The Best Uses For Gold In Minecraft

Gold in Minecraft isn't as useless as you might have thought.

In Minecraft, no ore has received a worse reputation than gold. Over the game's lifespan, gold has been considered the worst resource to mine up despite its rarity, being cited as generally useless due to its low durability when used for tools and armor.

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This may have been the case when gold was first introduced in the game, but ever since the Nether Update, it has become a resource with incredible utility. Though not necessarily as useful as iron or diamonds when it comes to pure survivability, gold helps you branch out to aspects of the game that aren't as cut and dry.

Golden food has been a staple of Minecraft from the early days, all the way back when you could use Gold Blocks to craft Enchanted Golden Apples. As long as you have a bit of gold on hand, you can craft food for effects that take way more resources to gain through potions.

For hunger management, the Golden Carrot provides the second-greatest saturation value in the game, ensuring your hunger bar will stay fuller for longer. Combat-wise, the Golden Apple provides Absorption and Regeneration, buffing your health during difficult fights.

Piglins can be an unfriendly lot to deal with when you first meet them, being the sort to attack you on sight if you dare cross their path. But once you wear a bit of gold armor– even just a pair of Golden Boots– they become completely docile to your presence. This alone makes gold worth searching out, as one more thing trying to kill you in the Nether is the last thing anyone needs.

But that's not where gold's usefulness stops when dealing with Piglins: throwing Gold Ingots at their feet will put them into their bartering animation, leading to them consuming your gold but dropping a new item in return. Bartering is especially useful for getting to The End, as you can receive Ender Pearls from the process.

Though gold tools tend to break too quickly to be used as a primary option, this downside can be used to our benefit. Since large projects tend to involve a decent amount of mindless mining to clear out space, why waste the durability of your Enchanted Diamond Pickaxe when you can use a golden one?

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Unlike stone tools, gold is actually comparable to diamond when it comes to mining speed, meaning that you won't lose much efficiency while doing a job. This applies to basically every tool, so if you need to get a big batch of simple tasks done quickly, save your best and let gold do the rest.

Sure, you can hold the W key for a few minutes to get across the world on standard Rails, but you'll realize just how slow Minecarts are by themselves as soon as you need to go uphill. What you need are Powered Rails, the golden variation of your average Rail that sends carts off at high speeds.

What's great about Powered Rails is that they only need to be placed every so often along a track, meaning you don't necessarily need too much gold to get a decently paced railway system going. Once you're on the track, you can take your hands off the keyboard and watch as you cross the landscape at Mach speed.

Though potions aren't nearly as useful as gold food for survivability, potions made with gold still provide a great level of utility. There are two potions that use golden materials as ingredients– Potion of Healing, which uses Glistering Melon Slices, and Potion of Night Vision, which uses Golden Carrots.

Though Golden Apples are your best bet anytime you're rapidly losing health, Potions of Healing are fairly good when coming out of combat to save your Absorption for another time. Night Vision on the other hand is always a great idea to have on hand at night, saving you from ambushes that you would otherwise fail to see coming.

Though often overlooked, the power of information can make or break how efficient you are in a world; lacking knowledge leads to terrifying situations where you're left unequipped when it matters most. Time is something you should always keep your eye on, for example, as coming out of a mine in the middle of the night leaves you vulnerable to swarms of Creepers and Skeletons.

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How do you keep your eye on the time? You use a clock, made from four Gold Ingots and a piece of Redstone. This should be the first thing you make once you get the resources necessary, as it makes planning trips across the Overworld much safer and more convenient.

Even if you don't want to use gold for its tier of tools and armor, you'll still need to get some if you want to access the pinnacle of materials known as Netherite. It takes four Gold Ingots and Netherite Scraps to make a Netherite Ingot, requiring around sixteen Gold Ingots overall to upgrade an entire set of diamond armor.

Given how powerful and long-lasting Netherite is, gold can never be accused of being weak again– you can mine for quite a long time before Netherite reaches even a quarter of its life span, making it the last tier of tools and armor you'll ever need.

Armor Trims are an addition from the 1.20 Trails and Tales update, allowing you to put aesthetic trims onto pieces of armor using Smithing Templates. Each trim can be modified with materials to change its color, accepting every mineable resource including gold at the Smithing Table.

Gold, unsurprisingly, makes the Armor Trim it's used on the golden, adding a level of refinement that not even the diamond trim can match. Though some color combinations tend to mix together somewhat strangely, gold trims go with nearly every single armor set available.

Next: Minecraft: Ways To Get Gold

Ja Vaughn is a lifelong games player who jumps at the opportunity to try a new game whenever they can. They take RPGs, shooters, and platformers alike with the vim and excitement of a dog getting kibble. When they aren't writing about games they're editing videos and making jokes with friends.