Minecraft potions guide

Minecraft potions are one of many ways to enhance your character. Unlike armour or weapons, they give temporary effects and ones that can be the difference between success and failure. You can boost your health, increase your damage, or resist fire. 

That's why it's so important to learn how to craft, but also alter and enhance, potions. With this guide, you'll be able to turn a pile of ingredients into a range of healing items, debuff clouds, and weapons against the undead in no time.

Potions are not the only way to give yourself extra protection when wandering around in Minecraft though. You can also use enchantments to make your items stronger, or protect yourself using the extra durable Netherite. Of course, rather than defend yourself from the world, you can just lock it out completely, as these lists of best Minecraft castles and best Minecraft mansions will let you do.

Here though, you'll master potion brewing and know the most useful concoctions. So let's get to it: here's how to brew the best Minecraft potions. 

Minecraft Brewing Equipment 

 Brewing Stand: A block used for adding ingredients into water bottles.
Cauldron: This holds the water, and is used to fill the Glass Bottles which will eventually house the potions.
Blaze Powder: This the fuel for the Brewing Stand.
Glass Bottle: These are the containers for your potions.
Water Bottle: This is the starting base for all potions. You get it by filling a Glass Bottle from the Cauldron. 

How to use a Brewing Stand 

The Brewing Stand can be made by combining one Blaze Rod with three bits of Cobblestone. You need to place the Blaze Rod in the centre as fuel and the Cobblestone along the bottom row. Blaze Rods can be found by killing Blazes in Nether Fortresses, and it's worth picking up as many as you can.

Along with the fuel to the Brewing Stand you need to get started, you're also going to need some Water Bottles, and some Nether Wart. 

To make Water Bottles, first craft Glass Bottles by combining three pieces of Glass on a crafting table. These must be arranged in a V shape with the three pieces being in the middle-left, bottom-middle, and middle-right of the table. Then, take your bottles to a water source and use them. 

Next is the Nether Wart, which you can get by finding it in The Nether. You can also create your own farm by laying down some Soul Sand and planting the Nether Wart in it.

Now that's settled, we can return to brewing. Add up to three Water Bottles to the stand before adding in some Nether Wart. Once the process has completed, you'll have three Awkward Potions to play around with. On their own these potions are useless, but they're also the main component of most potions.

Base Ingredients

There are two basic ways to change potions. You can change how the potion works at a base level, such as making it last longer. That’s what we’re looking at here. Further down, we look at changing the effects of potions, so they do different things. For now though, here are the ingredients for the base changes, and what they do:

Mundane Potion
Ingredient: Redstone Dust
How to get: Mine Redstone Ore.
Modifier Effect: Extends potion duration. 

Thick Potion
Ingredient: Glowstone Dust
How to get: Mine Glowstone Blocks.
Modifier Effect: Enhances potion level. Increases potency, but lasts for less time. 

Potion Of Weakness
Ingredient: Fermented Spider Eye
How to get: Craft a Spider's Eye with Sugar and a Brown Mushroom.
Modifier Effect: Corrupts certain potions, allowing them to have the opposite (often negative) effect. 

Splash Water Bottle
Ingredient: Gunpowder
How to get: Killing Creepers, Ghasts, and Witches.
Modifier Effect: Turns a normal potion into a Splash Potion. This explodes and spreads an effect when thrown. 

Lingering Water Bottle
Ingredient: Dragon's Breath
How to get: Use an empty bottle on the fireballs the Ender Dragon's breath attack leaves behind.
Modifier Effect: Turns a Splash Potion into a Lingering Potion. This creates a cloud of that effect when thrown.

Effect Ingredients

Effect potions are made by combining Awkward Potions with different ingredients. You just need to put the Awkward Potion in the Brewing Stand, and add the relevant ingredient to it. Ensure there is still Blaze Powder lighting the stand, too, otherwise nothing will happen. Now you can then look at enhancing them or altering them. Here, we’ll run through all of the effect potions, what ingredients you’ll need, how to nab those ingredients, and which potions you’ll likely need the most.

Potion Of Swiftness
This potion makes you faster, which is important if you’re planning on moving around a lot, want to rush through a drudgerous task, or if you’re just very impatient.
Ingredients: Sugar
How to get:  Craft Sugar Cane.

Potion Of Leaping
Just like ten lords at Christmas, this potion will have you a-leaping, increasing your jump height.
Ingredients: Rabbit's Foot
How to get: Murder rabbits like a savage.

Potion Of Healing
A must have in any game, a Potion Of Healing will heal your injuries. I mean, what more could you want from it?
Ingredients: Glistering Melon Slice
How to get: Craft eight Gold Nuggets and a Melon Slice.

Potion Of Poison
One of the rare offensive potions, a Potion Of Poison will deplete health slowly overtime as the toxins take hold.
Ingredients: Spider Eye
How to get: Kill off spiders. They did attack you first, to be fair.

Potion Of Water Breathing
The Potion Of Water Breathing lets you breathe underwater. Ideal for if you’re doing an impression of a mermaid. Or a seal.
Ingredients: Pufferfish
How to get: Fish outside of Jungle Biomes.

Potion Of Fire Resistance
Perfect for if you plan on setting yourself on fire, the Potion Of Fire Resistance will help you resist fire. You don’t plan on setting yourself on fire though, right
Ingredients: Magma Cream
How to get: Butcher Magma Cubes in The Nether.

Potion Of Night Vision
This potion lets you see with vastly increased brightness in the dark, even underwater. Fun fact, in real life, carrots do not help you see in the dark.
Ingredients: Golden Carrot
How to get: Craft eight Gold Nuggets and a Carrot.

Potion Of Strength
Th-th-th-that that don’t kill you, can only make you stronger. This potion won’t kill you, but will give you increased melee damage.
Ingredients: Blaze Powder
How to get: Craft a Blaze Rod.

Potion Of Regeneration
Similar to the Potion Of Healing, the Potion Of Regeneration is a crucial part of an explorer’s inventory. While Healing gives you a health boost at once, Regeneration keeps slowly restoring your health over time.
Ingredients: Ghast Tear
How to get: Kill off Ghasts in The Nether.

Potion Of Turtle Master
Unfortunately, this won’t let you talk to the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals, but instead boosts defense while decreasing speed.
Ingredients: Turtle Shell
How to get: Craft five Scutes, which can be obtained when baby turtles grow up. Don't hurt them.

Potion Of Slow Falling
This potion will allow you to fall slower (hence the name), and also stops fall damage. Perfect for practising your superhero landing.
Ingredients: Phantom Membrane
How to get: Kill Phantoms. This is an enemy that spawns if you haven't slept for three days or longer.

Altering a potion

You can change effect potions brewing them with special items. These ingredients change how the potions work, and can even turn them into poisons and debuffs. If you know what you're doing, you can actually craft makeshift grenades, too. 

Here are the ingredients and what they do: 

Redstone Dust
How to get: Mine Redstone Ore.
Effect: Extends potion duration. 

Glowstone Dust
How to get: Mine Glowstone Blocks.
Effect: Enhances potion level. Increases potency, but lasts for less time. 

Fermented Spider Eye
How to get: Craft a Spider's Eye with Sugar and a Brown Mushroom.
Effect: Corrupts certain potions, allowing them to have the opposite (often negative) effect. 

Gunpowder
How to get: Killing Creepers, Ghasts, and Witches.
Effect: Turns a normal potion into a Splash Potion. This explodes and spreads an effect when thrown. 

Dragon's Breath
How to get: Use an empty bottle on the fireballs the Ender Dragon's breath attack leaves behind.
Effect: Turns a Splash Potion into a Lingering Potion. This creates a cloud of that effect when thrown.

The best Minecraft potions

The best Minecraft potions Now that you know how to make potions, let's talk about some of the best ones around. While all potions in the game are helpful, there are a few which you should always have in your blocky bag. Here are the best potions to keep on you at all times.

Potion of Fire Resistance
Fire will kill you more often than nearly anything else in Minecraft, especially in The Nether. That's why this potion is so useful: being able to nullify so many issues with just one potion is a real blessing. It's so potent that you can effectively go swimming in lava.
Ingredients: Magma Cream
How to get: Butcher Magma Cubes in The Nether.

Potion of Slow Falling
After fire, falling is likely your biggest killer. This potion will slow each of your deadly descents into a casual meander. Not only that, you won't take a jot of fall damage.
Ingredients: Phantom Membrane
How to get: Kill Phantoms. This is an enemy that spawns if you haven't slept for three days or longer.

Potion of Night Vision
This is more convenient than anything else, but the Potion of Night Vision is strong. It allows you to see as though the entire world is well-lit. Not only does this mean you can explore easily, it even illuminates underwater surroundings.
Ingredients: Golden Carrot
How to get: Craft eight Gold Nuggets and a Carrot.

Potion of Healing/Regeneration
A potion doesn't have to be glamorous to be useful, and staying alive is pretty much essential to doing well. Whether you need a quick boost in a scrap, or if you're just trying to recover after it's over, these potions will make sure you always come out on top.
Healing Ingredients: Glistering Melon Slice
How to get: Craft eight Gold Nuggets and a Melon Slice.

Regeneration Ingredients: Ghast Tear
How to get: Kill off Ghasts in The Nether.

And that's our Minecraft potions guide. The process might seem complex at first, you'll know what you're doing before long.