Hey there, fellow crafters and speedrunners! Ever feel like you've mastered every block and every mob in Minecraft? The 1.14 update, also known as the "Village & Pillage" update, packed a serious punch with new mechanics, items, and challenges that can completely change how you play. Whether you're aiming for a new PB or just want to experience the game in a fresh way, knowing these hidden gems can be a game-changer. Get ready to dive deep into the nooks and crannies of Minecraft 1.14, because we're about to unveil some incredible secrets!
Table of Contents
- Mastering Villager Mechanics
- Understanding the New Raid System
- The Power of the Crossbow
- Revolutionizing Your Builds with Scaffolding
- The Hidden Uses of Bells
- Bamboo: More Than Just Panda Food
- The Smithing Table's True Potential
- Navigating with the Cartography Table
- Repairing and Disenchanting with the Grindstone
- Farming Efficiency with the Composter
Minecraft 1.14, the "Village & Pillage" update, wasn't just about adding new mobs; it fundamentally revamped villages and villager interactions, opening up new avenues for resource gathering and trading. In this guide, we'll explore 10 incredible features from this update that can elevate your speedrun strategies and overall gameplay. Forget what you thought you knew; it's time to learn how to truly leverage these additions!
Mastering Villager Mechanics
Villages are now the heart of your economic engine in Minecraft 1.14. Villagers have specific professions tied to job site blocks, like the Lectern for Librarians or the Blast Furnace for Toolsmiths. The key is understanding their trading tiers. As you trade with a villager, they level up, unlocking new and often better trades. For speedrunning, focusing on acquiring high-level Librarian villagers for enchanted books (like Mending or Efficiency V) can drastically cut down time. It’s all about strategically locating and protecting good village centers.
The profession of a villager is determined by the job site block available. If a village has no unclaimed job site blocks, unemployed villagers will wander and claim one.
Don't forget about villager breeding! Providing enough beds and food (bread, carrots, potatoes, beetroots) will encourage villagers to breed, allowing you to establish a robust trading hall much faster. This is crucial for late-game speedrun objectives requiring vast amounts of resources.
Understanding the New Raid System
Raids are a dangerous but rewarding new feature. Triggered by entering a village with the "Bad Omen" effect (obtained by killing a Pillager captain), raids pit you against waves of Pillagers and other hostile mobs. Successfully defending a village grants the "Hero of the Village" effect, offering significant discounts on trades with villagers. For a speedrunner, strategically baiting these raids into a controlled environment can yield excellent loot and, more importantly, drastically reduced trading costs, saving precious time.
The difficulty of raids scales with the number of waves and the type of mobs involved. Mastering the combat mechanics and utilizing the environment to your advantage is key to surviving and thriving. Think defensive positions and crowd control.
The Power of the Crossbow
The Crossbow is a significant ranged weapon upgrade. Unlike the Bow, it can be pre-loaded and boasts higher damage. Crucially, it can be loaded with *Enchanted Arrows*, such as Spectral Arrows or Tipped Arrows, offering tactical advantages. For speedrunning, a pre-loaded Crossbow can mean instant damage on a target, saving crucial milliseconds. Furthermore, the "Multishot" enchantment allows it to fire three arrows at once, making mob clearing much more efficient.
A fully drawn Crossbow deals more damage than a fully drawn Bow.
Finding or crafting a Crossbow early can provide a significant combat advantage, especially when dealing with groups of enemies or airborne threats. Experiment with different enchantments like Quick Charge to speed up the reload time.
Revolutionizing Your Builds with Scaffolding
Scaffolding blocks are a revelation for builders and speedrunners alike. These climbable blocks can be placed and broken with incredible ease. You can place scaffolding mid-air, and it will connect downwards. Breaking a scaffolding block only breaks the one you interact with, leaving the rest intact. This allows for incredibly fast vertical and horizontal movement during construction or exploration.
In a speedrun context, scaffolding can be used to quickly ascend mountains, build temporary bridges, or access hard-to-reach areas without needing extensive block placement and destruction. Their ease of use makes them a prime candidate for time-saving traversal strats. Think of building a quick tower to reach a high-up ore vein or bridging a massive chasm in seconds.
The Hidden Uses of Bells
Bells, often found in villages, have more utility than just sounding alarms. Ringing a bell causes nearby mobs (excluding Pillagers and Guardians) to flee from it for a short period. This can be invaluable for crowd control during raids or for safely clearing out areas around your base. Furthermore, ringing a bell can be used to trigger villagers to gather in their homes, which can be useful for consolidating them for trading or safety.
For speedrunners, using a bell strategically might allow you to group mobs for an efficient kill or create a safe zone to perform an action without interruption. It's a subtle but powerful tool.
Bamboo: More Than Just Panda Food
Bamboo, found in the Jungle biome, is a surprisingly versatile resource. It grows incredibly fast, making it a renewable source of building material. More importantly, bamboo can be crafted into sticks and also used to craft a unique building block: the Bamboo Planks. While not the strongest wood, its rapid growth and availability make it excellent for quick, large-scale construction projects or as a readily available fuel source.
For speedrunners, establishing a bamboo farm early can provide a consistent source of fuel for furnaces and building materials. Its quick growth cycle means less time spent farming compared to other resources.
The Smithing Table's True Potential
The Smithing Table, primarily used to upgrade Diamond gear to Netherite gear in later updates, had a more basic function in 1.14: crafting specific items and changing villager professions. For example, placing a villager next to an unclaimed Smithing Table will make them a Fletcher. It also serves as a crafting station for items like Banners. While its grander purpose came later, understanding its role in 1.14 for villager control is still important.
In a speedrun, knowing which job site block corresponds to which villager profession is paramount for setting up an efficient trading system early on. This allows you to acquire essential enchanted books or diamond gear faster.
Navigating with the Cartography Table
The Cartography Table is a game-changer for exploration. It allows you to duplicate maps, saving you the trouble of finding multiple copies of the same chunk. More importantly, you can use it to zoom out maps or lock them. A locked map cannot be further revealed or changed, preventing accidental exploration of undesired areas and ensuring you only reveal the map sections you intend to. This is invaluable for efficiently mapping out large territories or securing specific routes in a world.
You can create a 'scrolling map' by combining a filled map with an empty map on a Cartography Table.
For speedrunners, using cartography tables to duplicate and expand maps of key areas (like stronghold locations or nether fortresses) can save immense amounts of time compared to manual exploration. It allows for precise route planning.
Repairing and Disenchanting with the Grindstone
The Grindstone offers two key functionalities: repairing items by combining two of the same item and, crucially, removing enchantments from items. This disenchanting capability is a lifesaver! You can take an item with undesirable enchantments, use the Grindstone, and get a portion of the experience back, allowing you to re-enchant or try for better enchantments. This is a fundamental mechanic for optimizing gear throughout a speedrun.
Instead of discarding enchanted gear with bad enchants, use the Grindstone. This conserves valuable resources and experience points, which are critical for pushing for a record time. It’s a way to salvage your efforts and improve your loadout efficiently.
Farming Efficiency with the Composter
The Composter is a block that converts organic items (like seeds, crops, leaves, etc.) into bonemeal. It has multiple fill levels, and at the highest level, it produces bonemeal. This provides a renewable and efficient way to obtain bonemeal, which can be used to instantly grow crops or trees. For players focused on resource generation, this significantly speeds up farming operations.
In speedrunning, rapid crop growth means quicker access to food and materials. A highly efficient composter setup can provide a constant stream of bonemeal, accelerating farm-based strategies and ensuring you always have sustenance. It’s a key block for optimizing early-game resource loops.
Preguntas Frecuentes
Q1: How does the Village & Pillage update (1.14) change villager trading?
Villager trading is now tied to specific villager professions, which are determined by job site blocks. Villagers level up through trading, unlocking new and better trades. Mastering these professions and leveling villagers is key for obtaining powerful enchanted books and gear efficiently.
Q2: What is the best way to defend against a raid in Minecraft 1.14?
The best defense involves preparing the village area. Create choke points, build elevated platforms for ranged attacks, and use blocks like lava or water to control mob movement. Ensuring you have good enchanted gear and weapons is also crucial. The "Hero of the Village" effect gained after a successful raid provides significant trade discounts.
Q3: Can I still use a Bow effectively in Minecraft 1.14, or is the Crossbow superior?
Both are effective, but the Crossbow offers distinct advantages. It can be pre-loaded, fires faster with the Quick Charge enchantment, and can utilize enchantments like Multishot. For speedrunning, the ability to have a damaging shot ready instantly with a Crossbow can save critical seconds compared to drawing a Bow.
Q4: What is the main benefit of Scaffolding blocks for speedrunners?
Scaffolding allows for extremely fast and easy vertical and horizontal movement. This enables speedrunners to ascend structures, cross gaps, or reach high-up resources much quicker than with traditional block-placing methods, saving significant time during traversal segments.
Q5: How does the Grindstone help in speedrunning?
The Grindstone allows players to repair items by combining two identical ones and, more importantly, to remove enchantments from gear. This is vital for optimizing enchantments, as it allows players to salvage items with bad enchantments and recover some experience, rather than discarding them.
The Minecraft 1.14 "Village & Pillage" update brought a wealth of new mechanics that significantly impact gameplay, especially for those chasing the fastest times. From the intricate economy of villager trading and the intense challenge of raids to the utility of tools like the Crossbow and Scaffolding, mastering these features can shave precious minutes off your speedrun attempts. Don't underestimate the power of a well-placed Bell, the efficiency of a Composter, or the navigational benefits of a Cartography Table.
Which of these 1.14 features do you find most game-changing for speedrunning? Did we miss any of your favorite hidden mechanics? Let us know in the comments below, and join our Discord to discuss strats and share your personal bests! Keep grinding, keep running!