Threats to Your Survival

We’ve talked about health and mentioned that certain things can hurt your character: fire, falls, monsters, Poison, etc. Now it’s time to discuss these specific dangers and how you can avoid, counter, or fall prey to them!

Your Health

Characters in Minecraft have ten Hearts’ worth of health. Each Heart is split in half and is worth two points of damage, so it’s possible to withstand up to 20 points of damage before dying.

Your health is restored naturally as long as you have nine points on your hunger meter. Keep yourself well-fed so you’re always at nine or ten hunger. This way, you regenerate soon after you suffer any damage.

Restoring lost health drains your hunger meter quickly, so remember to eat soon after you heal from damage. You can use Potions and special foods, such as Golden Apples, to give your character extra health to help with dangerous battles.

Attack Damage

Armor reduces incoming attack damage.

Other players and monsters inflict damage to you if they attack with their bodies or weapons. Some of these foes have ranged weapons and can shoot you from far away. Others have to walk up to your character and attack directly to deal any damage.

Incoming attack damage is reduced if you’re wearing armor. The stronger your armor, the greater the damage reduction. You’re always better off wearing at least some protection when you fight. Avoid attack damage by dodging enemies or backing away from them. You can also keep a Shield equipped to block most attacks.

Starvation

Armor does not affect starvation damage.

If your hunger meter depletes entirely, starvation begins. Your character loses health somewhat quickly, and this continues until you’re almost dead or you find something to eat. If you’re playing on maximum difficulty, you can die directly from starvation.

The best way to avoid starvation is to keep your hunger meter high at all times. This isn’t just good for regenerating health. Your hunger meter doesn’t deplete unless your food saturation falls to zero; this is a hidden stat, so you can’t tell exactly where it is. In a simple way, your saturation can be as high as your current hunger level. This means that recently eaten food “stays with” your character longer if you’re already well-fed and high up on the hunger meter. When you’re almost starving, it’s easier to lose points on the hunger meter, even with relatively little exertion.

So, you’re better off eating several pieces of food to fill your bar completely. Having one snack here and there isn’t as effective, and it leaves you much more vulnerable to damage.

Some items trigger a Hunger effect that forces your hunger meter to fall even faster than usual. Rotten Flesh, Raw Chicken, and Pufferfish all have a chance to do this. Avoid eating these foods unless you’re already about to starve. In that circumstance, eat as much Rotten Flesh as you need to fill your hunger meter. The Hunger effect is not cumulative, so you pay the price only once instead of dealing with extra hunger for every piece you eat.

Explosions

Armor reduces explosion damage.

TNT and Creepers have something in common: they love to explode. Explosive damage is high if your character stands too close to any detonation. Set off TNT carefully, and give Creepers a wide berth. In fact, it’s usually better to shoot Creepers with Arrows or sprint away from them entirely until you’re really good at killing them with hit-and-run melee attacks.

Explosions hurt everything in the area, so other monsters and even blocks take damage from these blasts. Use this as a way to break through tunnels quickly with TNT, or to kill groups of enemies by luring Creepers into their midst.

Falling

Armor does not reduce falling damage.

Falling downward more than three blocks damages your character. You take one point of damage for every block after the third. Landing in water negates this, so aim for a water landing anytime you jump off a high ledge.

Your character can also catch Ladders or Vines in mid-fall, and this instantly stops your descent without causing any damage. Gutsy players often use this to jump down mine tunnels without getting hurt—don’t miss!

An armor enchantment called Feather Falling reduces damage from falling. Long falls can still kill you, but this enchantment gives you a larger survival window.

Fire

Armor does not reduce fire damage.

Your character catches fire if you touch Lava, get hit by a Ghast’s fireball, or bump into anything that’s already burning, such as Zombies, your house, and so forth. As a rule of thumb, don’t touch anything that’s aflame! Armor reduces damage from initial impacts against Lava or fireballs, but the burning damage itself is unmitigated, no matter what you’re wearing.

If you’re set ablaze, get into water as quickly as possible to save yourself from heavy fire damage. If no lakes or rivers are nearby, dump a Bucket of Water over yourself. Carry one of these and have it on your hotbar at all times. It’s especially important when you mine near Lava. Dousing yourself extinguishes the fire and turns Lava into Obsidian, so it’s one of the only ways to make it out of a Lava pool alive.

Drowning

Armor does not reduce drowning damage.

A meter of air bubbles appears when you dive into water. If this fully depletes, your character begins to take drowning damage. This does not bring immediate death, but you won’t last too long. Find your way to the surface before this happens.

A neat trick here is to place certain items against a surface when you’re desperate for air. Things like Torches create an air pocket for a short time. The water soon puts them out, but your character breathes comfortably for the moment before this happens. Ladders, Signs, Trapdoors, Doors, Fences, and Sugar Cane can create permanent air bubbles underwater. Use any of these items to save yourself from drowning.

Suffocation

Armor does not reduce suffocation damage.

Characters or monsters that are covered in Sand or Gravel start to take this type of damage because they cannot breathe. It even hurts tougher monsters, like Iron Golems, so that’s interesting.

You can’t do anything about this damage directly. The only escape is to free yourself. Use a Shovel to dig out of Sand and Gravel, or a Pickaxe if you’ve accidentally run into a harder block. Break free, and the damage stops.

Poison

Armor does not reduce Poison damage.

Poison hits your character if you eat the wrong item, get bitten by a Cave Spider, or drink the wrong Potion. Poison inflicts damage over time, and you can’t reduce it with armor. However, you can negate the Poison by drinking Milk. Carry around a Bucket of Milk if you’re worried about Poison damage. A good time to do this is when you explore an Abandoned Mineshaft, because those places often host plenty of Cave Spiders.

The Wither Effect

Armor does not reduce Wither Effect damage.

Wither Skeletons place a minor Poison-like effect on their targets. If a Wither Skeleton strikes you, expect to suffer additional damage over time. Armor doesn’t help, so back off, keep your health and hunger meters as high as possible, and try not to take additional hits until you’re back in good shape.

Lightning

Armor reduces lightning damage.

Lightning inflicts five damage points to your character if you’re ever unlucky enough for it to strike you. This happens only outside, during thunderstorms. To stay safe, don’t play outside during thunderstorms!

Falling Into the Abyss

Armor does not reduce damage from the void.

If you find a way to get below the bedrock, your character falls into the void. This abyss of darkness offers no salvation. Unless you can teleport back to safety with an Ender Pearl, your character will die.

Status Effects

Look on the side of your screen if anything strange happens to your character. Some items and monsters are able to put status effects on you. These are temporary changes to how your character survives. Some of them are good (food and Potions can often help you). But negative status effects make it harder to get by. Learn what all of these effects do so that you can counter and bad ones and seek out the good ones.