1.11.2 survival guide

[FishSandwich]

The 1.11.2 Survival Guide


(optional: Listen to this while reading)

Hey all! For those we still haven't caught on, the server was updated to 1.11.2 by our one and only supreme commander rev, skipping 1.11 and getting straight on with it to 1.11.2. That's a lot of changes to get used to, so I decided to make a nice list with the important bits.

There's a lot of exploring to do! With new structures in the overworld that contain exciting new enemies and loot, you'll want to head into the unknown right away. If you need some help with this, try finding some villagers. Sometimes, Cartographer villagers will sell you maps leading you straight to Ocean monuments and the new Woodland mansions. If you think you don't need the villagers' help, you can always just try finding them on your own. Just a tip, the woodland mansions only generate in roofed forest biomes.

The woodland mansions are huge wooden structures populated by mysterious Illagers. They are the weird cousin of the villagers, which you can see if you can stand to look at their ugly grey faces enough. They stand out from the friendly villagers by their need to kill everyone in sight, and boy are they good at it. They don't have to trade items because they trade in bloody death. I'm not kidding, do not take these on unless you are fully prepared to take a beating.

The most common type of Illager is the Vindicator. They seem friendly at first, but once they spot you they will pull out their axe and charge at you with blinding speed. Now you're probably thinking, something so fast wouldn't possibly hit hard and you couldn't be more wrong. A small group of these will even pose a challenge for someone in fully enchanted diamond armor. They drop precious emeralds, and also have a small chance to drop their iron axe. If it's any consolation, they can't respawn, so once you get rid of them, they're gone for good.

Not all Illagers are psycho axe murderers. Some of them have found enlightenment and studied many years to master the art of magic - something they use in their never ending quest to kill every human being they come across. These are known as the Evokers and they will shoot out rows of bear traps that clamp down on you, dealing 3 hearts of damage regardless of armor or enchantments, so yes, these hurt no matter how well you're equipped. Luckily you can dodge them quite easily. If he wants to, he can also summon small ghostly critters to fight at his side called Vexes. He will spawn 3 at a time. They are small, fly around, and can phase through blocks, making them hard to hit. They'll get a slightly red coloration when they are about to attack, so keep an eye out for that. The Evoker will also drop some emeralds for you, as well as special new item: the Totem of Undying.

The Totem of Undying is a life saver, literally. If you take any would-be fatal damage while holding the totem in one of your hands, you will survive with half a heart and get a nice Regeneration and Absorption bonus. After that, the Totem disappears, so it may not be worth the hassle of getting it. Still cool to have and take with you if you plan on doing something dangerous.

There's not just new structures to explore - old one have gotten some added value as well! The Shulkers that live in the End cities now have a 50% chance to drop their shells. 2 Shulker shells and a chest make a shulker chest, a fantastic items that functions just like a chest, but when you break it, all the items stay inside. This means you can carry an entire chest's worth of items in just one inventory slot! They can't be placed inside each other for limitless inventory, but you can put them in their ender chest, so you can carry a lot with you as well! They can be dyed and named to keep them apart. Shulker shell drop rate is increased by the Looting enchantment, so be sure you have that to get the most out of the soon-to-be extinct shulker.

If you care for a more traditional variant of lugging your junk around, it's your lucky day. The world is now populated by llamas, who you can tame just like horses. They can be equipped with a chest and carry items, the amount varying from llama to llama. If you put a lead on one of them, up to 10 nearby llamas will line up behind them and form a caravan - all of which can be equipped with chests (which can also hold shulker chests by the way, in case you were planning to move your entire storage room into a newly emptied woodland mansion). They can also be equipped with carpets to decorate them with beautiful patterns. They drop leather when killed, but leather won't help you sleep at night after what you did to those cute defenseless llamas you monster.

Congrats, you made it home with your loot and new fluffy best friend. Maybe you got some kick ass armor to take on more woodland mansions and end cities. But be wary! Armor you loot can be cursed. I couldn't make this up even if I wanted to. Curse of Vanishing means the item will disappear upon death, while Curse of Binding means you can not unequip the armor once you put it on unless you die. It's not game changing, but it can lead to minor annoyance.

What's that, you found an elytra in one the end cities you visited on your holy crusade of Shulker genocide? I hope you stocked up on gunpowder, because the previously useless fireworks can now be used to give you a boost while flying. Yay for not having to shoot yourself! The more gunpowder you craft into the firewoks, the longer the boost will be, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds (1 for every gunpowder, detectable by the flight duration tag on the firework). Be sure not to add a firework star into the recipe - while the explosion may look nice, they will explode right in your face, which sucks because they do damage now.

Now, besides your elytra and cursed armor, you probably have a bunch of shitty gold and iron stuff. Don't worry, you don't have to donate it to the new players any longer, fuck 'em! Gold and iron tools and armor can now be smelted down into gold and iron nuggets. 9 of these are needed to craft the respective ingots. Every item will only result in one nugget, regardless of durability, so an undamaged golden chestplate isn't better than a golden shovel with 1 durability. You can also do this with the gear you get from your skeleton and/or zombie farms, so have at it!

If you're building a mob farm just for this purpose, you're probably already looking up how to install a mechanism that lowers the mobs health to 1 so you can kill them easily. Of course, if you're no redstone genius and can't get the timing just right, there's a solution for that now. You can now get the new Sweeping enchantment on swords, which increases the damage of the sweeping effect added to swords in the combat update. The enchant goes up to III, at which point the blade sweep does 75% of the direct hit.

Might want to put Mending on that sword so you can use your new farm to your heart's content! Isn't Mending the best? Mojang certainly seemed to think so, because they FUCKING NERFED IT. Alright, that may be exaggerating a little, but that's the jist of it. You can no longer put both Mending and Infinity on the same item, so this only affects bows. Any bows you have with these enchanments already on them are fine, so I'd keep them safe if I were you. If you need a new super bow, you'll have to choose between an infinitily durable bow or an infinite amount of arrows. Personally I prefer the second option, but the choice is up to you. You can get plenty of experience from your brand new mob farm to enchant new ones.

Waiting around for mobs to spawn might make a person of undefined gender hungry however. Luckily, food cost has been lowered for many things! Running, jumping, swimming, hitting and getting hit: it all drains your hunger less fast! On the downside, the food cost for natural health regeneration has been increased, so if you're the type that takes a lot of damage, you might want to up your food game.

If you're lazy like me, you might want to make an autofarm. It's your lucky day once again! For you redstoners out there, there's the new Observer block. It can detect changes in blocks on the "face" side of the block, which outputs a short signal on the other end. This can be things like placing or breaking blocks, but it can also detect things like crops advancing to the next stage, a furnace starting to burn or water freezing, so there's a lot of potential for all sorts of farms!

Did you enjoy this guide to the new riches of 1.11.2? You can send me a thank you in game, I'm usually there since I have no life. Don't be shy on compliments and praise, because the character limit has increased to 256 instead of the old 100!

Even that entire paragraph will fit! Think of the possibilities!

[licdlfg]

You're funny. You'll live.