Surviving in Minecraft goes beyond building a base and gathering enough food to fend off hunger. If you want to have a chance against the various bosses and obtain their precious loot, you need to gear up with Potions. No matter if you’re battling against hostile mobs or other players, you will need the best potions in Minecraft to stand victorious.
When consumed, potions will give you a temporary boost effect, and they’re essential to survive the harshest of battles. If you’re unsure what brews would benefit your playstyle best, continue reading our list with the ten best Minecraft potions and see what they can offer!
How to Craft Potions
If you want to start crafting potions in Minecraft, you will need a Brewing Stand and fuel it with Blaze Powder. That means you’ll need to make a trip to the Nether and find a Nether Fortress where Blazes spawns generate. While it’s a dangerous endeavour to go underprepared, the payout will be 100% worth it.
As a side note, since the Brewing Stand can also assign the Cleric job to a Villager, you may be lucky enough to find one in the wild– but don’t think that will save you a trip to the Nether since you won’t have any Blaze Powder to fuel it up!
While you’re at the Nether Fortress, don’t forget to pick up some Nether Wart. It’s one of the quintessential ingredients when you craft potions since, combined with bottled water, you create an Awkward Potion. It’s the base for almost all potions available in Minecraft, so it’s essential to set up a small farm in the Overworld to ensure you never run out of Nether Wart while brewing.
Finally, you also have to craft Glass Bottles with three blocks of Glass and fill them with water by pressing right-click pointing to any body of water while holding them.
What to do at the Brewing Station
As we’ve mentioned before, you can start using the Brewing Station once you add some Blaze Powder into the fuel slot. There are three slots to place Water Bottles and one for the ingredient you want to brew into these bottles. It’s only a matter of putting the components you want to add into the concoction in their respective slot and waiting until the process is complete.
You’ll usually have to add Bottled Water and Nether Wart to the Brewing Station to brew some Awkward Potions for most recipes. Then it’s only a matter of including the necessary item to convert the base into a potion.
After that, you can modify the potion further by placing it again in the Brewing Station and using one of these five ingredients:
- Glowstone enhances the effect’s level.
- Redstone will extend the duration of the effect.
- A Fermented Spider Eye will corrupt the result and flip it to its complete opposite if it applies.
- Gunpowder allows you to convert the potion into a Splash version of it.
- Dragon Breath will transform the Splash Potion into a Lingering Potion.
With that out of the way, let’s hop into what are the best Minecraft potions and how to craft them!
Fire Resistance
Requires: Awkward Potion + Magma Cream
The Nether has always been a scary realm to enter for the first time in any playthrough. You never know if you’re going to spawn in the middle of nowhere, and it can quickly become a horrifying tale of losing all your gear to lava. That’s why we place the potion of Fire Resistance in such high regard, making it one of the best potions in Minecraft when it comes to defensive boosts.
As the name suggests, you will gain a temporary immunity against Fire, Lava, or any heat-related damage source. If possible, you should have a couple of these when exploring the Nether, given how many fire-related dangers lie ahead. As a fun (and valuable) fact, Piglings have a chance of dropping Fire Resistance potions if you barter with them.
Slow Falling
Requires: Awkward Potion + Phantom Membrane
When dealing with high mountains or ravines, having the Slow Falling potion in your inventory can be the difference between life and death. Aside from slowing down your fall speed, you won’t get any damage when hitting the ground. It also indirectly increases your jumping distance to almost six blocks, and you won’t destroy any crops by jumping on top of them.
Note that you will require a Phantom Membrane to craft this potion, so make sure to avoid sleeping for a couple of nights to have Phantoms spawning at night. It certainly deserves a spot in our best Minecraft potions list when playing at a Hardcore world since any minor mistakes can lead to your doom!
Also: We’ve compiled the 15 Best 1.17 Minecraft Seeds if you want to start a new world and find interesting world generations, rare biomes, or precious loot at spawn!
Strength
Requires: Awkward Potion + Blaze Powder
When fighting against other players or hostile mobs, even the smallest boosts can significantly impact the outcome. You can stack the odds in your favour with a potion of Strength, which will increase your melee attack damage by three, and its enhanced version will increase it to 6. The good news is that it uses Blaze Powder as the main ingredient, so you can easily farm the ingredients and use it as fuel for more potions. It’s one of the best Minecraft potions from its effects and crafting difficulty, so make sure to brew some before jumping into battle!
Related: If you want to be the best fighter on the battlefield, your weapons should deal maximum damage. Find the 10 BEST Minecraft Sword Enchantments and use them to your favour!
Swiftness
Requires: Awkward Potion + Sugar
Do you feel like you’re slugging your way through biomes while exploring? If you want to improve your movement speed, just chug a Swiftness potion and start travelling to the speed of light– well, almost. You gain 8 minutes of augmented speed movement with a level 1 potion and 1 minute with 30 seconds with the Redstone’s modifier. It’s one of the best Minecraft potions for a quick escape from hostile mobs or other players since it affects your jumping length and overall movement speed while walking and sprinting.
Water Breathing
Requires: Awkward Potion + Pufferfish
Breathing underwater is essential if you want to properly clear out an Ocean Monument and face the Guardians without worrying about air pockets. You can always rely on a Turtle Head for that, but it’s a rare item that not all players will have access to in earlier game stages. However, you can always craft a potion of Water Breathing since it only requires a Pufferfish and an Awkward Potion.
While we still mourn the death of the good ol’ AFK fish farms to get as many fish as you want, but the good news is that you will see Pufferfish spawning naturally in Lukewarm and Warm Ocean biomes. Just be mindful of their poison when you approach one!
Related: Take full advantage of those potions of Water Breathing and build the perfect secret base by following one of the 15 Best Minecraft Underwater Base Ideas!
Regeneration
Requires: Awkward Potion + Ghast Tear
Minecraft PvP players know how crucial it is to manage their health correctly to come out victorious from any fight. But whether you’re facing other players in a PvP server or exploring on your own, having a potion of Regeneration in your inventory will never harm you. To craft it, you will require an Awkward Potion as the base and add a Ghast Tear to the Brewing Station.
If you want to have it ready for any surprise attack in your hot bar, we strongly suggest upgrading it with Glowstone to just worry about throwing it into the ground. Otherwise, Redstone is also a great option to extend the health regeneration’s duration.
Leaping
Requires: Awkward Potion + Rabbit’s Foot
If you want to improve your mobility while exploring in any of the realms, we also suggest looking into crafting a potion of Leaping. It will increase your jump height, making it much easier to traverse through steep mountains or caves, especially if you consume a level II potion. We must admit that finding Rabbits in the wild and obtaining a Rabbit’s Foot as loot may take longer than expected. However, if used correctly, it can give you an immense advantage combined with a Slow Falling potion to avoid fall damage.
Invisibility
Requires: Fermented Spider Eye + Potion of Night Vision
Do you want to play some silly pranks on your friends? Just chug a potion of Invisibility and start messing around with them. Do you need to escape without causing a commotion? Use the potion of Invisibility to get past enemies without setting the alarms. No matter the scenario you’re in, it’s great to have it on your inventory since mobs won’t see you or attack until you’re super close to them. However, note that it won’t apply the effect to your equipped gear, so make sure to equip off your armour if you want to maximize your sneaking abilities.
Also: Would you like to improve your game’s graphics without compromising performance? Hop into our 10 BEST Minecraft Shaders For 1.17.1 list and find a shaderpack that suits your needs!
Nightvision
Requires: Awkward Potion + Golden Carrot
How many times have you run out of torches while cave mining? We can bet one too many. For those oblivious players, the potion of Nightvision will make everything visible to the maximum light level. It’s not only great for exploring underground, but the effect also works underwater. You may rely on this potion more often once the 1.18 update drops and everyone gets to descent to the Deep End. However, even if you’re still playing older versions, there are no drawbacks to using one of the best Minecraft potions available for exploring around!
Also: If you want a real challenge, why not try one of the 20 Best Minecraft Modpacks? Our ultimate list has a suggestion for every type of player!
Healing
Requires: Awkward Potion + Glistering Melon Slice
Minecraft players heavily rely on food items to ensure their health doesn’t get dangerously low, right? But you can always craft a potion of Healing to instantly regain those lost hearts when you need a quick boost. It’s not one of the best potions in Minecraft, given how slight advantage you get from drinking it. However, it has a lot of potential as a Splashing potion– not only can you instantly heal for a quick recovery, but it also harms undead mobs. Benefits all around!
In our humble opinion, potions should be a crucial part of any Minecraft adventurer’s inventory. If you want to have a chance of winning against the Ender Dragon or the Wither, these temporary boosts can tip the scale in your favour and help you leave any dangerous situation with barely a scratch! Which one of these potions is a must-have, no matter where you go? Is there any potion you never use during your adventures? Leave us a comment below!
