10 Best Minecraft Potions for Survival and PvP (v1.21)

A sandbox game like Minecraft is all about creativity. And that is most prominently noticeable in terms of potions. From turning invisible to being fire-resistant, potions offer a ton of variety to the players. Not to mention, most potions require rare items for brewing, and collecting them usually takes a lot of time. So, to help you only focus on the useful and must-have potions, we have compiled a list of the best potions in Minecraft. With that said, let’s dive right in.

Best Minecraft Potions Comparison Table

Before looking at the individual potions in detail, here is a quick overview to compare some of the best Minecraft potions that have their own powerful effect. If you’re low on ingredients, you can check this table to help decide which ones are actually worth brewing first.

Rank	Potion	Best Use Case
1	Potion of Strength	PvP, mob grinding, boss fights
2	Potion of Fire Resistance	Nether exploration, lava safety
3	Potion of Regeneration	Boss battles, emergency healing
4	Potion of Water Breathing	Exploring ocean monuments, underwater ruins
5	Potion of Night Vision	Exploring deep caves, Ancient Cities, or deep mining
6	Potion of Slow Falling	Exploring the end cities, or beating the Ender Dragon
7	Potion of Wind Charging	Mobility, elytra launches
8	Potion of Weaving	Cobweb farming, and trapping players
9	Potion of Oozing	Slime and slimeball farming
10	Potion of Infestation	Pranking players with silverfish

Top Tier: Must-Have Potions for Every Player

This category includes the potions that primarily focus on combat, exploration, and even the in-game progression. Therefore, these effects remain useful throughout the game, and brewing a handful of these early should be your first priority.

Potion of Strength

• Recipe: Awkward potion and blaze powder
• Effect: Increases the attack damage of the player

This is one of the easiest potions to craft in Minecraft, and you only require Blazer Powder to make this potion. You can follow our guide on how to find and conquer the Nether fortress to get all the blaze rods you could need. This potion can be used to increase your attacking power for a limited time. This means that each of your hits will cause more damage to the opponent than usual.

Since it’s comparatively easier to create, players use them while creating builds or exploring woods at night without building a Minecraft bed. You will still need your swords and other tools to survive. But this potion is beneficial for low-level fights against creepers and spiders. If you must combat higher-level mobs, increase the potion’s strength with glowstone dust.

Potion of Fire Resistance

• Recipe: Magma cream, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Makes the player resistant to most fire-based damage

This potion is really useful in the Nether realm, which is home to fire-based damage environments. Using it provides immunity from regular fire, lava, magma blocks, fire charges, and even blaze fireballs.

You will still get damage from the ghast fireballs and blaze melee attacks. But, this potion lets you see better under lava while using this potion. To create a Potion of Fire Resistance in Minecraft, you need to use Magma Cream. You can craft the Magma cream using a slimeball and Blaze powder. The other, easier way to get it is by killing magma cubes. You can also use it as one of the best potions for the Nether dimension.

Potion of Regeneration

• Recipe: Ghast tear, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Regenerates health at a faster rate

This is one of the most useful potions in the fight against the Ender Dragon. But not only that, whenever you get into a mob fight, regeneration can also turn out to be your best friend for survival. With a health regeneration potion, you can deal with unexpected mobs, accidental falls, and a general lack of food.

You can combine it with Redstone and Blaze powder, like most potions, to improve its effectiveness. After consuming this potion, your health will regenerate immediately after taking damage. Unlike regular regeneration in-game, it won’t be affected by your food bar and will be much faster.

Utility Tier: Potions for Specific Tasks

Now, the potions below might not help you in every Minecraft scenario, but they can be highly useful in certain cases. Each of the following Minecraft potions solves a particular problem that otherwise would slow down or hamper your in-game progression.

Potion of Water Breathing

• Recipe: Pufferfish, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Allows the player to breathe underwater

Expanding the horizon of exploration, this potion enables you to explore ocean biomes freely. Players usually save up this potion to loot ocean monuments and temples. The way it works is by giving you the ability to breathe underwater. So, you don’t have to think about going to the surface or drowning while using this potion.

Do keep in mind that it’s a temporary potion. But you can always increase its duration by adding a Redstone to it. The main ingredient in making a Potion of Water Breathing is pufferfish. This potion can greatly help in finding a Nautilus first and then riding that mob to gain the ultimate water-breathing effect.

Potion of Night Vision

• Recipe: Golden Carrot, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Allows players to see clearly in dark areas

Stepping away from just combat for a while, we have the night vision potion. As the name suggests, it allows you to see in the darkness. It is advantageous to tackle Minecraft mobs during the night. Moreover, the best benefit it provides is the ability to see underground. That means you can go mining underground without worrying about torches.

You can easily create a Potion of Night Vision using a golden carrot. It’s one of the rarest food items in the game, so finding it is a little harder than other night vision potion ingredients. The most common source of this item is the master-level farmer villagers. You can exchange three golden carrots for three emeralds in Minecraft. However, you can also create it by combining gold nuggets with a regular carrot.

Potion of Slow Falling

• Recipe: Phantom Membrane, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Reduces the falling speed of the player

One of the most common ways Minecraft beginner players die is through fall damage. This potion reduces the speed of your fall, ensuring you don’t get fall damage. If there’s something dangerous like lava down there, you can make arrangements like placing a block before you fall. The potion is useful while building tall structures and entering the Nether portal in Minecraft. Furthermore, this is also one of the best Minecraft potions for fighting the Ender dragon.

If you plan to explore the best Minecraft seeds, you can use them to avoid falling from steep mountain peaks. You can make this potion using a Phantom Membrane. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard about this item before, because it is easy to get by killing phantoms. Phantoms only spawn in Minecraft if you don’t sleep for multiple days in-game.

Best New Minecraft 1.21 Potions

In Minecraft 1.21, there is a new category of potions that can affect the mob and are closely tied to the Trial Chambers. Unlike the ones stated above, the effects of the potions below are triggered only when the targeted mobs are hurt or if they die. A few of them can help in farming items, while some can help you prank your friends. That said, here are the latest Minecraft 1.21 potions.

Potion of Wind Charging

• Recipe: Breeze rod, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Creates a wind burst effect where the mob or player dies

The potion of wind charging can create a wind burst effect on the spot where the player or an entity affected with this potion dies. While the dead mob drops the respective loot, if you choose to stand on the same spot as its death, you will be launched upward due to the wind burst effect.

This potion is mostly situational when you want to use Elytras and launch for flying once you defeat mobs in the game. Moreover, this effect can be stacked, allowing players to launch at extreme heights if you’re killing a bunch of mobs at once.

Potion of Weaving

• Recipe: Cobweb, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Generates several cobwebs on the spot where the mob or player dies

The potion of weaving causes 2-3 cobwebs to generate at the spot where the affected mob dies. This can be extremely useful to players if they want to craft a lead in Minecraft but can’t find strings or spiders nearby.

Furthermore, you can use this potion to make a cobweb farm since those ingredients can be quite tedious to obtain in a Minecraft survival world.

Potion of Oozing

• Recipe: Slime block, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Summons two slimes when a mob or player dies

The potion of Oozing can help in spawning two medium slimes when a player or an entity with this effect dies. This potion is extremely useful for making slime farms in Minecraft.

Since this potion works on all mobs, you can throw splash potions on lots of chickens to generate massive amounts of slime drops quickly.

Potion of Infestation

• Recipe: Stone block, awkward potion, and blaze powder
• Effect: Grants 10% chance to summon 1-3 silverfish every time a mob or player gets hurt

Finally, the potion of infestation grants a 10% chance to spawn 1-3 silverfish every time the affected players or mobs are hurt. While the silverfish don’t drop anything useful, they are some of the most annoying mobs after the chicken jockey.

Therefore, this one can be a funny way to prank your friends and unleash chaos in the Minecraft multiplayer servers.

How to Choose the Right Potion for Your Playstyle

So, if you’re a Minecraft player who is focused on combat, you should focus more on the Strength, Regeneration, and Fire potions first. Get in the game, explore the required biomes to find their brewing ingredients, and make them right away to help in your survival

Whereas the explorers and builders in Minecraft should focus on the second category and equip the potions of Night Vision, Slow Falling, and Water Breathing first. You can check our Minecraft brewing guide to find out about all other essential potions that can help you in the game. But if you want to experiment and have fun in the game, try the latest four potions in the game.

These are all the best Minecraft potions you need to level up your game experience. You can try out the best Minecraft mods if you need something even more powerful. So, which is your favorite potion? Let us know in the comments below!