What are lightning rods used for in Minecraft (2022)

The 1.17 update for Minecraft, which is getting old with the 1.19 update on the horizon, introduced a lot of new features in the game. Goats and axolotls were added alongside the mob vote-winning glow squid. Several new blocks were added as well, including copper.

One of the best uses of copper, other than to make a spyglass, is in crafting a lightning rod. These are easy enough to craft and don't require any effort after placing them.

Here's what they're used for, how to make them, and where to place them.

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Lightning rods in Minecraft: A complete guide

Lightning rods are, as the name would suggest, used to attract lightning. When placed, a lightning strike that would otherwise be random is attracted to the block that the lightning rod is on. These rods can't help players who are under attack, but they can help during a thunderstorm, one of the three main weather types in the game.

They will divert any lightning strike that occurs within a 128-block radius in Java Edition. Conversely, Bedrock Edition users can expect a range of just 64 blocks.

Lightning rods will not interfere with lightning summoned from a Channeling enchanted trident either. And the crafting recipe for these rods is very simple.

Three copper ingots make one lightning rod. The good thing is that copper is fairly easy to come by as it is very common underground; Minecraft players will need to smelt the raw copper before crafting.

Lightning rod in use (Image via Mojang)

Once players have some copper, they can place them wherever they'd like, but certain spots work better than others.

Lighting that strikes flammable blocks, like wool or wooden blocks, will set them on fire. This is the primary reason for the existence of lightning rods. Luckily, they can be placed a fair distance away from any of those blocks, and they can also be placed strategically.

Lightning strikes that hit a lightning rod will produce a redstone signal for eight ticks. That makes the rods a very good power source, even if they aren't very dependable.

The lightning rod can also be used on something with a redstone connected to it to trigger a piston, door, or other redstone-related block. The only downside is that lightning has to strike for you to be able to use the rod and that only occurs during a thunderstorm.

Unfortunately, thunderstorms are the most uncommon weather occurrence in vanilla Minecraft. Rain happens fairly often, but only some rainstorms turn into thunderstorms. So your chances of getting a thunderstorm are unpredictable at best.