me for the longest time way of killing endermen is just to stand under a 2 high ceiling.

Great advice guys. I used AMIDST to find a strong hold (only 200 meters from my home base), as well as find another one. The tip of getting a sword with looting was great also. Was only getting one pearl from each enderman before, now get multiple.

Already have the blaze rods, so I can make the eyes of ender. Almost ready to fight the dragon. Have two diamond swords and a bow with power 3 and infinity. Will probably enchant another bow just incase. Just need to build an extra set of armor and brew some useful potions.

Anything else I should bring?

Also, I was watching the EthosLab video of fighting the ender dragon. He went to The End and put in a few minecarts with storage chests. How did he do that? I thought that once you went to the End, you couldn't get out until you killed the dragon?

You can't, unless you die.

remember to set your spawn in the stronghold

Yeah there are only 3 strongholds when you create a new world and every time the 3 are within ~600 blocks of wherever you spawn, that's why it seems like they are very close.

I'm almost certain you can't leave the end until you kill the dragon or die yourself so that must have been from another version or something with the minecarts, maybe a mod. If I were you I would first go to the end with nothing but some iron swords, iron armor, and a normal bow, just to check the place out. It's pretty much a sacrifice death but it's worth checking it out before going there not knowing your terrain and dying with your best stuff.

It seems like you got all the right stuff for a good fight, like you said make sure you bring some potions because that dragon does some pretty big damage and he barely takes damage.

Also remember that you have to take out the beacons with a bow because the beacons regenerate the dragons health, so destroy those first while fending off the dragon then fight him directly. When I went I hit the beacon with a sword and immediately blew up, so obviously a bow is best.

I'm not sure if this is 100% the best strat cause I haven't tried to fight him head on yet.

GL let us know how it goes, I like a good sweat.

Turns out (from watching another video) that he loads his inventory with stuff and minecarts, goes to the end, empties his stuff into the minecart, then falls into the void. Apparently, a minecart with a chest is one of the few blocks that the dragon can't kill, so it's a way to have a bring a bunch of stuff to the end.

Spent this morning building an enderman farm and an enchantment room in The End. So much faster than my current XP farm. With my zombie XP farm, I AFK for 30 minutes, I can go from level 0 to level 23. With the enderman farm, I can go from 0 to level 30 in about 7 minutes. It's funny how easy it is to get ender pearls now. It took me a while to get the 12 I needed to get to the End. Now I have half a chest full of them, just testing the farm. Of course, I can't bring the stuff back to the overworld yet, though. That pisses me off because I accidentally brought my best pickaxe to the end and now have to waste diamonds on another one if I want to go mining. I guess it's not that big a deal, though. I plan on battling the dragon tomorrow anyway.

I also tested out whether I can go from the enderman farm/enchantment room area to the main island in the end without dying. Looks like I can. But damn that dragon does some serious damage to you. Of course, I had no armor on, as I was planning to die, but it was a lot quicker than I thought it would be.

I think the dragon can go and destroy endermen farms if you're not careful, i'd take that guy out asap if i were you.

Yeah, if the dragon is close to you when you get to The End, he will chase you. He's taken out part of my walkway. Usually, he's not close, though. And when I run to the farm, the indicator at the top of the screen showing his health disappears. When that happens, he doesn't know where you are and you're safe from him.

Just started the battle. Full diamond armor means the dragon does only 1 heart of damage to me, so it seems that the battle will be manageable. 20+ health potions and 20 pieces of meat help out a bit. Plus I have another 27 health potions in a minecart. I took out at least half of those towers. I'm now back at the enderman farm. I didn't realize how quickly my infinity bow would wear out. I have two more unenchanted, unused bows, so hopefully I can get infinity again. If not, I have two full stacks of arrows anyway.

Ugh, my enderman farm is slower than I thought it was. 11 minutes and I'm only at level 23. I guess I need to add more spawnable area.

The last tower was a pain, but I finally got it. Dragon is at about 75% health right now and not regenerating. My bows, I got one with power 4, the other with infinity. My original bow (power 3 and infinity) is still working, so I'm using it. Also, I said I had full diamond armor. I do, but I'm not wearing it all. My diamond boots are protection 3 or 4, but my iron boots have feather falling, so I'm wearing those. Didn't think that was a good idea at first, but the dragon flung me up in the air a couple of times, so I guess it was a good decision. Got me down to 2 hearts at one point, but the potions came in handy. Now it's just a matter of time.

I forgot to bring books and an enchanting table for the main island, but I guess it's not a big deal since I didn't bring anything to enchant either.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Lol, I accidentally put the dragon egg down in my house. I tried to pick it up and it got destroyed.

EDIT: from looking at the wiki, I guess it wasn't destroyed, it was teleported.

Yeah I killed mine yesterday and I had a nightmare trying to pick the egg up until I finally just read wikipedia. When all that xp rains down is a glorious moment.