Water and lava have truly essential uses in Minecraft. Water, besides being a key ingredient for growing crops, allows us to fill glass bottles and use them for brewing potions and creating mud from dirt. On the other hand, lava is the most efficient fuel source in Minecraft and is completely renewable and farmable, thanks to the pointed dripstone. So, you can never run out of fuel for your super smelter. Interestingly enough, water and lava interacting together introduce rather useful mechanics. Depending on their current state, they can create stone blocks, cobblestone blocks, or obsidian. However, in this article, we will focus on how to make obsidian in Minecraft, along with its natural generation location and uses in the game.
What is Obsidian in Minecraft
Obsidian is a block that can be found in all three dimensions in Minecraft. It also has a couple of rather important properties. First of all, it’s almost completely blast resistant, which means TNT and most other explosives cannot destroy it. This includes attacks by the Ender Dragon, but excludes the Wither’s blue wither sculls and also coming in contact with its body. The Wither in Minecraft is the only mob that can destroy obsidian.
If you want to learn more about blast resistance, check out our guide on how to make TNT in Minecraft, which explains this cool mechanic in depth. Obsidian has unique interactivity with pistons as well. Pistons and sticky pistons are unable to push or pull obsidian blocks in the game. The hardness of obsidian is quite high, so only diamond and netherite pickaxes are capable of breaking these blocks. Learn the level where you can find diamonds in Minecraft via the linked guide.
How to Craft Obsidian in Minecraft
You can make obsidian rather easily in Minecraft. All you need is flowing water and a still lava source. When a flowing water block comes in contact with a lava source, it will directly convert into obsidian, destroying the lava source. This means you will need a lava source for every single obsidian block you want to obtain. Here’s what the process looks like:
Step 1: Acquiring Water in Minecraft
The flowing water part of this process is straightforward. You can find a water source in your world with ease and dig out a canal for it to travel to the lava. This is, however, much more work, and it’s not necessary. The best way to transport flowing water is using a bucket.
To craft a bucket, you need three iron ingots. Follow the crafting recipe below to craft a bucket in Minecraft. With a bucket selected, you can right-click on a water source to scoop it up. Then, you can place it wherever you want, easily creating flowing water blocks.
Step 2: Finding Lava Sources in Minecraft
The tricky part of creating obsidian is locating lava. You can stumble upon this dangerous liquid block in various places in the overworld. Lava pits or pools can form on the surface, directly exposed to the sky. Those surface lava pools are the best option for gathering early-game obsidian. You can most easily find them in the desert biome since it’s fairly flat.
Additionally, lava pools also generate in the underground portion of the Minecraft world, which you will discover by exploring caves and searching for diamonds on the best Y level. Lonely lava sources occasionally generate in caves as well, but the time is not quite efficiently consumed if you choose to gather the obsidian that way.
Step 3: Minecraft Obsidian Crafting Recipe
Once you find a lava pool, it’s time we make obsidian in Minecraft. Start by placing the water source a block away (horizontally or vertically) from the lava pool edge. The water will then start flowing, and it will cover multiple lava sources, turning them into obsidian.
When you have created obsidian blocks, you can then mine them. Keep in mind that you will need at least a diamond pickaxe to mine obsidian in Minecraft. Also, it will take quite a lot of time compared to most other blocks.
Note: If you are using a lava pool to gather obsidian, there are almost definitely more lava source blocks right underneath the obsidian you just generated. To avoid all the long-mined obsidian items burning in lava, place the water source block you used to create obsidian on the same level the obsidian platform is at and allow it to flow towards the blocks you’re mining.
The flowing water will instantly convert any exposed lava sources to obsidian much faster than the items can fall. So, all of your obsidian is going to be safe.
Other Ways to Get Obsidian in Minecraft
Apart from making obsidian yourself from scratch, you can obtain it in other ways. Those include both early and late-game options. Which way do you prefer? Tell us in the comments! Naturally generated obsidian is not an uncommon sight. In some cases, you will find just a few obsidian blocks, whereas, in other ones, you’ll be able to fill even dozens of shulker boxes with them.
Obsidian in Caves
Sometimes, flowing water and lava can interact with each other naturally in your Minecraft world. This usually appears in the caves. Water source could generate above the lava pool, so when it starts flowing it can generate obsidian below.
Obsidian in Structures
Obsidian generates naturally as a part of some structures. Those include:
- Ruined Nether Portals – Ruined Nether portals exist both in the Overworld and the Nether. They consist of obsidian and crying obsidian blocks, surrounded by netherrack, magma blocks, and even some additional lava sources you can turn into obsidian. This structure is meant to represent a hint at the existence of the Nether dimension.
- Woodland Mansions – If you’re extraordinarily lucky, you will come across obsidian in the woodland mansion. They generate only in the secret rooms and also conceal a whole diamond block inside.
- Ocean Ruins – Occasionally, you’ll find a couple of obsidian blocks as part of some ocean ruins structures.
Obsidian Pillars in the End
The best source of obsidian in Minecraft for late-game players is the End dimension. The main island, where you battle the Ender Dragon, generates 10 giant and solid obsidian pillars. According to the Minecraft Wiki, there are about 40,499 obsidian blocks in total.
Not only that, but the pillars regenerate every single time you respawn the Ender Dragon in Minecraft. This essentially means you have an unlimited supply of obsidian, provided you can defeat the Ender Dragon over and over again.
Chest Loot
Obsidian block items have a chance to generate inside some structures’ chests. Those structures include:
- Bastion Remnant – Generic chests in this giant blackstone structure have a chance to contain 4-6 obsidian blocks.
- Nether Fortress – Chests in the Nether Fortress can contain 2-4 obsidian blocks.
- Ruined Nether Portal – You’re very likely to find 1-2 obsidian blocks in the ruined portal’s chest.
- Village – Weaponsmith’s building has a chance to generate a chest with 3-7 obsidian blocks.
Bartering with Piglins
One of the various items and blocks available through piglin bartering is obsidian. Every piglin that’s been given a gold ingot has about an 8.71% chance of throwing an obsidian block toward the player.
Uses of Obsidian in Minecraft
Obsidian is one of the most important blocks progression-wise in Minecraft. But, besides those uses, it has other relevant functions players should be aware of. So, without any further delay, let’s mention all uses of obsidian.
Blast Resistant Block
So, as we mentioned above, obsidian is a highly blast-resistant block. This is rather crucial in some cases. For instance, if you’re building a farm that includes a TNT duper, such as a tree farm or cobblestone generator, it’s essential to protect the surroundings from the explosion effects. Therefore, we can use obsidian to surround the blast area, so only the chosen blocks will get destroyed. Learn how to make TNT in Minecraft via the linked guide.
Moreover, with obsidian, you can protect yourself from ghasts’ fireballs and TNT explosions while looking for netherite or bed explosions in the End while trying the bed technique against the Ender Dragon (read how to hatch an Ender Dragon egg here). Obsidian is your number one block that can be gathered in large quantities and that can shield you from almost all explosion damage.
Block Unable to be Pushed nor Pulled
This is a rather useful feature of obsidian blocks. In certain farm designs, including slime or honey block flying machines, it’s cardinal that we can stop and disable them. Even though you can utilize other blocks with similar properties, obsidian is used pretty regularly.
Crafting Ingredient
Obsidian is a part of three extremely relevant crafting recipes in Minecraft. Those are:
- Beacon: Beacons are functional and expensive blocks that provide players with buffs. There’s a lot to say about this amazing block, so if you’d like to learn more about beacons in Minecraft, check out our linked guide. Follow the crafting recipe shown in the image below to craft the beacon.
- Enchanting Table: Enchanting tables allow you to upgrade your gear and make it even stronger, more durable, and even enhance it with different abilities. We have a guide on Minecraft enchantments that explains everything you need to know about enchanting, so make sure to check it out. In order to craft the enchanting table, you will need:
- 1 Book
- 2 Diamonds
- 4 Obsidian
- Ender Chest: It is a must-have in every late-game player’s inventory. It’s a chest that allows you to access unique contents that every ender chest shares. This way, the inside of the ender chest is always safe, as the items cannot leave unless you pull them out. Further, on the multiplayer server, only you can access your ender chest contents, so players usually use it as a wallet. Check out our guide on how to make and use an ender chest if you need additional help.
Nether Portal Frame Block
In order to progress in Minecraft and beat the game, you’ll have to enter the scary fiery dimension — Nether. The only way you can do so in survival is through a Nether portal. If you are not familiar with this construction, read our dedicated guide on how to make a Nether portal in Minecraft.
Note Block Interaction
If you place an obsidian block under a note block and right-click on the note block, bass drum sounds will be played.
Probably the fastest way to obtain obsidian items is if you manage to find them in a loot chest. Ruined Nether portal chests are likely to have obsidian, so make sure to loot each and every one you come across.
No, TNT explosions are not powerful enough to break obsidian. However, Wither’s blue sculls are, so there are some obsidian farm designs implementing this mechanic.
Obsidian blocks are not flammable and cannot catch on fire. However, the obsidian items are like most other item entities and they do burn in lava.
