What tool do you craft first when entering a new world in Minecraft? Perhaps it’s a shovel to dig up dirt and build yourself a simple shelter? Or maybe an axe for gathering stone and obtaining higher-quality tools? If we haven’t hit the mark yet, then most likely it’s our item of the week—a hatchet, which allows you to gather wood and quickly create new tools.
Axes were introduced to Minecraft in January 2010 with version 0.31. Initially, the axe featured a double-sided iron blade, resembling more of a weapon than a tool. This design was later removed, reintroduced, and then taken out again, resulting in the axe we know today. For many years, developers left axes unchanged, but during one of the most significant updates, they finally adjusted the attack speed and damage.
To craft an axe, you will need two sticks and three iron/wooden/golden/diamond ingots arranged in the upper left section of the crafting grid.
The primary function of axes is to quickly chop wooden items, but they are also quite effective as weapons. A wooden axe breaks a wooden block twice as fast as bare hands, while a stone axe does so twice as fast as a wooden one, and an iron axe increases speed by about 30%.
The diamond axe doesn’t significantly surpass the iron axe in speed, but its advantages lie elsewhere. The diamond axe is much more durable, allowing you to break six times as many items compared to a wooden one. While golden axes don’t excel in this regard either, they are excellent for cutting.
In terms of damage, there isn’t a substantial difference among the axes. Wooden and golden axes deal three and a half hearts of damage, while all other types inflict four hearts. Stone and wooden axes have the highest attack speed, whereas diamond and golden axes feature the longest cooldown time.
By mastering the perfect technique and considering all the pros and cons of the diamond axe, you’ll achieve maximum damage per second. However, if you strike during the cooldown period, the damage dealt will be equivalent to that of a stone axe.
The use of axes is highly effective when your opponent possesses a shield. A strike from an axe against the shield has the potential to incapacitate them for five seconds. By attacking while sprinting, you significantly enhance this likelihood.
Axes have been utilized in the real world for over a million years. The handle-less hand axe from the Stone Age holds the record for longevity in usage. For approximately 1.5 million years, it was employed for butchering animals, digging for food and water, chopping down trees, and stripping bark from them.
The first axes with handles emerged much later—around 6000 years ago. Their design was quite simple: a regular axe was fitted into a wooden stick, and to prevent them from falling apart, they were glued together using birch resin or something similar.
Interestingly, researchers have discovered numerous unused axes. It seems they served a religious or cultural purpose. In fact, this theory is further supported by the skepticism surrounding axes in many cultures.
It may seem like there’s not much to say about a basic axe, but once you start digging for information, you’ll find so many fascinating facts that it’s impossible to cover them all. We’ll leave it at that for now. As for details on axes in Minecraft Bedrock, you simply need to craft them yourself, and you’ll learn everything you need!
