The Hitchhiker's Guide to UHC is a wholly remarkable post. Perhaps the most remarkable, certainly the most successful post ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Taco Minor - of which no Earthman had ever heard of.
-Douglas Adams, kind of
This guide may seem to contradict itself at times, partially because UHC is a complex game due to its open nature and survival emphasis, but mostly because the author has gone daft from years of exposure to the Internet. For this reason, The Hitchhiker's Guide to UHC will begin with two words of advice in large, friendly letters.
Ultra Hardcore, colloquially known as UHC, is a survival-based PvP game in which players can employ a limitless number of strategies to outlast and outplay their opponents. Though the main point of the game is to kill your opponents, the game heavily emphasizes and rewards players who employ a vast knowledge of survival Minecraft. PvP is the simplest aspect of the game, so our guide will begin there.
First, some vocabulary you may need to benefit fully from this guide:
Tick- To get hit once by a source of damage, i.e. "being exposed to lava for one tick will result in losing 4 hearts from burning damage after contact"
Kite- Hit-and-run. To rush in, hit an enemy once, then back off to avoid being hit, i.e. "Axes have a long cool down and deal a lot of damage, making them good kiting weapons."
Gank- To quickly and repeatedly hit with a weapon, i.e. "Did you see that 7-hit combo? I ganked that player."
Line of sight- The ability for a mob to see your head, i.e. "Guardians can't shoot you if you break their line of sight"
Skeleton- A mob that shoots arrows. The bane of any UHC player's existence, i.e. "Screw skeletons."
PvP
The Hitchhiker's Guide to UHC has this to say on the subject of PvP: Avoid, if at all possible. Though UHC is considered a PvP game, PvP is the last thing you will want to involve yourself in. Your health is precious and every bit you lose is liable to be lost forever. Only through golden apples, health potions, and the grisly act of murder can your health be restored.
If PvP is unavoidable, keep at range. Any engagement where you're liable to take more than 2 hearts of damage is an engagement you do not want to be in. The following are some strategies to keep your distance between yourself and your foe. They are listed in the order in which they should be used.
The Joestar Secret Family Technique: Run away. If possible, force your foe to run through hazards like cactus, holes, cliffs, mobs, or lava. Remember that most mobs have an aggro range of 16 blocks and can be easily avoided by sprinting past them. Each successive player following your path will have a more difficult time avoiding the mobs due to them having moved into your path, making this technique a good one for anyone with good food like steak or pork chops.
Bow: A handy and relatively easy-to-obtain item, bows can be received from the Hunter kit or crafted with three string and sticks. If you don't choose Hunter, your only options for obtaining string are rare cobweb trees, the occasional abandoned mineshaft, and fighting spiders. More on this later. Use a bow to damage your enemy from range and discourage them from advancing. The more hits, the less likely a player is to continue their attack. If possible, seek higher ground to increase a bow's stopping power and accuracy. If lacking an enchantment table, a bucket of lava can aid in increasing your bow's damage. Simply shoot your arrow through the lava to ignite your target. Be wary, though: as we will now discuss, fire is not your friend.
Fire: Fire is an excellent way to damage a foe. A well-placed lava bucket can mean a slow, painful death for your foe, and a flint and steel can quickly raze a forest to the ground. Remember that a burning foe is still a foe and is still very capable of dealing damage. Use fire to gain distance between yourself and your foe. The longer you run, the more damage the fire will deal. Consider every second you run from a burning foe another punch you've dealt to them. If possible, pepper burning foes with arrows; the fire will impede their ability to see and dodge, making them an easy target. Remember that rain greatly reduces fire's effectiveness. Be wary that fire is not your teammate or ally; it will burn you too! Respect the power of fire; do not fear it or abuse it.
Wolves: Wolves can be found on maps such as tundra, and with a surplus of meat food items, two wolves can quickly make a formidable pack. Keep your pack's health at maximum at all times in order to make the most out of them; after all, you may need to kill as many as 20 skeletons to tame two wolves if you're unlucky. If a wolf isn't tamed after 3 bones, consider it a lost cause and move on to the next wolf if possible. Wolves excel in combat in close quarters where they can't be fled from or picked off with a bow. They are easily dispatched with lava, bows, or TNT due to their simple AI. A pack of 10 wolves will maul nearly any unwitting player to death, especially if said player is trapped in a small area with them. Using TNT or lava in small areas can backfire, so using these methods on wolves in caves is uncommon and unwise. For this reason, wolves are a must-have for cave battles. Don't get too attached to your wolves; they are, for all intents and purposes, meat shields.
Potions: Due to the difficulty and risk associated with making potions, players with these items are rare and can generally not be worried about. If you have made the trip to the nether, were fortunate enough to find netherwart, and successfully avoided hazards like fire, blazes, and wither skeletons, this guide is for you. The most important potion to make should be instant health, and a trip to the nether without watermelons, glass, and water available to you is more or less insane. Use gunpowder to make easy-to-use splash potions. The second most important potion to make is a lengthened poison I potion. A direct hit with this potion will inevitably bring most players to half a heart, making them easily dispatched with a bow or a single well-placed hit with a sword or axe. Potions cannot be blocked with a shield or hidden from behind blocks. Potions are unexpected; never let your foe see your potions until you are about to use them. If your foe has potions, run. If running is impossible, your situation is incredibly dire. Even if you survive the encounter, it is likely you will be left with half a heart. If this occurs, DO NOT use healing items until the poison as run out. Poison will not kill you, but it will waste all of your healing items.
Explosives: A well-timed explosion is a beautiful thing. These are best used in close quarters such as caves and pre-built structures where movement is limited. When using TNT, attempt to place it before your foe arrives. It has a very unique sound which will instantly tip off your foe to its presence. Likewise, attempt to trap your foe in a small area before igniting it. Make sure you can escape the blast radius, but your foe cannot. Cobwebs, water, and lava can all be used to limit your foe's movement. Lava is your best bet, as it is the hardest to remove, slows movement more considerably than water, and deals damage on top of the explosion. Creepers make good bombs as well; right-clicking a creeper with a flint and steel causes it to detonate with a short fuse. When timed well, this technique can devastate an unsuspecting foe. If you excel at parkour, use creepers to make surface terrain difficult to navigate to give you an edge over your opponent.
Unconventional Tactics: If your foe is advancing, you can quickly stack up with blocks. When they attempt to follow, drop gravel or sand on them for some light suffocation damage and a chance to knock them from their tower. An anvil or TNT can be employed in the same manner for higher damage. If you have a bow, wait for them to stack up higher than 3 blocks. Shoot down to both deal damage and have a chance to knock them from their tower. Do not stack up using flammable blocks. Do not skybase. Another sillier tactic is one I invented called Peekaboo, in which you build a small house-like structure, stand in the doorway, and wait for your opponent to approach. Before they have a chance to open the door, open it, swipe with your sword, and close it. Alternatively, you can place lava on them if you have it available and don't have confidence in your ability to quickly use the door. Note that lava will not flow into the door, making this an all-or-nothing tactic that should really not be used outside of trolling videos for entertainment on YouTube.
Melee Weapons: Melee weapons are a surefire way to take damage. Do not engage unless you are certain you'll take less than two hearts of damage. Early game, melee weapon tactics and PvP in general should be avoided. However, if you can catch an unarmored player by surprise, a critical hit with an easy-to-make stone axe will leave them with less than a third of their health. A second swing should be more than enough to quickly finish the job. Stealth is the best early-game armor and should be used at all times, including late-game. A surprise attack is the only time in which you should voluntarily hit a foe more than once before kiting and running. Fire aspect swords make decent kiting weapons, as they not only deal fire tick damage while you're evading, but the fire can also be used to somewhat blind your foe, making them less likely to land a return hit. Fire swords are arguably the best ganking weapons and can be used somewhat recklessly in final battles.
Survival
Surviving is the most important thing you can do in UHC. The worlds tend to be rather large, so encountering other players is somewhat unlikely. This does not mean, however, that other players are not a constant threat. Be ever alert.
The key to survival is minimizing damage. The following is a guide to all sources of environmental damage and how to avoid it:
Gravity: Never dig straight down, never sprint where you can't see, never make a jump unless you are 100% certain your landing is less than 4 blocks away and less than 3 blocks below you. Avoid jumping from non-whole blocks like slabs, stairs, fences, water, vines, ladders, snow layers, lilypads, soul sand, or enchanting tables. Never dig gravel or sand while standing on a block of gravel or sand next to it unless you're certain of what's below it.
Suffocation: Never dig straight up, avoid the border.
Starvation: Eat. (Duh)
Drowning: Avoid water in general. It's easy to pick off a player swimming in a large body of water with a bow. If you must go underwater, use an empty bucket or torch to temporarily create an air pocket to breathe. If you plan to be underwater for an extended period of time, blocks like doors, glass panes, iron bars, and fences can be placed to provide breathing spots in the deep.
Lightning: This one's rare, so it's hardly worth mentioning. Avoid the surface during thunder storms.
Pricking: Don't touch cactus. (Again, duh.)
Lava: Never stand within one block of lava. One hit from a mob or player can easily push you in, dealing massive damage over time. Surround lava sources with non-gravity-affected blocks or douse with water to turn into obsidian.
Fire: Don't let flammable blocks near lava sources. If you're starting a fire, avoid standing in/on/near flammable blocks. Be careful not to accidentally ignite non-solid blocks like flowers, grass, or vines, as the fire may start closer to you than desired. Always carry a water bucket.
Zombie: Zombies are easily killed with melee weapons. Attempt to kill them in the least number of hits possible, as each hit will alert other zombies and may even cause more zombies to come. Two crits with an axe will easily finish a zombie. Remember that zombies have roughly 12% damage resistance in natural armor and will not die quite as easily as other mobs. Also remember that they have a chance to resist weapon knockback, so always be able to move backwards when fighting them. Use blocks to obstruct their path if necessary.
Baby Zombie: Faster and smaller than normal zombies, baby zombies pose an actual threat to a seasoned player. The best strategy is to pillar up two blocks and dispatch the baby zombie from above. Zombie AI is simple, so it will wait at the bottom of the pillar until it dies. Whatever you do, do not attempt to fight it head on. It's not worth the risk.
Skeleton: Screw these guys. If you don't need bones or arrows, avoid at all costs. Only engage if you can fight them one at a time with no other mobs interfering. Use a shield to block their arrows and strike, preferably with an axe, once before putting your shield back up. Repeat until dead.
Spider: Exploit their odd body shape by building 4 pillars in a square that you can walk through but the spider cannot. Make the pillars 3 blocks tall so that the spider crawls on top of it when it attempts to attack you. Stab it from below with a melee weapon until dead. For the love of God, do not eat spider eyes.
Creeper: Creepers will explode if they can see your face for more than 1.5 seconds and you are within their range of 3 blocks. Creeper explosions can be avoided by making sure you don't fill either of these criteria. Either kite the creeper by avoiding its range and hitting it once quickly before retreating, or keep the creeper close, but break its line of sight by repeatedly hiding your face behind a block. The first strategy is best used on the surface or in open areas. The second is more suited to caves and small spaces. Creepers can be forced to detonate by right-clicking them with a flint and steel.
Enderman: Very rarely is engaging an enderman worth it. If for some reason you choose to fight an enderman, make a 5x5 platform of blocks two blocks above the ground. Look at the enderman, stand two blocks back from the edge of your platform, and attack until dead. Alternatively, douse the enderman in water to make him go away.
Witch: Run. Unless you are insanely desperate, never fight a witch head on. A witch has an 8.5% chance to drop whatever potion they're currently drinking upon death, meaning that a very lucky player can snag a health, fire resistance, or speed potion from a witch. The risk of being poisoned is rarely worth it. A bow is the best way to kill a witch. Depending on your speed and accuracy, a witch should die from 3-4 arrows. Assuming the witch is far away and not on fire, it will drink health potions, meaning a bow is the most likely way to get a health potion from a witch.
Slime: A very rare creature to find in UHC, large slimes should be generally avoided. Medium and tiny slimes die easily and require very little strategizing to properly combat. Lava makes an effective weapon against slimes. Use blocks to keep large slimes at bay.
Silverfish: Run. They may be small and deal very little damage, but they are hard to hit and you don't want to hit it more than once. One swing of a stone, iron, or diamond axe will kill it without spawning others. A critical hit from an iron or diamond sword will also do the trick. Lava is an effective way to stop silverfish, but may be risky in small areas. If more than one silverfish is attacking you, consider abandoning the area and waiting for them to despawn/hide in blocks.
Guardian: Avoid at all costs. There is nothing to be gained from killing a guardian. They have natural thorns protection and their laser attack is devastating, partially ignoring armor. If you must fight a guardian, attack it with a bow from on land. If you are fighting a guardian in the water, you should consider yourself already dead.
Zombie Pigman: The possibility of getting enough gold for an apple by killing pigmen is tempting, but very rarely is it worth it. Avoiding fighting pigmen as much as possible. Treat them as faster, much stronger baby zombies. Use blocks to avoid fighting them directly.
Magma Cube: See slime strategy above. Lava has no effect.
Blaze: Blazes catch fire when aggro'd and will lob three fireballs at the player. To avoid this, break line of sight and get ready to run when it starts shooting. Keep distance and use a bow if possible. Snowballs damage blazes, but a blaze killed by snowballs will not drop a blaze rod. Be wary of this. For your best chance of dodging blaze fireballs, never run away from/towards a blaze while shooting. Run parallel to the blaze. If you have no projectiles, make sure you can quickly kill the blaze before it has a chance to shoot again. Two critical hits from a stone, iron, or diamond axe will do the trick.
Wither Skeletons: Avoid. If fighting them is necessary, use the same platform strategy described for endermen.
Ghast: Don't be a hero; avoid the temptation to hit their fireball back with your sword. Instead, use a bow to kill them in 1-2 shots. Stay mobile and their fireballs should never hit you.
First Moves
The first thing you should do is get yourself some tools. Use the grace period to make a workbench and a wooden pick, then mine about 20 cobblestone. This should be enough to get yourself a full set of stone tools, a furnace, and a few spare cobble for whatever you might need next. You'll need these to defend yourself in case you were unfortunate enough to spawn close by to other players.
Your first day should be spent preparing for a caving expedition. Make sure to get enough food and wood to keep yourself fed and well-supplied. 1-2 minutes before sundown, you should run as far from your initial spot as possible. When you see the first monster spawn on the surface, this is the ideal time to dig down, as more monsters will spawn on the surface rather than in the caves.
The Surface
The surface is pretty standard. Other than its custom trees and terrain, it's a fairly standard UHC experience. On the surface, there are a few special structures that can be raided for a pretty good early-game boost. These structures include:
Towers: On desert, forest, tundra, grassland, and normal maps, towers can appear throughout the world. Towers in desert have a gold block on top. Towers in forest, grassland, tundra, and normal have an iron block at the base. Ignore the leaves on each tower; they are birch leaves and have no chance of dropping apples.
Boneyards: On normal, grassland and forest maps, boneyards can appear throughout the world. They include a double chest with assorted loot and an iron block underneath one of the graves. Some of the blocks in the boneyard contain silverfish: be wary when breaking them.
Camps: On grassland maps, camps can appear throughout the world. They include 4 chests full of assorted loot, beds, crafting tables, furnaces, and signs. The red wool can be used to make banners and the signs can be left around with silly messages. Other than that, the only things worth raiding are the chests, furnaces, and workbenches.
Frontier House: On desert maps, frontier houses can appear throughout the world. They include two chests of assorted loot and several haybales. If you're planning a trip to the nether, the cauldron outside the house may be useful to you.
Oasis: On desert maps, the oasis can appear throughout the world. It includes water, jungle trees, watermelon, and sugarcane. The trees can produce apples, the watermelon can be made into health potions, and the sugarcane can be used for enchanting. Raiding an oasis is an excellent investment if you're planning on a long game.
Cobweb Trees: Cobweb trees can be found in tundra and forest maps (citation needed). They include cobwebs, watermelons, and iron ore. The cobwebs can be used to trap players or can be turned into string for bows, fishing rods, or tripwires. The melon is a good early-game food as well as a potion reagent for instant health potions. It is recommended to destroy all the cobwebs in cobweb trees to ensure no one else can use the string.
Items you'll want before descending: wood, food, apples, leather, sugarcane, watermelon, sand, water bucket, feathers.
Mining
Mining is necessary to get yourself some proper gear. You'll want to locate at least 30-40 iron before returning to the surface. Your first iron ingot should be made immediately into a shield. Skeletons can easily chip off several hearts from an unarmored player. Other mobs usually aren't as much of a threat. In your pre-armor phase, explore only what is necessary before armoring up in order to minimize the chance of being attacked when you're at your most vulnerable. Remember to always leave yourself an easy way out of a cave in case of a snafu. Mobility and escape are essential at this phase of the game.
Exploring caves is generally more fruitful and less laborious than the alternative of branch mining, but it is also more dangerous. Assess your situation properly and decide for yourself which is better for your current situation.
If you come across a ravine, approach with extreme caution. One shot from an unseen skeleton is all it takes to send you plummeting to your death. Ravines should generally be avoided, but it is possible to traverse them safely. The bottom of the ravine tends to be the safest due to the threat of fall damage being removed. Be on alert for mobs falling on you. It is recommended to leave large areas like this unlit when you're done mining them so that mobs spawn in them rather than in places you want to explore still.
If you successfully collected at least 1 leather and 3 sugarcane, craft a book. Once you find five diamonds, make a diamond pick, find some lava, and turn it into obsidian for an enchanting table. Level 1 enchantments are usually the best, though you should always look at your options. For armor, try to get Protection and Thorns. For a bow, try to get Power, Flame, and Infinity. For a sword, try to get Sharpness, Fire Aspect, and Knockback. Don't bother enchanting tools unless you have levels to spare or you can get Fortune on a pickaxe.
With a few buckets or a diamond pickaxe, lava pools can be turned into a nether portal. If you're willing to risk it, nether portals sometimes hurt you when going through. Be prepared to take at least one heart of damage if you're planning a nether trip. A suit of iron armor, a bow, plenty of arrows, a cauldron, and a water bucket are recommended if you plan on exploring the nether.
If you're not feeling brave, dig down to elevation y:10 and dig around for the best chance to find diamonds. Not recommended for early game. Listen carefully for mob noises to guide you to a cave.
The Nether
If you don't see a nether fortress, turn around: there is nothing for you here. Glowstone can be turned into spectral arrows, but other than that, nether fortresses are the only thing worth braving the nether for.
If you find a nether fortress, your mission is simple: find netherwart, get two blaze rods, and get out of there. Chests can contain gold, iron, diamonds, saddles, and horse armor, so they're worth checking. Be careful not to get attacked while looking through a chest.
Try to avoid fighting blazes at a blaze spawner. It's incredibly dangerous to try and collect dropped loot when blazes can spawn at any second. It is recommended to attack the ones that spawn naturally.
Avoid wither skeletons. If you get super lucky, the best thing they can give you is their skull, which will look cool on your shield banner. That's about it.
If you successfully get netherwart and blaze rods, remember to also get glowstone to make your potions more effective. Do not try to brew your potions in the nether; wait until you escape.
Be wary that you may not be the only person who made a nether portal. If this is the case, you may appear somewhere other than the place you entered, and someone may have trapped the exit portal. If someone has dumped lava over your exit portal, your only options are to enderpearl through the lava or bite the bullet by jumping through it. Douse yourself immediately to minimize burn damage. If it's still early enough in the game and you have at least 10 obsidian, you may be able to get back into the nether and set up another portal far enough away to escape.
The End
You're now ready to hunt down the final players. To avoid the border, most players tend to gravitate around the middle of the map, 0,0. Running around in search of players can be a decent strategy if you're playing against unskilled players, but most seasoned veterans will likely be underground until they get fully enchanted diamond gear. In the meantime, you can prepare the final area of 0,0 to be better suited for a fight in your advantage. What you do depends on your play style; I personally burn down any trees or forests around the area to ensure no one can surprise me, no one can get apples, and no one can hide in trees. It also helps reduce the number of skeletons hiding in the shade during the day. If you're savvy with redstone, now is the time to set traps. Make them unobvious by using tripwires in structures that look like tunnels or caves. Most players won't expect redstone engineering more complex than a pressure plate with some TNT, so redstoners have a huge advantage here.
That's all for now. I'm certain I've missed a lot, so let me know what you think.
-Douglas Adams, kind of
This guide may seem to contradict itself at times, partially because UHC is a complex game due to its open nature and survival emphasis, but mostly because the author has gone daft from years of exposure to the Internet. For this reason, The Hitchhiker's Guide to UHC will begin with two words of advice in large, friendly letters.
Ultra Hardcore, colloquially known as UHC, is a survival-based PvP game in which players can employ a limitless number of strategies to outlast and outplay their opponents. Though the main point of the game is to kill your opponents, the game heavily emphasizes and rewards players who employ a vast knowledge of survival Minecraft. PvP is the simplest aspect of the game, so our guide will begin there.
First, some vocabulary you may need to benefit fully from this guide:
Tick- To get hit once by a source of damage, i.e. "being exposed to lava for one tick will result in losing 4 hearts from burning damage after contact"
Kite- Hit-and-run. To rush in, hit an enemy once, then back off to avoid being hit, i.e. "Axes have a long cool down and deal a lot of damage, making them good kiting weapons."
Gank- To quickly and repeatedly hit with a weapon, i.e. "Did you see that 7-hit combo? I ganked that player."
Line of sight- The ability for a mob to see your head, i.e. "Guardians can't shoot you if you break their line of sight"
Skeleton- A mob that shoots arrows. The bane of any UHC player's existence, i.e. "Screw skeletons."
PvP
The Hitchhiker's Guide to UHC has this to say on the subject of PvP: Avoid, if at all possible. Though UHC is considered a PvP game, PvP is the last thing you will want to involve yourself in. Your health is precious and every bit you lose is liable to be lost forever. Only through golden apples, health potions, and the grisly act of murder can your health be restored.
If PvP is unavoidable, keep at range. Any engagement where you're liable to take more than 2 hearts of damage is an engagement you do not want to be in. The following are some strategies to keep your distance between yourself and your foe. They are listed in the order in which they should be used.
The Joestar Secret Family Technique: Run away. If possible, force your foe to run through hazards like cactus, holes, cliffs, mobs, or lava. Remember that most mobs have an aggro range of 16 blocks and can be easily avoided by sprinting past them. Each successive player following your path will have a more difficult time avoiding the mobs due to them having moved into your path, making this technique a good one for anyone with good food like steak or pork chops.
Bow: A handy and relatively easy-to-obtain item, bows can be received from the Hunter kit or crafted with three string and sticks. If you don't choose Hunter, your only options for obtaining string are rare cobweb trees, the occasional abandoned mineshaft, and fighting spiders. More on this later. Use a bow to damage your enemy from range and discourage them from advancing. The more hits, the less likely a player is to continue their attack. If possible, seek higher ground to increase a bow's stopping power and accuracy. If lacking an enchantment table, a bucket of lava can aid in increasing your bow's damage. Simply shoot your arrow through the lava to ignite your target. Be wary, though: as we will now discuss, fire is not your friend.
Fire: Fire is an excellent way to damage a foe. A well-placed lava bucket can mean a slow, painful death for your foe, and a flint and steel can quickly raze a forest to the ground. Remember that a burning foe is still a foe and is still very capable of dealing damage. Use fire to gain distance between yourself and your foe. The longer you run, the more damage the fire will deal. Consider every second you run from a burning foe another punch you've dealt to them. If possible, pepper burning foes with arrows; the fire will impede their ability to see and dodge, making them an easy target. Remember that rain greatly reduces fire's effectiveness. Be wary that fire is not your teammate or ally; it will burn you too! Respect the power of fire; do not fear it or abuse it.
Wolves: Wolves can be found on maps such as tundra, and with a surplus of meat food items, two wolves can quickly make a formidable pack. Keep your pack's health at maximum at all times in order to make the most out of them; after all, you may need to kill as many as 20 skeletons to tame two wolves if you're unlucky. If a wolf isn't tamed after 3 bones, consider it a lost cause and move on to the next wolf if possible. Wolves excel in combat in close quarters where they can't be fled from or picked off with a bow. They are easily dispatched with lava, bows, or TNT due to their simple AI. A pack of 10 wolves will maul nearly any unwitting player to death, especially if said player is trapped in a small area with them. Using TNT or lava in small areas can backfire, so using these methods on wolves in caves is uncommon and unwise. For this reason, wolves are a must-have for cave battles. Don't get too attached to your wolves; they are, for all intents and purposes, meat shields.
Potions: Due to the difficulty and risk associated with making potions, players with these items are rare and can generally not be worried about. If you have made the trip to the nether, were fortunate enough to find netherwart, and successfully avoided hazards like fire, blazes, and wither skeletons, this guide is for you. The most important potion to make should be instant health, and a trip to the nether without watermelons, glass, and water available to you is more or less insane. Use gunpowder to make easy-to-use splash potions. The second most important potion to make is a lengthened poison I potion. A direct hit with this potion will inevitably bring most players to half a heart, making them easily dispatched with a bow or a single well-placed hit with a sword or axe. Potions cannot be blocked with a shield or hidden from behind blocks. Potions are unexpected; never let your foe see your potions until you are about to use them. If your foe has potions, run. If running is impossible, your situation is incredibly dire. Even if you survive the encounter, it is likely you will be left with half a heart. If this occurs, DO NOT use healing items until the poison as run out. Poison will not kill you, but it will waste all of your healing items.
Explosives: A well-timed explosion is a beautiful thing. These are best used in close quarters such as caves and pre-built structures where movement is limited. When using TNT, attempt to place it before your foe arrives. It has a very unique sound which will instantly tip off your foe to its presence. Likewise, attempt to trap your foe in a small area before igniting it. Make sure you can escape the blast radius, but your foe cannot. Cobwebs, water, and lava can all be used to limit your foe's movement. Lava is your best bet, as it is the hardest to remove, slows movement more considerably than water, and deals damage on top of the explosion. Creepers make good bombs as well; right-clicking a creeper with a flint and steel causes it to detonate with a short fuse. When timed well, this technique can devastate an unsuspecting foe. If you excel at parkour, use creepers to make surface terrain difficult to navigate to give you an edge over your opponent.
Unconventional Tactics: If your foe is advancing, you can quickly stack up with blocks. When they attempt to follow, drop gravel or sand on them for some light suffocation damage and a chance to knock them from their tower. An anvil or TNT can be employed in the same manner for higher damage. If you have a bow, wait for them to stack up higher than 3 blocks. Shoot down to both deal damage and have a chance to knock them from their tower. Do not stack up using flammable blocks. Do not skybase. Another sillier tactic is one I invented called Peekaboo, in which you build a small house-like structure, stand in the doorway, and wait for your opponent to approach. Before they have a chance to open the door, open it, swipe with your sword, and close it. Alternatively, you can place lava on them if you have it available and don't have confidence in your ability to quickly use the door. Note that lava will not flow into the door, making this an all-or-nothing tactic that should really not be used outside of trolling videos for entertainment on YouTube.
Melee Weapons: Melee weapons are a surefire way to take damage. Do not engage unless you are certain you'll take less than two hearts of damage. Early game, melee weapon tactics and PvP in general should be avoided. However, if you can catch an unarmored player by surprise, a critical hit with an easy-to-make stone axe will leave them with less than a third of their health. A second swing should be more than enough to quickly finish the job. Stealth is the best early-game armor and should be used at all times, including late-game. A surprise attack is the only time in which you should voluntarily hit a foe more than once before kiting and running. Fire aspect swords make decent kiting weapons, as they not only deal fire tick damage while you're evading, but the fire can also be used to somewhat blind your foe, making them less likely to land a return hit. Fire swords are arguably the best ganking weapons and can be used somewhat recklessly in final battles.
Survival
Surviving is the most important thing you can do in UHC. The worlds tend to be rather large, so encountering other players is somewhat unlikely. This does not mean, however, that other players are not a constant threat. Be ever alert.
The key to survival is minimizing damage. The following is a guide to all sources of environmental damage and how to avoid it:
Gravity: Never dig straight down, never sprint where you can't see, never make a jump unless you are 100% certain your landing is less than 4 blocks away and less than 3 blocks below you. Avoid jumping from non-whole blocks like slabs, stairs, fences, water, vines, ladders, snow layers, lilypads, soul sand, or enchanting tables. Never dig gravel or sand while standing on a block of gravel or sand next to it unless you're certain of what's below it.
Suffocation: Never dig straight up, avoid the border.
Starvation: Eat. (Duh)
Drowning: Avoid water in general. It's easy to pick off a player swimming in a large body of water with a bow. If you must go underwater, use an empty bucket or torch to temporarily create an air pocket to breathe. If you plan to be underwater for an extended period of time, blocks like doors, glass panes, iron bars, and fences can be placed to provide breathing spots in the deep.
Lightning: This one's rare, so it's hardly worth mentioning. Avoid the surface during thunder storms.
Pricking: Don't touch cactus. (Again, duh.)
Lava: Never stand within one block of lava. One hit from a mob or player can easily push you in, dealing massive damage over time. Surround lava sources with non-gravity-affected blocks or douse with water to turn into obsidian.
Fire: Don't let flammable blocks near lava sources. If you're starting a fire, avoid standing in/on/near flammable blocks. Be careful not to accidentally ignite non-solid blocks like flowers, grass, or vines, as the fire may start closer to you than desired. Always carry a water bucket.
Zombie: Zombies are easily killed with melee weapons. Attempt to kill them in the least number of hits possible, as each hit will alert other zombies and may even cause more zombies to come. Two crits with an axe will easily finish a zombie. Remember that zombies have roughly 12% damage resistance in natural armor and will not die quite as easily as other mobs. Also remember that they have a chance to resist weapon knockback, so always be able to move backwards when fighting them. Use blocks to obstruct their path if necessary.
Baby Zombie: Faster and smaller than normal zombies, baby zombies pose an actual threat to a seasoned player. The best strategy is to pillar up two blocks and dispatch the baby zombie from above. Zombie AI is simple, so it will wait at the bottom of the pillar until it dies. Whatever you do, do not attempt to fight it head on. It's not worth the risk.
Skeleton: Screw these guys. If you don't need bones or arrows, avoid at all costs. Only engage if you can fight them one at a time with no other mobs interfering. Use a shield to block their arrows and strike, preferably with an axe, once before putting your shield back up. Repeat until dead.
Spider: Exploit their odd body shape by building 4 pillars in a square that you can walk through but the spider cannot. Make the pillars 3 blocks tall so that the spider crawls on top of it when it attempts to attack you. Stab it from below with a melee weapon until dead. For the love of God, do not eat spider eyes.
Creeper: Creepers will explode if they can see your face for more than 1.5 seconds and you are within their range of 3 blocks. Creeper explosions can be avoided by making sure you don't fill either of these criteria. Either kite the creeper by avoiding its range and hitting it once quickly before retreating, or keep the creeper close, but break its line of sight by repeatedly hiding your face behind a block. The first strategy is best used on the surface or in open areas. The second is more suited to caves and small spaces. Creepers can be forced to detonate by right-clicking them with a flint and steel.
Enderman: Very rarely is engaging an enderman worth it. If for some reason you choose to fight an enderman, make a 5x5 platform of blocks two blocks above the ground. Look at the enderman, stand two blocks back from the edge of your platform, and attack until dead. Alternatively, douse the enderman in water to make him go away.
Witch: Run. Unless you are insanely desperate, never fight a witch head on. A witch has an 8.5% chance to drop whatever potion they're currently drinking upon death, meaning that a very lucky player can snag a health, fire resistance, or speed potion from a witch. The risk of being poisoned is rarely worth it. A bow is the best way to kill a witch. Depending on your speed and accuracy, a witch should die from 3-4 arrows. Assuming the witch is far away and not on fire, it will drink health potions, meaning a bow is the most likely way to get a health potion from a witch.
Slime: A very rare creature to find in UHC, large slimes should be generally avoided. Medium and tiny slimes die easily and require very little strategizing to properly combat. Lava makes an effective weapon against slimes. Use blocks to keep large slimes at bay.
Silverfish: Run. They may be small and deal very little damage, but they are hard to hit and you don't want to hit it more than once. One swing of a stone, iron, or diamond axe will kill it without spawning others. A critical hit from an iron or diamond sword will also do the trick. Lava is an effective way to stop silverfish, but may be risky in small areas. If more than one silverfish is attacking you, consider abandoning the area and waiting for them to despawn/hide in blocks.
Guardian: Avoid at all costs. There is nothing to be gained from killing a guardian. They have natural thorns protection and their laser attack is devastating, partially ignoring armor. If you must fight a guardian, attack it with a bow from on land. If you are fighting a guardian in the water, you should consider yourself already dead.
Zombie Pigman: The possibility of getting enough gold for an apple by killing pigmen is tempting, but very rarely is it worth it. Avoiding fighting pigmen as much as possible. Treat them as faster, much stronger baby zombies. Use blocks to avoid fighting them directly.
Magma Cube: See slime strategy above. Lava has no effect.
Blaze: Blazes catch fire when aggro'd and will lob three fireballs at the player. To avoid this, break line of sight and get ready to run when it starts shooting. Keep distance and use a bow if possible. Snowballs damage blazes, but a blaze killed by snowballs will not drop a blaze rod. Be wary of this. For your best chance of dodging blaze fireballs, never run away from/towards a blaze while shooting. Run parallel to the blaze. If you have no projectiles, make sure you can quickly kill the blaze before it has a chance to shoot again. Two critical hits from a stone, iron, or diamond axe will do the trick.
Wither Skeletons: Avoid. If fighting them is necessary, use the same platform strategy described for endermen.
Ghast: Don't be a hero; avoid the temptation to hit their fireball back with your sword. Instead, use a bow to kill them in 1-2 shots. Stay mobile and their fireballs should never hit you.
First Moves
The first thing you should do is get yourself some tools. Use the grace period to make a workbench and a wooden pick, then mine about 20 cobblestone. This should be enough to get yourself a full set of stone tools, a furnace, and a few spare cobble for whatever you might need next. You'll need these to defend yourself in case you were unfortunate enough to spawn close by to other players.
Your first day should be spent preparing for a caving expedition. Make sure to get enough food and wood to keep yourself fed and well-supplied. 1-2 minutes before sundown, you should run as far from your initial spot as possible. When you see the first monster spawn on the surface, this is the ideal time to dig down, as more monsters will spawn on the surface rather than in the caves.
The Surface
The surface is pretty standard. Other than its custom trees and terrain, it's a fairly standard UHC experience. On the surface, there are a few special structures that can be raided for a pretty good early-game boost. These structures include:
Towers: On desert, forest, tundra, grassland, and normal maps, towers can appear throughout the world. Towers in desert have a gold block on top. Towers in forest, grassland, tundra, and normal have an iron block at the base. Ignore the leaves on each tower; they are birch leaves and have no chance of dropping apples.
Boneyards: On normal, grassland and forest maps, boneyards can appear throughout the world. They include a double chest with assorted loot and an iron block underneath one of the graves. Some of the blocks in the boneyard contain silverfish: be wary when breaking them.
Camps: On grassland maps, camps can appear throughout the world. They include 4 chests full of assorted loot, beds, crafting tables, furnaces, and signs. The red wool can be used to make banners and the signs can be left around with silly messages. Other than that, the only things worth raiding are the chests, furnaces, and workbenches.
Frontier House: On desert maps, frontier houses can appear throughout the world. They include two chests of assorted loot and several haybales. If you're planning a trip to the nether, the cauldron outside the house may be useful to you.
Oasis: On desert maps, the oasis can appear throughout the world. It includes water, jungle trees, watermelon, and sugarcane. The trees can produce apples, the watermelon can be made into health potions, and the sugarcane can be used for enchanting. Raiding an oasis is an excellent investment if you're planning on a long game.
Cobweb Trees: Cobweb trees can be found in tundra and forest maps (citation needed). They include cobwebs, watermelons, and iron ore. The cobwebs can be used to trap players or can be turned into string for bows, fishing rods, or tripwires. The melon is a good early-game food as well as a potion reagent for instant health potions. It is recommended to destroy all the cobwebs in cobweb trees to ensure no one else can use the string.
Items you'll want before descending: wood, food, apples, leather, sugarcane, watermelon, sand, water bucket, feathers.
Mining
Mining is necessary to get yourself some proper gear. You'll want to locate at least 30-40 iron before returning to the surface. Your first iron ingot should be made immediately into a shield. Skeletons can easily chip off several hearts from an unarmored player. Other mobs usually aren't as much of a threat. In your pre-armor phase, explore only what is necessary before armoring up in order to minimize the chance of being attacked when you're at your most vulnerable. Remember to always leave yourself an easy way out of a cave in case of a snafu. Mobility and escape are essential at this phase of the game.
Exploring caves is generally more fruitful and less laborious than the alternative of branch mining, but it is also more dangerous. Assess your situation properly and decide for yourself which is better for your current situation.
If you come across a ravine, approach with extreme caution. One shot from an unseen skeleton is all it takes to send you plummeting to your death. Ravines should generally be avoided, but it is possible to traverse them safely. The bottom of the ravine tends to be the safest due to the threat of fall damage being removed. Be on alert for mobs falling on you. It is recommended to leave large areas like this unlit when you're done mining them so that mobs spawn in them rather than in places you want to explore still.
If you successfully collected at least 1 leather and 3 sugarcane, craft a book. Once you find five diamonds, make a diamond pick, find some lava, and turn it into obsidian for an enchanting table. Level 1 enchantments are usually the best, though you should always look at your options. For armor, try to get Protection and Thorns. For a bow, try to get Power, Flame, and Infinity. For a sword, try to get Sharpness, Fire Aspect, and Knockback. Don't bother enchanting tools unless you have levels to spare or you can get Fortune on a pickaxe.
With a few buckets or a diamond pickaxe, lava pools can be turned into a nether portal. If you're willing to risk it, nether portals sometimes hurt you when going through. Be prepared to take at least one heart of damage if you're planning a nether trip. A suit of iron armor, a bow, plenty of arrows, a cauldron, and a water bucket are recommended if you plan on exploring the nether.
If you're not feeling brave, dig down to elevation y:10 and dig around for the best chance to find diamonds. Not recommended for early game. Listen carefully for mob noises to guide you to a cave.
The Nether
If you don't see a nether fortress, turn around: there is nothing for you here. Glowstone can be turned into spectral arrows, but other than that, nether fortresses are the only thing worth braving the nether for.
If you find a nether fortress, your mission is simple: find netherwart, get two blaze rods, and get out of there. Chests can contain gold, iron, diamonds, saddles, and horse armor, so they're worth checking. Be careful not to get attacked while looking through a chest.
Try to avoid fighting blazes at a blaze spawner. It's incredibly dangerous to try and collect dropped loot when blazes can spawn at any second. It is recommended to attack the ones that spawn naturally.
Avoid wither skeletons. If you get super lucky, the best thing they can give you is their skull, which will look cool on your shield banner. That's about it.
If you successfully get netherwart and blaze rods, remember to also get glowstone to make your potions more effective. Do not try to brew your potions in the nether; wait until you escape.
Be wary that you may not be the only person who made a nether portal. If this is the case, you may appear somewhere other than the place you entered, and someone may have trapped the exit portal. If someone has dumped lava over your exit portal, your only options are to enderpearl through the lava or bite the bullet by jumping through it. Douse yourself immediately to minimize burn damage. If it's still early enough in the game and you have at least 10 obsidian, you may be able to get back into the nether and set up another portal far enough away to escape.
The End
You're now ready to hunt down the final players. To avoid the border, most players tend to gravitate around the middle of the map, 0,0. Running around in search of players can be a decent strategy if you're playing against unskilled players, but most seasoned veterans will likely be underground until they get fully enchanted diamond gear. In the meantime, you can prepare the final area of 0,0 to be better suited for a fight in your advantage. What you do depends on your play style; I personally burn down any trees or forests around the area to ensure no one can surprise me, no one can get apples, and no one can hide in trees. It also helps reduce the number of skeletons hiding in the shade during the day. If you're savvy with redstone, now is the time to set traps. Make them unobvious by using tripwires in structures that look like tunnels or caves. Most players won't expect redstone engineering more complex than a pressure plate with some TNT, so redstoners have a huge advantage here.
That's all for now. I'm certain I've missed a lot, so let me know what you think.
