What is the best way to mine netherite?

Question

The new ore added in 1.16 is very rare and everyone wants to get their hands on it. During my early game beds were an obvious choice for how inexpensive it was. But now that I'm late game, I would like to mine ancient debris the most efficient way.

What is the least time consuming way to get debris?

Points to keep in mind:-

• material isn't a problem since I have a pigman xp farm that gets me around 75000 xp/h, a ghast tear farm, an ender-ender, a creeper flush farm and a sand duplicator (if I don't have any I will build them).
• AFKing isn't a problem since I can leave the PC on for extended periods of time
• Things I need to do when mining(like pickaxe repairing - note I only have enough netherite for six picks currently and also I will mine ~2k blocks out with a nether roof hole) will count towards my time.
• the current ways I'm considering are tnt chaining, end crystal mining, pickaxe instamine and tnt dupe craters.

If you have your own method feel free to elaborate.

Answer 1

Here are the best methods. It is best if you mine with the floor at y-15.

Bed Mining

Bed mining is one of the best and cheapest ways to mine netherite.

Advantages

• Easy to detonate
• Rather cheap
• Large explosion uncovers more blocks

Disadvantages

• You need to be careful not to blow yourself up
• You may take some blast damage
• Lots of fire everywhere

Resources needed

• A lot of beds (Preferably a full inventory)
• 2-3 stacks of a blast resistance material (Preferably basalt)
• 3-4 stacks of a scaffolding block (Preferably netherrack, as you can get lots of it while mining)
• A diamond or netherite pickaxe to clean up or mine debris

Optional Resources

• A few fire resistance potions
• Blast Protection armor

How to do it

1. Mine a hole or staircase down to y-15.
2. Place a bed 6 blocks from the end of the path to the surface.
3. Place your blast-resistant block in front of you.
4. Right-click the bed to blow it up.
5. Take a look at the crater, and search for ancient debris (This is what you're looking for)
6. OPTIONAL: Pick up the netherrack and put out fires to regenerate your amount of scaffolding blocks.
7. Bridge over with your scaffolding blocks
8. Dig 6 blocks in again.
9. Repeat 2-8 until you run out of beds, or are satisfied with your mining.

Yields

• Average 0.6 Ancient Debris per explosion

Bubble Mining

Bubble Mining uncovers a lot of blocks, and can be fun to use.

Advantages

• Very thorough
• Not very resource-intensive
• Satisfying to insta-mine
• Many resources are gathered as a side-effect

Disadvantages

• Causes strain on hands after a while
• Many trips to repair pickaxes are required
• Lava is VERY dangerous here

Resources needed

• Some diamond or netherite pickaxes (Preferably enchanted with Unbreaking III, Efficiency V, Mending)

Optional Resources

• Some fire resistance potions
• A beacon with Haste II
• Pickaxes enchanted with Silk Touch

How to do it

1. Dig down to y-15.
2. Hold down left-click or spam it, while turning around slowly to uncover all blocks.
3. Once all blocks in range are mined, move 3-5 blocks forward.
4. Repeat 2-3 until no pickaxes left, all are almost broken, or you are satisfied with mining.

Yields

• About 40 Debris per hour, net worth 39.7 per hour (Yields - Expenses (pickaxe))
• Lots of stacks of other resources

End Crystal Mining

Massive explosions in the Nether reduces amount of digging and placing

Advantages

• Not much crystals needed
• Uncovers many blocks
• Easy to detonate
• Can be detonated from a distance

Disadvantages

• VERY expensive
• Lots of obsidian needed
• Hard to clean up
• Easy to blow yourself up, massive amounts of damage to entities near the crystal

Resources needed

• As many end crystals as you want
• Just as many obsidian as you have crystals
• A bow (Preferably with Unbreaking III, Infinity)
• A diamond or netherite pickaxe to clean up or mine debris

Optional Resources

• Bow with Power V
• Several stacks of scaffolding blocks

How to do it

1. Go down to y-15
2. Dig 10 blocks away
3. Place obsidian on the floor of that tunnel
4. Place end crystal on obsidian
5. Run 10 blocks back
6. Shoot the crystal
7. Scout and mine debris
8. OPTIONAL: Collect netherrack and put out fires to regenerate scaffolding blocks
9. Repeat steps 2-8 until you run out of crystals or you are satisfied with mining

Yields

• About 0.8 Ancient Debris per explosion

TNT Mining

One tap blows it all up, lots of uncovered blocks.

Advantages

• Relatively cheap
• Many blocks uncovered
• One-tap detonation

Disadvantages

• TNT can fly about and land in bad places
• You could blow yourself up
• Some TNT may not ignite
• You need to dig very long tunnels

Resources needed

• As much TNT as you like
• Flint and Steel or a Bow with Flame
• Diamond or Netherite pickaxe to dig tunnels and harvest debris

Optional Resources

• An Elytra with a few rockets

How to do it

1. Dig down to y-15
2. Create a 1x2x1 tunnel in one direction until you are satisfied.
3. Place a TNT at the end of the tunnel.
4. Go two blocks back.
5. Place another TNT. Each space should look like this:

Key: T = TNT, S = Air space, ... = Continue this pattern

... S S T ...

6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you run out of TNT or return to the starting point. It should now look like this:

... T S S T S S T S S T S S T S S T S S T ...

7. Go to the end of the TNT chain and light it on fire with flint and steel or a flame arrow.
8. Be careful and go to a safe spot to watch the detonation.
9. Ignite any surviving TNT.
10. Scout and mine all debris found.

Yields

• About 0.4-0.67 Ancient Debris per explosion
• About 10 Ancient Debris per 64 blocks of TNT

So far, all of these are pretty good ways to mine netherite, just look for which one is the most satisfying or easy! I hope this helps!

Answer 2

Probably the best way to do it would be to link up tnt together. Just make a big tunnel in one direction and put in every other block, or every block, whichever you prefer. The advantages to this is that once you light it, it should just keep igniting itself and you wont need to do anything else. Also, tnt does not leave the fire. You could use a flying machine with a tnt duper on it that would launch tnt forward, tutorials are everywhere online. Don't use end crystals though because the obsidian would leave it so that it does not explode the mass amount of blocks. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

I would highly recommend bed mining. since the materials are so cheap and its a fairly quick method, I'd say its the best way. you have to be careful not to take damage from the explosions however.

Its simple really. All you have to do is set up a (pretty sizeable) sheep farm. Use shears to gather wool (as opposed to killing), so that you can harvest wool from the same sheep many times. Just start collecting wool, and take it to the nether. mine down a safe path, I recommend around Y level 13 - 15.

Place a chest so that your inventory isn't cluttered, and fill your inventory with beds. now, do a strip mine, and every 10 - 20 blocks, dig a poke hole as far as you can reach, place a bed at the end, and right click it. the bed will explode, and check if there is any ancient debris in the hole.

Here is a video tutorial on how to use this method: