Tutorial:Advancement guide/Nether tab

This tutorial is exclusive to Java Edition.

Advancement Guide

This part of the advancement guide guides you through the 23 advancements found in the Nether tab.

Advancements in this section are all about the Nether dimension, its structures, mobs and resources that the player can found in it.

Nether

Bring Summer Clothes

Requirements: Enter the Nether dimension.

To get this advancement, you need to enter the Nether. Walk into a Nether portal and stand there for 4 seconds: you will appear in the Nether. This is exactly the same as We Need to Go Deeper advancement from the Minecraft tab.

Return to Sender

Destroy a Ghast with a fireball

Requirements: Kill a ghast with a ghast fireball. Other fireballs do not work.

Ghasts spawn in three Nether biomes: soul sand valley, basalt deltas and Nether wastes. When a ghast shoots a fireball at you, wait until it comes close, and then attack the fireball to send it flying back to the ghast. The reflected fireball goes roughly in the direction your crosshair is pointing in, so you can aim at the position where the ghast is about to fly to.

To reflect the fireball without endangering yourself too much, you should face the fireball, stand slightly to the side, and start spam-clicking the attack button as the fireball comes close. The fireball can be attacked slightly outside its hitbox, so even if you fail to hit the fireball, it flies past you without dealing damage. The spam-clicking is beneficial because the time window to hit the fireball is very short, and the fireball can be reflected regardless of attack cooldown.

The above method can, however, be fairly dangerous for inexperienced players. A safer method is to shoot a projectile, such as an arrow or a snowball, at the fireball. When hit with a projectile, the fireball moves in the direction that the player is facing, and this can be used to more accurately aim the projectile at the ghast.

Completing this advancement will reward the player 50 experience, as it is a challenge advancement.

Parent of: Uneasy Alliance

Those Were the Days

Enter a Bastion Remnant

Requirements: Go inside a bastion remnant.

Bastion remnants are hard to miss, since they are enormous structures made of blackstone (and all of its variants). Bastion remnants spawn in every biome in the Nether except for the basalt deltas. When you enter any type of a bastion, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Note that bastions are quite dangerous places to be in: for tips on how to conquer them, see this tutorial.

Parent of: War Pigs

Hidden in the Depths

Obtain Ancient Debris

Requirements: Have ancient debris in your inventory.

Ancient debris can be found exclusively in the Nether. It generates as a block at levels 8 to 119, but mainly at levels 8 to 22. On average, level 16 has the most ancient debris. To mine it, you need a diamond pickaxe or better. Ancient debris can be also rarely found in chests in bastion remnants. Once you have the ancient debris in your inventory, you will be rewarded the advancement.

For a specific tutorial on how to find ancient debris, see "Tutorial:Ancient Debris".

Parent of: Cover Me in Debris

Subspace Bubble

Use the Nether to travel 7 km in the Overworld

Requirements: Travel at least 875 blocks horizontally from your original Nether portal in the Nether, and then enter another Nether portal in that location.

Use the Nether to travel between two points in the Overworld with a minimum horizontal distance of 7,000 blocks between each other. Horizontal distances are scaled down in the Nether by a ratio of 8:1. This essentially means that for every one block in the Nether, you travel eight blocks in the Overworld. This also means that you must travel at least 875 blocks in the Nether in order to travel 7,000 blocks in the Overworld.

The distance is measured as Euclidean. For example, traveling from coordinates 0,0 to coordinates 600,600 in the Nether and building a Nether portal to the Overworld there is not enough, but traveling from 0,0 to 700,700 is enough, as that translates to 700 * 8 * sqrt(2) blocks in the Overworld, which is roughly 7,920.

Completing this advancement will reward the player 100 experience.

A Terrible Fortress

Break your way into a Nether Fortress

Requirements: Enter a Nether fortress.

Nether fortresses spawn in all Nether biomes: look for a large, dark brown structure with many rooms, hallways and pillars, made of Nether bricks. Sometimes one may have to travel a long way in the Nether in order to find a fortress.

For tips on finding a Nether fortress, see this part of the tutorial on defeating a Nether fortress.

Parent of: Spooky Scary Skeleton | Into Fire

Who is Cutting Onions?

Obtain Crying Obsidian

Requirements: Have crying obsidian in your inventory.

Crying obsidian can be obtained from bartering, from finding it as part of ruined portals, or from loot chests in bastion remnants. You need a diamond pickaxe or better to mine it, if you found it as a block.

Once you have the crying obsidian in your inventory, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Parent of: Not Quite "Nine" Lives

Oh Shiny

Distract Piglins with gold

Requirements: Throw a gold-related item at a piglin while not wearing golden armor.

First, get an adult piglin to become aggressive toward you while you are not wearing any golden armor. Attacking the piglin while wearing any golden armor doesn't trigger the advancement.

Then, throw one of the following items item at the piglin:

Any other items, even if they are gold-related, don't unlock this advancement.

Alternatively you can use a gold ingot on a piglin to force a trade to begin, thus granting the advancement.

Once the piglin starts admiring the item, you will be rewarded the advancement.

This Boat Has Legs

Ride a Strider with a Warped Fungus on a Stick

Requirements: Ride and boost a strider with a warped fungus on a stick.

You need a warped fungus on a stick, which can be crafted like so:

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Fishing Rod or Damaged Fishing Rod + Warped Fungus

You also need a saddle, which can be obtained in a few ways. You can get a saddle from fishing or from trading with master-level leatherworker villagers. Saddles also drop from mobs that are equipped with them, for example ravagers. Alternatively, you could find a strider that is pre-equipped with a saddle (see below). Finally, you can craft it.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Leather + Iron Ingot

Once you have those items, you have to find a strider. They spawn on lava seas and lakes throughout the Nether. Because of this, you may have to bridge across a sea of lava to get to the strider. If you are in the endgame and have an elytra, you can fly to a body of lava and find some striders easily. Alternatively, you could attract them with warped fungus, but that works only in a short range. A potion of Fire Resistance can be useful to get closer to the strider.

Once you have a strider next to you, use the saddle on it—unless if there is another strider on top of it, then you either have to kill the passenger, or choose a different strider. However, there is a 1 in 30 chance of a zombified piglin spawning riding a strider. This strider has a saddle already equipped on it. If that is the case, try to kill the zombified piglin.

Afterwards, use the strider to ride it. Then, select the warped fungus on a stick. This lets you control the strider. When you use the warped fungus on a stick while riding your strider, it boosts the mount. This uses up one durability on your warped fungus on a stick. Once you have boosted the strider, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Parent of: Hot Tourist Destinations | Feels Like Home

Uneasy Alliance

Rescue a ghast from the Nether, bring it safely home to the Overworld... and then kill it

Requirements: Kill a ghast in the Overworld.

This is one of the most difficult advancements. The method described below is designed to be relatively easy to follow and reliable, at the cost of time spent, as it is definitely not the fastest.

The hardest part is getting the ghast through a Nether portal. Ghasts spawn in three Nether biomes: soul sand valley, basalt deltas and Nether wastes. Soul sand valley biomes are probably the best places to get a ghast, but keep in mind that frequently spawning skeletons might be dangerous. A better approach is to go onto the Nether roof: see this tutorial for some methods to do so. Nether roof is a safer environment, and here it is much easier to control where mobs spawn, since by default they don't spawn on the roof at all, as they can't spawn on bedrock.

The next step is building a big Nether portal: it must have at least 5×5 interior (7×7 with edges). A maximum size Nether portal is 21×21 interior (23×23 with edges). It is recommended that you choose a relatively flat area for this (again, Nether roof is perfect!). Bottom edge of your portal should be at the same level as the ground, so that the ghast doesn't get stuck on it. If you use the roof method, you have to build a platform around your portal, since you can't build inside bedrock. This platform should be built with fireball-proof material (e.g. cobblestone).

Next, block the spawning area off on all sides except that with the portal. The guard rails should be made out of bottom slabs, so the ghast can't spawn on top of the cage. Cage shown here has a 21×8 portal interior (23×10 with edges) and a 18×21 platform for spawning the ghast. You can make it smaller or bigger, depending on how much resources and time you want to spend.

If for any reason you can't—or don't want to—go on the roof, the same cage can be built under the roof, it will just be less efficient since ghasts might spawn elsewhere instead.

After building the portal, light it up and go through yourself, to load the chunks on the other side. Check if the Overworld side has enough room for the ghast, as it can easily suffocate in walls. Making the portal on Overworld side bigger is not necessary, but might be helpful.

Go back to the Nether and build a pillar (at least 32 blocks tall, optimally around a 100 blocks) above the platform. Wait for a ghast to spawn. If you stand above the cage, a newly spawned ghast will not immediately target you. This process should take no more than few minutes if you built your setup on the roof, it may take quite a bit longer under the roof.

Because ghasts move randomly, controlling them is very difficult, but this one should eventually fly through the portal just by chance. You can try to direct it into the portal by using fishing rods to pull the mob.

Once the ghast is in the Overworld, you have to kill it: the easiest method for this is using a bow. Once you have successfully killed the ghast, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Because this advancement only requires that the player be in the Overworld, it is also possible to get Uneasy Alliance by trapping a ghast next to a Nether portal, returning to the Overworld, and killing the ghast by shooting an arrow or sending primed TNT through the Nether portal.

Completing this advancement will reward the player 100 experience.

War Pigs

Loot a chest in a Bastion Remnant

Requirements: Open a never before opened chest in a bastion remnant.

Find a chest in a bastion remnant (it must be a naturally generated chest, not a player-placed one). Then simply open it. Note that any nearby piglins that can see you will attack you when you open the chest, so to safely open it, you should either find a chest with no piglins around, or block the piglins off so they can't get to you.

Additionally, for the advancement to work, the chest must have not been opened by any player before. If you play on singleplayer, this requirement doesn't affect you. If you play on multiplayer, you need to find a bastion that was not looted by anyone.

The advancement will be rewarded as soon as you open the chest.

Cover Me in Debris

Get a full suit of Netherite armor

Requirements: Have every piece of netherite armor in your inventory at the same time

You need a full set of diamond armor, four netherite ingots, a smithing table and four netherite upgrades.

Netherite ingots and diamond armor can be crafted or found in bastion remnant chests. Diamond armor can also be obtained by trading with master-level armorsmith villagers or by killing zombies and skeletons (very rare drop). It can also generate in chests in end cities and woodland mansions.

Smithing tables can naturally generate in toolsmith houses in villages, as well as in trail ruins. Netherite upgrades can be found exclusively in bastion remnant chests, but guaranteed only in treasure rooms there. Alternatively, given seven diamonds and a block of netherrack, they can be duplicated in the crafting table.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Diamond Helmet	Diamond
Diamond Chestplate	Diamond
Diamond Leggings	Diamond
Diamond Boots	Diamond
Smithing Table	Iron Ingot + Any Planks
Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template	Diamond + Netherite Upgrade + Netherrack	2

Now, place down the smithing table and make a full set of netherite armor:

Ingredients	Smithing recipe
Netherite Upgrade + Diamond Helmet or Diamond Chestplate or Diamond Leggings or Diamond Boots + Netherite Ingot

Once you put every piece in your inventory, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Completing this advancement will reward the player 100 experience.

Spooky Scary Skeleton

Obtain a Wither Skeleton's skull

Requirements: Have a wither skeleton skull in your inventory.

Get a wither skeleton skull. Only wither skeletons, found exclusively in Nether fortresses, have a small chance of dropping one upon death, when killed by the player or by a tamed wolf. This chance is by default 2.5%, meaning that, on average, one of every 40 wither skeletons killed drops its skull. The chance can be increased if you use a sword enchanted with Looting: it increases to 3.5% chance of dropping with Looting I, 4.5% with Looting II, and 5.5% with Looting III. On this highest level, on average one of every 18 wither skeletons drops its skull. (For advanced players, there is a way to guarantee the drop of a skull by any wither skeleton, using a charged creeper explosion.)

Be warned that wither skeletons are very dangerous enemies, dealing high melee damage in addition to inflicting Wither effect on the player. For tips on how to deal with wither skeletons and other fortress inhabitants, check out Tutorial:Defeating a Nether fortress.

Once you get the skull in your inventory, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Parent of: Withering Heights

Into Fire

Relieve a Blaze of its rod

Requirements: Have a blaze rod in your inventory.

The only way to get a blaze rod is to kill a blaze, another mob that spawns only in Nether fortresses. Blaze by default has a 50% chance to drop a blaze rod when killed by the player or by a tamed wolf. Looting enchantment increases the amount of rods that the blaze can drop, up to 4 rods from one kill if you use a sword with Looting III.

Be warned that blazes are very dangerous enemies, dealing both melee damage and projectile damage, in addition to lighting the target on fire—which is especially deadly in the Nether, where you can't put yourself out with a water bucket! Getting at least few potions of Fire Resistance from bartering with piglins is recommended. For tips on how to deal with blazes and other fortress inhabitants, check out Tutorial:Defeating a Nether fortress.

Once you get the rod in your inventory, you will be rewarded the advancement.

Parent of: Local Brewery

Not Quite "Nine" Lives

Charge a Respawn Anchor to the maximum

Requirements: Charge a respawn anchor with glowstone four times (to the limit).

First, craft the respawn anchor like so:

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Crying Obsidian + Glowstone

Additional 4 blocks of glowstone are needed to charge the anchor.

It is strongly recommended that the next part is performed in the Nether dimension. Although respawn anchors can be charged in the Overworld and the End, the moment you click on a charged respawn anchor in these dimensions, it will explode.

Place your respawn anchor and use glowstone on it four times to fully charge the respawn anchor. Once it is fully charged, you will get the advancement.

Feels Like Home

Take a Strider for a looooong ride on a lava lake in the Overworld

Requirements: While riding a strider, travel 50 blocks on lava in the Overworld.

First, bring a strider to the Overworld. You can get the strider to follow you into a Nether portal by holding a warped fungus, or ride it into a Nether portal. The strider will be transported to the Overworld. Make sure that:

chunks on the Overworld side were loaded before (similarly to the Uneasy Alliance advancement),
there is no water or rain on the Overworld side, as the strider takes damage from them.

After the strider is in the Overworld, you need to ride it continuously on lava until you're 50 blocks from where you started. This can either be a big enough natural lava reservoir, or a 50+ blocks long track of lava source blocks you made yourself. It is recommended that in any of these cases, you should be underground or at least in a dry biome ("Precipitation" parameter should be FALSE), because rain can kill striders very quickly, even mid-way through the ride. Also, because this advancement only accounts for horizontal displacement, going in a circle for more than 50 blocks doesn't count. If the strider walks off track, progress is reset, and you have to start from the beginning.

Once you're horizontally 50 blocks away from where you mounted the strider, you are granted the advancement.

Hot Tourist Destinations

Explore all Nether biomes

Requirements: Find every biome in the Nether.

This is achieved by setting foot in all five biomes in the Nether: basalt deltas, crimson forest, Nether wastes, soul sand valley, and warped forest.

If you go to the advancement tab, you can see a progress bar, showing how many of the five biomes you have visited. However, it does not show which of the five biomes have been visited. A way to check which biomes a player has visited is introduced in the "Adventuring Time" section, which also applies to this advancement; the only difference is that the entry to look for is minecraft:nether/explore_nether.

Once you have entered all of these biomes, you will be granted the advancement. Completing it will reward the player 500 experience.

Withering Heights

Summon the Wither

Requirements: Be in a 100.9×100.9×103.5 cuboid centered on the wither when it is spawned.

To summon the wither, place 4 blocks of soul sand or soul soil in a T shape, in any direction, and place 3 wither skeleton skulls on the line of 3 soul sand/soul soil. Two blocks under the "arms" must be air blocks.

The wither will immediately spawn—at this point, as long as you're within a 100.9×100.9×103.5 area, you will get the advancement. Wither cannot deal any damage nor be done any harm for 10 seconds, until it explodes. The explosion is very violent, so you should probably back away.

It is not recommended to summon the wither without preparation. For more information on the wither, what to expect, what to prepare, and how to fight it, see the pages "Wither" and "Tutorial:Defeating the wither".

Parent of: Bring Home the Beacon

Local Brewery

Brew a potion

Requirements: Retrieve an item from a brewing stand's potion slot.

You need a brewing stand, which can be crafted like so:

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Blaze Rod + Any stone-tier block

Brewing stands can also be found in villages (in churches), igloos and end ships.

In the inside of a brewing stand, there are three slots on the bottom with the outline of a glass bottle, and another slot on top, which is for the actual potion ingredient. There is also a slot in the top left with the outline of blaze powder.

Brewing a potion is not actually required to complete the advancement.^[1] The simplest way to complete it is to put any glass bottle (even an empty one) into any of the bottom three slots of the brewing stand interface and then remove it to get the advancement. No blaze powder or potion ingredients are needed.

Parent of: A Furious Cocktail

Bring Home the Beacon

Construct and place a beacon

Requirements: Be in a 20×20×14 range when a beacon is activated.

First, you need to craft a beacon, which requires a Nether star, dropped by the wither upon death.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Glass + Nether Star + Obsidian

To activate the beacon, you need a pyramid of certain blocks, which include blocks of iron, gold, diamond, emerald, and/or netherite. When activated, beacons can give you special powers if you are a certain number of blocks from the beacon. Minimum requirement for this advancement is a 3×3 square of mineral blocks. Place a beacon on top of the central block. This gives the beacon a power level of 1. Note that beacons require an unobstructed view of the sky (transparent blocks like glass are allowed, as well as bedrock). If you place more mineral blocks in a 5×5 square with the 3×3 square on top and a beacon on top of that, the beacon will have a power level of 2. You can continue adding bigger pyramid layers up to level 4 (see Beaconator advancement below).

To get this advancement, it doesn't matter what power level the beacon as on. As soon as the beacon is activated, it shoots a beam of light to the sky, and you get the advancement. Also, if you use the beacon, you can give it iron ingots, gold ingots, diamonds, emeralds, or netherite ingots to get special powers. The higher-level beacon you have, the better powers you can get.

Parent of: Beaconator

A Furious Cocktail

Have every potion effect applied at the same time

Requirements: Have every status effect that can be obtained from a potion at the same time.

Get 17 potion effects at once. These can be obtained from brewing 16 potions:

Effect	Recipe
Fire Resistance
Infested
Invisibility
Jump Boost
Night Vision
Oozing
Poison
Regeneration
Slow Falling
Slowness and Resistance
Speed
Strength
Water Breathing
Weakness
Weaving
Wind Charged

Optionally, you can extend these potions using redstone and/or turn them into splash potions using gunpowder. Then, drink/splash yourself with all potions in shortest time possible. As the Turtle Master potion has the shortest duration, you should use it last.

However, despite the name, the advancement does not track if you actually drink potions; it tracks the effects that you have. Source of these effects is irrelevant. You can, for example, use beacons for 5 out of 13 effects (Strength, Speed, Jump Boost, Resistance and Regeneration). You can also use suspicious stew, tipped arrows, golden apples etc., but note that effects from these have shorter duration and it might be tricky to apply all of them to yourself at once.

If you are also planning on getting the “How Did We Get Here?” advancement, it is best to simply ignore getting this one on its own, as its requirements are a strict subset of those of “How Did We Get Here?”, and getting that advancement will implicitly include getting this one.

Completing this advancement will reward the player 100 experience.

Parent of: How Did We Get Here?

Beaconator

Bring a beacon to full power

Requirements: Be in a 20×20×14 range when a beacon is activated with a pyramid of height 4 (excluding the beacon itself).

Be near a beacon when it is powered by a full-size level 4 pyramid. To acquire this, place blocks of iron, gold, diamond, emerald and/or netherite on the ground in a 9×9 square. Place another layer of mineral blocks on top of that in a 7×7 square, and another on top of that in a 5×5 square. Finally, your top layer should be 3×3, and you can place a beacon on top of this. A total of 164 mineral blocks are needed.

Once the beacon shoots its beam to the sky, you will get the advancement. This must be the first activation of this particular beacon block; if you had an activated smalled pyramid and extended it to level 4, advancement doesn't trigger. In such case, simply mine and replace the beacon block. Note that beacons require an unobstructed view of the sky (transparent blocks like glass are allowed, as well as bedrock).

A level 4 beacon can also give special and rare powers to the player, if opened and given a type of mineral. For more info, check out the "Beacon" page.

How to get the "Beaconator" advancement.

How Did We Get Here?

Have every effect applied at the same time

Requirements: Have every non-instantaneous status effect applied to the player that is obtainable in Survival mode at the same time (with the exception of Saturation).

References

↑ MC-116875

Navigation

[1] MC-116875

[1]