How to easily build a beacon in Minecraft

Beacons in Minecraft are blocks made of nether stars, glass, and obsidian. Players can use it to get a set of effects when in its range. These effects from the beacon can include regeneration, speed, haste, strength, jump boost, and resistance.

The beacon's light can be seen from far distances and can be used as a navigation point by players. They must ensure to have a base for their beacon after crafting it. The base needs to be at least a three-by-three platform made of either diamond, emerald, iron, gold, or netherite blocks.

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Setting up a Minecraft beacon easily

A beacon on its own is not typically easy to make.

Players in survival mode will need one netherite star, three obsidian blocks, and five glass blocks to make a beacon. A glass block can be made by smelting sand blocks in a furnace.

Smelting five sand blocks will make five glass blocks. Obsidian blocks can be found in areas where water and lava are overlapping. Players can also make obsidian by placing lava source blocks in water. The water can either be flowing or another source block.

Flowing lava will make cobblestone when it comes into contact with water.

A little Minecraft base beacon (Image via Mojang)

A Minecraft nether star will be the most challenging item out of the three needed for a beacon. Players can get a nether star by defeating a Wither and collecting it at despawn.

The Wither is a boss mob in Minecraft that players have to build before fighting. A Wither is made out of four soul sand blocks and three Wither skeleton skulls. Wither skeleton skulls in Minecraft are a rare drop from Wither Skeletons and will take time to gather.

Once players have made a beacon, they will need a base to put it on for activation. The bare minimum for a base is nine blocks in a three by three square. The base can be made out of diamond, netherite, iron, gold, or emerald blocks.

Beacons will activate if the base is a mix of each block or all of the same block. Each of these blocks is crafted using their corresponding item in Minecraft. For example, a diamond block is made out of nine diamonds on a crafting table. The same can be done for the other blocks.

An easy way to build a functioning beacon is by using iron or emerald blocks after crafting the beacon. It would take players 81 iron ingots or 81 emeralds to craft these blocks.

Iron is easy to find as ore and can be smelted in a furnace. Emerald is rarely found as an ore. However, players can trade with Minecraft villagers as a way to get emeralds. More iron ingots or emeralds may be needed to feed the beacon later.

After players have all of the necessary blocks, they can build the base in a clear area. When built, they can place the beacon on the block in the middle, wait for the beam of light to show, and select the beacon to feed it to select any of its available effects.