Minecraft is one of the most popular games on the planet. It has massive influence over the gaming industry and is a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, players don’t always make the best decisions when playing such an addictive game as Minecraft.
While you can find diamonds easily enough, they are sometimes buried too deep in the ground to reach them — meaning you might run out of inventory space with nothing but dirt before you get any diamonds. This needs to change!
You need a way to get those diamonds. It’s not easy. You can’t just mine down into the ground and hope to find some. You need to be smarter than that. You need a plan. Minecraft is a game that requires strategy, discipline, and patience.
So let’s look at some of the best ways to do just that.
Gathering Diamonds in Minecraft – The Right Way
To find diamonds in Minecraft, you must locate a diamond ore, which can be found among blocks in levels 5-16 with a chance of about 0.0846% (roughly 1 in every 1200 blocks). Their occurrence varies depending on the version of the game you’re playing.
For example, in version 1.18 and later, diamonds mostly occur between laters -50 to -64. The most common approaches to searching for diamonds are caving and mining. You need to have an iron, Netherite, or diamond pickaxe to be able to mine diamonds.
Keep in mind that mining a diamond ore with wood, gold, or stone pickaxe will not yield any diamonds, so make sure you use only the recommended tools for the job. Moreover, with an enchantment like Fortune, you can increase the average number of diamonds you receive.
With a Fortune III enchantment on your pickaxe, you can harvest around 2.2 diamonds per ore that can go as high as four. Here’s a quick list of tools that you should bring with you before beginning your hunt for diamonds in the generated world:
- Two or more pickaxes of the right material
- A handful of torches to easily navigate your way through the cave or mine and prevent hostile mobs from spawning
- A crafting table to prepare the required blocks from minerals and furnace
- A water bucket to transform the lava that you come across into obsidian to be able to travel easily
- A couple of swords to fight enemies that you encounter during the search
- An armor to reduce the damage you receive from monsters or lava
- A shovel to remove the gravel and dirt while caving or mining
In addition, you can also consider bringing some potions like Fire Resistance, just in case you encounter a lava pool on your way. You can even use some empty buckets to store the lava and use it as fuel for smelting.
That being said, let us now take a look at the various ways you can find diamonds in Minecraft:
Spelunking
Spelunking is an approach that requires you to explore caves to find the required resources. It is considered to be less time-consuming and requires fewer tools as compared to mining. However, spelunking can be quite dangerous if not done right.
Here’s how to do it properly:
Step 1 – Finding A Cavern
There are several ways to find caves in Minecraft; the simplest is exploring the surface. By navigating through the map, there’s a high chance that you’ll come across an exposed cave. Azalea trees are a good indication that there’s a lush cave beneath the surface.
You can also uncover hidden caves by digging around, but it is not easy as the map is exceptionally large. There’s a 40% chance that choosing a random location and digging down will lead you to a cave system.
However, mining straight comes with its own sets of cons as you may end up falling into lava, a deep underground cave with no way out, or full of hostile mobs. You can make a diagonal tunnel instead, which might take longer to dig but is comparatively safer.
It is also possible to find hidden caves by listening to and following the ambient sounds of mobs in your generated world. If you hear any sound of mobs, water, or lava coming from underground, there’s a good chance you can find a cave there.
Even a piston can be used to find caves as they don’t extend if there are more than 13 blocks ahead of them. You can place a piston on the ground and power it to see whether it extends. You can try digging down to uncover the hidden cave if it doesn’t.
Furthermore, as the ground levels are connected between the Nether and the overworld, you can also travel to the Nether and head down 20-30 blocks. Then, spawn a new portal and travel back to the overworld for chances of spawning in a cave.
Step 2 – Navigating and Surviving
It’s quite common that you get lost in deep-dark caverns, so you must know about certain methods that will help you navigate the cave easily. One of the simplest methods to always be aware of your location is the “torch on the right” rule.
According to this method, as you head deeper into a cave, always place torches on the right side of the wall so that no matter how intertwined the cave gets, you will always be able to find your way back by ensuring that the torches are on the left.
Additionally, you can also use markings like colored wool to find out where you came from. Many players also place signs pointing in the direction where they just came from to prevent exploring the same section again and again.
You may also consider bringing a map if you are traveling through a large cave, just in case you get lost and need to find your way out. Keep in mind that while holding a map, you might map out new surfaces, but the undergrounds won’t be mapped.
The light level in caves is dark enough to spawn monsters and zombies, so they can be quite dangerous for the player. In addition, gravel can also prove to be lethal as it can suffocate the player. You’ll often see lava too, which can kill you quickly and burn all your items.
Therefore, you should always be aware of your surroundings while being inside the caves. It is a good practice to explore a particular cave area fully and light it up before heading to another area. Also, watch out for broken bridges like 2-block drops and gravel masses.
Step 3 – Getting Out Safely
Once you have finished spelunking and gathering diamonds, you can find your way back from where you came from instead of trying to dig upwards. However, if the situation calls for it, you can make your own exit by digging upwards in a staircase fashion, but watch out for drips.
If you get suffocated by gravel on your way out, you can quickly use a shovel to get out of it. If you carry a map with you, it will be easy for you to determine where you will emerge. A water flow that leads up to the ocean surface can be a great medium to exit the cave quickly.
Exploring The Oceans
Oceans in Minecraft consist of many ravines that have hidden caves inside them. With some potions of water breathing and night vision, you can explore these hidden reigns and find some diamonds at the bottom.
It’s a comparatively better way as most of the resources inside the oceans are already unearthed and you won’t have to mine your way to them.
Using TNT
If you aren’t a fan of mining and are looking for a relatively faster way to search for diamonds, you can use TNT to blow up a large amount of area and uncover resources quickly.
However, keep in mind that this method requires you to gather a large amount of gunpowder and sand by killing creeps and exploring desert areas, respectively.
You can either blow up one TNT at a time or place several at once. If you are playing the Java edition of Minecraft, the ores destroyed with TNT will drop the items, but the method doesn’t work with the Bedrock edition of the game.
Branch Mining
If you have just started playing Minecraft and don’t have enough weapons to deal with mobs in caverns, you can rely on branch-mining to effectively gain lots of minerals and resources, including diamonds in the game. Here is a step-by-step procedure to get started with branch mining:
Step 1 – Start Digging Underground
Start by digging your way down as per your preferences, but make sure you do not dig straight down as it might expose you to lava or pit. Every generated world has a later called Bedrock located at the very bottom. Most of the ores are commonly located a few blocks above the bedrock.
So, consider digging down until your character reaches y-coordinate 13. You can reveal the coordinates of your player by pressing the F3 button on your keyboard.
Step 2 – Make A Tunnel
Next, you have to start mining horizontally to make a tunnel. The smallest tunnel that a character can fit in is usually two blocks tall and one block wide, but you can make it as wide as you want.
Also, make sure that you use plenty of torches to light the area; otherwise, hostile mobs will spawn in the area due to darkness.
Step 3 – Branch Off More Tunnels From The First One
Now you must make additional tunnels that divert from the main route you just created. Also, make sure you position the additional tunnels so that they are at least two blocks from each other.
This will allow you to assess a large area and make sure you do not miss out on any potential diamonds hidden in the area.
Branch mining is considered to be one of the most effective ways to find diamonds. However, it consumes a lot of time and tools because you have to dig through many stone blocks.
This also produces a lot of cobblestones, so make sure you have ample chests as well to store the required resources.
Pinwheel Branch Mining – Alternate
Pinwheel branch mining is another form of branch mining that takes an alternate approach to find diamonds. Here’s how you can do it:
- Firstly, dig a small 4×4 area a few levels down the ground and place some chests, a bed, and a furnace there
- Then, dig 2×2 tunnels in all four directions of your 4×4 area. This step also determines how many branches you want to have inside your mine, so if you are looking to make a large number of branches, you have to dig big tunnels in all four ways.
- Now, once you have made the four tunnels, you have to branch out even more tunnels in those corridors. To attain maximum efficiency, you may consider keeping a space of six blocks between them.
The Lapis Lazuli Diamond Trick
A player named “leospeedleo” found a direct correlation between diamonds and lapis lazuli in Minecraft. According to this trick, if you manage to find lapis lazuli in a cave, all you have to do is mine four blocks down and then immediately start digging sideways to reveal diamonds.
In certain rare events, clay generates at the top of diamond ores alongside lapis lazuli, which means if you manage to find the lapis and clay adjacent to each other, you’re quite close to diamonds as well.
However, keep in mind that the probability of finding diamonds with the help of this method depends entirely on the seed of your Minecraft world. There’s a rough 80% chance that this occurrence will take place in your Minecraft world.
Bottom Line
The solution to the problem of finding diamonds, one of the most sought-after and valuable items in Minecraft, is actually quite simple.
When you follow this guide, you will be able to find diamonds with relative ease. The secret lies in a system of knowing exactly where to look for them. Once you’ve cracked the code, locating these precious gems will be a breeze.
