If you’ve ever found yourself outmatched by a horde of creepers or a particularly aggressive enderman while exploring far from your base, you know how important a reliable high-damage weapon is. A lot of players stick to swords or axes for close combat, but the mace is one of the most underrated options in the game right now. We’ve tested every step of the process across dozens of survival playthroughs to break down how to make a mace in Minecraft, plus all the best ways to use it once you’ve crafted it. You don’t need super rare endgame resources to make one, either, which makes it accessible even for players who haven’t beaten the ender dragon yet.
Required Materials to Make a Mace in Minecraft
Before you start crafting, you’ll need to gather two key materials, plus access to a crafting table. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of these items before—they were added in the 1.21 combat update, so they’re only found in the new trial chamber structures that spawn deep underground. Trial chambers are marked by stone brick and tuff blocks, and you can usually find them between Y levels -20 and -40, right above deep dark biomes.
We recommend bringing at least iron armor and a diamond sword with you when you go hunting for these materials, since trial chambers are packed with tough mob spawners and tricky trap rooms. Here’s exactly what you need to collect:
- 1 Heavy Core: This is the weighted head of the mace, and it only drops from vault chests in trial chambers. You’ll need to complete a trial spawner challenge to unlock the vault, so come prepared to fight off 3 to 4 waves of mobs that spawn when you activate the spawner. You have a 75% chance of finding one per unlocked vault, so you probably won’t need to clear more than one or two chambers to get it.
- 2 Breeze Rods: These drop from breeze mobs, the floating wind-based enemies that spawn inside trial chambers. Each breeze drops 0-2 breeze rods when killed, so if you’re unlucky you may need to take out 2 or 3 of them to get enough. Breeze attacks knock you back several blocks, so we recommend using a bow to take them out from a distance to avoid being pushed into lava or deep pit traps scattered around the chambers.
- 1 Crafting Table: You can’t craft the mace in your personal 2x2 inventory grid, so make sure you have a crafting table placed nearby before you bring your materials together. You don’t want to trek all the way back to your base just to put the pieces together after clearing a whole trial chamber.
Step-by-Step Crafting Process for Your Mace
Once you have all your materials gathered, putting the mace together takes less than a minute. We’ve seen a lot of players mix up the crafting grid order, so follow these steps exactly to avoid wasting your hard-earned materials. The recipe is shaped, so even if you have the right items, wrong placement won’t give you a mace.
First, open your crafting table to pull up the 3x3 grid. Place the 1 heavy core in the middle slot of the top row. Next, put the two breeze rods in the middle slot of the second row, and the middle slot of the third row, directly below the heavy core. That’s it—you’ll see the mace pop up in the result slot to the right of the grid, and you can move it to your inventory to use it.
It’s worth noting that unlike tools and swords, you can’t enchant a mace at an enchanting table directly right now. You can add enchants using an anvil and enchanted books, though, so don’t throw away any combat enchants you find while exploring chests. Smite and Sharpness are the two best enchants to add to your mace for maximum damage, since both apply to all the mace’s unique attack mechanics. Unbreaking and Mending are also great picks to make your mace last longer without needing repairs.
Key Advantages of Using a Mace Over Other Weapons
A lot of players wonder why they should bother making a mace when they already have a maxed-out netherite sword. The mace has unique mechanics that make it better for specific scenarios, especially if you like exploring cave systems or fighting mobs in elevated terrain. It doesn’t replace swords entirely, but it’s a great secondary weapon to keep in your hotbar for specific fights.
The biggest perk is its fall damage bonus: every block you fall before hitting an enemy adds extra damage to your mace attack. If you fall 5 blocks before striking a zombie, for example, you’ll add 10 extra damage to your base hit, enough to take out most common mobs in one swing. That’s why it’s such a great weapon for cave exploration, where you’re constantly jumping down ledges to get to lower levels. You can even jump 2 blocks in place before striking to get a small damage boost without risking fall damage.
It also has a longer knockback range than a sword or axe, so you can hit mobs before they get close enough to deal damage to you. This is especially useful when fighting creepers, since you can knock them back far enough that their explosion won’t reach you even if they trigger. The only real downside is that it has a slower attack speed than a diamond sword, so you’ll need to time your hits carefully instead of spamming clicks. If you try to swing too fast, you’ll only deal half damage, which defeats the purpose of using the high-power weapon.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Your New Mace
We’ve messed up enough mace fights in our own playthroughs to know there are a few easy mistakes that can turn this powerful weapon into a liability. Avoid these missteps to get the most out of your craft, and save yourself the frustration of losing a mace you worked hard to make.
First, don’t use the mace when you’re standing on even ground fighting multiple fast mobs like spiders or cave spiders. Its slow attack speed means you’ll likely take hits between swings, so switch to a sword for those scenarios instead. The mace works best when you have space to jump or fall before striking, so plan your fights accordingly. If you’re stuck in a tight corridor with multiple mobs, save the mace for larger, slower targets and use your sword for the rest.
Second, don’t waste your heavy core on a mace if you don’t have at least iron armor first. Trial chambers are full of tough mobs, and if you die right after crafting your mace and lose it, you’ll have to go through the whole process of finding another heavy core all over again. We always recommend storing a spare heavy core in your base chest if you find extra, just in case you lose your mace during a tough fight with a warden or enderman. Heavy cores are far rarer than breeze rods, so you don’t want to run out when you need a replacement.
Finally, don’t forget that the fall damage bonus applies to you too, if you fall too far. If you jump more than 3 blocks to get a damage boost, make sure you land the hit on the mob, otherwise you’ll take full fall damage for no reason. We’ve lost more than one mace to that exact mistake when we missed a hit on an enderman and fell 6 blocks straight to our health bar depleting. Stick to 2 to 3 block falls for bonus damage unless you’re wearing feather falling boots, which let you fall further without taking personal damage.
The mace is a fun, powerful addition to your survival arsenal that can completely change how you approach combat and exploration. It’s not the right weapon for every fight, but its unique damage bonuses make it worth the effort of clearing a trial chamber to get the materials. Once you know how to make a mace in Minecraft, you’ll wonder how you ever explored deep caves without one. Try it out on your next playthrough, and you’ll be taking out hordes of mobs with single hits before you know it.