Mastering Minecraft: How to Find Strongholds Without the Eye of Ender

Are you a Minecraft player looking to up your game and find a stronghold without the Eye of Ender? This article has got you covered!

From understanding what a stronghold is to exploring alternative methods for locating one without the Eye of Ender, we will guide you through the risks involved and how to prepare for the journey ahead.

Grab your pickaxe, armor up, and get ready to embark on this exciting Minecraft adventure!

What is a Stronghold in Minecraft?

A stronghold in Minecraft is the only place where the End Portal resides which allows the player to travel to the End dimension. They typically take the form of large rooms, corridors, and dungeons with stone brick walls, some of which are mossy or cracked. There are three strongholds that spawn in every world, each of which is located at different coordinates and if just one of these strongholds is destroyed after having defeated the Ender Dragon, the player can never return to the game’s end level. The other significant aspect of the stronghold is the fact that Ender Pearls and Ender Eyes found within will lead the player to the end portal block itself via the base.

What is the Eye of Ender?

The Eye of Ender is an item in Minecraft that is used to Locate and Activate the End Portal. This is a structure found in strongholds and is required to access and defeat the End Dragon.

To craft them, you will need to make/buy Blaze Powder, which comes from Blaze Rods collected from Blazes in the Nether. The Eye of Ender does not require crafting as Blaze Rods can be placed in a crafting grid, slots 2×2, to create Blaze Powder, and then combined with Ender Pearls, dropped by Endermen, in the same 2×2 slots to create Eyes of Ender.

They are also used to activate the Stronghold Portal in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, which can be set up and used as a means for teleporting between two or more locations. Throw the Eye of Ender into the air, and it will point you in the direction of the Stronghold in your world. They can guide you to the nearest active End Portal within a stronghold.

They are breakable, and if thrown too frequently or just too frequently in general, there is a chance they will break on impact. You may need more than you anticipate, so it is recommended to have more than just the two required. Using Eyes of Ender is a Quick and Efficient Way for how to find the stronghold on avg in Minecraft and will likely not fail you as long as you listen to the breaking and throwing limits.

Why do Players Need the Eye of Ender to Find a Stronghold?

Players need the End Portal Frame’s location to find the stronghold and the Eye of Ender’s trajectory when tossed in the air. The only way to find an End Portal Frame in a stronghold without cheating/seeing through walls is by using Eyes of Ender or a map which shows strongholds. Using Eyes of Ender to find the stronghold helps one to progress through the game as there are only ever 3 End Portal Frames with Eyes already inserted when the game is begun, making these resources rare.

Is it Possible to Find a Stronghold Without the Eye of Ender?

It is possible to find a Stronghold without the Eye of Ender by using various third-party mapping tools to search the game world for the perfect location. Tools like the NBTExplorer can help locate the portal by allowing users to find the exact coordinates of the Stronghold and calculate a route to there. This method does not require the Eye of Ender but will ruin a good deal of the game, as the hunt for a Stronghold is a foundational part of it.

What are the Risks of Finding a Stronghold Without the Eye of Ender?

The risks of finding a Stronghold in Minecraft without the Eye of Ender are that strongholds are similar to mineshafts and dungeons which can be found scattered across the landscape. This means that is possible that a player could become lost or encounter other dangerous creatures in addition to the Endermen that reside in a stronghold. This increases the likelihood of getting killed or losing resources during the journey to find the stronghold.

Using a Locator Map

A locator map is an item in Minecraft that can be used to identify the location of blocks or groups of blocks, strongholds in this case by zooming out, and can result in the show-cause of the stronghold without having to use an Eye of Ender.

Maker S’s Pencil Generator for Game Designer Voronois map shown below is inspired by the use of a locator map in Minecraft. A rectangular grid is overlaid on the Minecraft world and each map is associated with specific player coordinates. The player then uses the map to see where they currently are, allowing them to identify relative map coordinates of nearby terrain and strategize a war path towards a stronghold.

Following Villagers

Following Villagers is possible because of their trades and behavior, as you can enter a village and investigate to see if they interact with a location. Villagers have interacted a lot with a stronghold and the player can see clues of this in the village. Once within the village, the villager will interact by performing everyday tasks. Found a librarian near bookshelves? This indicates you are probably close. Follow the librarian if they have nearby workplaces such as brewing stand or enchanting table.

If you do not have Villagers in your game and still wish to follow them, you can capture and bring a Villager to a stronghold. Since there is always a stronghold per map, if you are patient and use a boat/boat on ice or lead, you can navigate with your Villager to the nearest stronghold by land or while mining by ferrying him in a boat on underground water. It may be easier to just locate the stronghold following methods 2 through 5 first, as it may take hours or days to find a villager in open air that would take a beginner hours just to find a village.

Using the /locate Command

Locate is a vanilla World Generation config mod (available as a cheat) that shows the coordinates and the distance of the nearest Stronghold instance. If a player is not using cheats, they should make sure to input the /locate to a command block, and then activate the block to view the coordinates. From there they can be followed just like the coordinates from the Eye of Ender.

Exploring Caves and Mineshafts

Caves and mineshafts are high probabilities since they occupy a huge volume under the ground. They are very frequently connected by other natural cave formations and locations so it is always an easy option if one is near. One general idealized layout is that caves will help players find a nearby stronghold, dungeon, or mine. This is because caves wind randomly through the world and will almost always eventually hit difficult biomes, especially below ground types such as made of stone or nether. The entrance to a stronghold is a small room in such a dangerous biome, so on a long enough path along intersections and other paths a player will eventually find the stronghold entrance with ease. The way to find it is similar to mining except with a far higher difficulty and bio hazard. Invasion by zombies and skeletons will make the quest take significantly longer, so the player should be wearing full diamond gear for protection. Only go into a Minecraft cave or mineshaft to locate a stronghold if you can easily handle these enemies. Having a low central cave system and no difficulty making wide circles helps so a player can explore without being attacked from behind. If lucky enough, the Stronghold Library can sometimes generate on the mineshaft to make the player’s journey easier. It has a medium chance of containing Ender Pearls and frequently occurs in the overlapping cave system to the stronghold.

Using the Chunkbase Website

To find a stronghold in Minecraft without an Eye of Ender, you can generate a seed that directs you to the location of a stronghold near your initial spawn in the Creative mode. The Chunkbase website provides this functionality using the tools for the game to calculate locations by seed to direct players to rare game elements.

Generate a new Minecraft Java world for 1.9, 1.7, or 1.6 game versions. The game versions can be selected in the new world window of the game. Then open the current version world save location and extract the seed. Plug the seed into the Stronghold Finder tool on Chunkbase. The exact distance from spawn point should be adjusted for the most efficient use of the seed.

There are various settings which can be utilized, such as seeing slimes, how far apart the strongholds should be, a pyramid for various bonuses (such as in Desert biomes or the underground of the game), all of these can be selected by toggling the checkboxes for the various items.

What are the Risks of Finding a Stronghold Without the Eye of Ender?

The risk of finding a stronghold without using the Eye of Ender is that there is no way to guarantee that it will be located at the ideal location players have in mind. Players might be looking for a stronghold in order to find and fight the Ender Dragon, but the above-ground feature generation in Minecraft is not such that any specific stronghold is likely to be located close to one.

Add to that the difficulty of determining where a stronghold will be based on the scientific numeric distributions and specific biome types that apply to them, finding a stronghold without an Eye of Ender means players must always be ready for a much longer search. This can be especially frustrating when combined with the darkness and complexity of stronghold undergrounds.

Stocking Up on Resources

To find a Stronghold in Minecraft quickly and efficiently without using an Eye of Ender, players first need to ensure they have a general firm understanding of the game’s mechanics and essential resources. These include iron, coal, string, food, sticks, cobblestone, gold, emerald, and magma cream (slimeballs, blaze powder, and a ghast tear). Mortalized (2021) from Game Rant gave some small details that can be crafted using the resources. The following are the easiest ways for you to find strongholds in Minecraft are without Eyes of Ender.

• Farming slimes
• Mining for ender pearls
• Investigate villager hints
• Put a map to effective use
• Farming diamonds

• Exploring mineshafts
• Utilize compasses and lodestones
• Exploring Nether Fortress

Crafting and Enchanting Weapons and Armor

Another method for finding a stronghold can involve collecting Blaze rods at a Nether Fortress and using them with Ender Pearls to craft Eye of Enders. Once players are prepared to directly fight the Ender Dragon, they will need weapons and armor enchanted with Protection, Blast Protection, Fire Protection, or Projectile Protection enchantments. These enchantments can only be obtained from bookshelves placed around an Enchanting Table.

Bringing Along Helpful Items

You could attempt to replicate the effects of the Eye of Ender by preparing speed potions and attempting to locate the stronghold based on your compass’s angle calculation. Brewing of speed potions using sugar, brown mushrooms, nether warts, and blaze powder should begin immediately upon locating the brewing ingredients. The keen angle-orthogonal tunneling operator biologically calculates the angle using their built-in compass.

Getting Lost

Intentionally or by accident, treatments have been put in place to penalize those who have lost their stronghold. For those who purposefully become lost in Minecraft, they can use the Wildcard plugin for the server CraftBukkit (a customized type of server) to reset their stronghold coordinates. But full access to changing world settings isn’t provided by default, making it challenging to get lost in Minecraft.

Facing Strong Mobs

While exploring the stronghold these mobs may pose some issues:

1. Vindicator: Military guards of the mansion, they are hostile mobs that hunt players until death. Follow the grunts to find and forest mansions.
2. Magma Cube: Hostile wild mobs that can be found in the Nether. Make the subterranean sections of strongholds challenging.
3. Vex: An annoying mob that, when angered, hovers a few blocks above the ground and attacks players to death with its sharp jaws.
4. Zombie: An undead human figure that burns in sunlight. Likely to appear in caves near fortresses.
5. Skeleton: A dangerous, territorial, hostile mob equipped with an archer, sword, or shovel.
6. Spiders: Passive during the day, they turn into aggressive, hostile mobs at night.

Difficulty in Navigating

You may not find it easy to navigate with the Eye of Ender. A high skill level needed in navigating maps to avoid knees during searches since you do not know what is directly below the Eyes themselves. If travelling over multiple hills, the Eyes may lead you through a valley filled with lava or directly into a pile of silverfish and monsters. Because the Eyes point towards the destination blocks, not the actual portal, you will likely end up digging about frantically during the search, further opening your location up to mobs aiming to destroy you. Occasionally supports for the End Portal may not generate. If you have lost the Eyes, there is almost certainly no way to find the Strongheld aside from acutely careful strip-mining algorithms at a depth of 12 in first 1600 blocks around your original location. There simply is not enough time nor reason to even bother with such an enterprise most of the time, especially for a neophyte in search of their first Stronghold.

Do not fret, as there is a perfect alternative to the Eye of Ender – customized Stronghold Coordinates. Customized Stronghold Coordinates allows the user to refine their search area, and as such almost guarantees the finding of a Stronghold. This method requires only a single Eye of Ender so you can follow it by hand, thus ensuring you never lose it and that you do not need a supply of many.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Stronghold in Minecraft?

A Stronghold is a structure in Minecraft that contains a portal to the End dimension, where the Ender Dragon can be found.

Why is the Eye of Ender needed to find a Stronghold?

The Eye of Ender is used to locate a Stronghold in Minecraft as it points towards the direction of the nearest Stronghold.

What if I don’t have an Eye of Ender?

If you don’t have an Eye of Ender, you can still find a Stronghold by using alternative methods such as following a specific pattern or using a special tool.

How can I find a Stronghold without using an Eye of Ender?

One way to find a Stronghold without an Eye of Ender is by creating a grid pattern on your map and looking for intersections where the lines cross. These intersections often mark the location of a Stronghold.

Are there any tools that can help me find a Stronghold without an Eye of Ender?

Yes, there are tools such as the Chunkbase Stronghold Finder that allow you to enter your world seed and find the exact location of Strongholds without using an Eye of Ender.

Can I still find a Stronghold if I don’t know my world seed?

Yes, you can still find a Stronghold without knowing your world seed by using the /locate Stronghold command in Minecraft which will give you the coordinates of the nearest Stronghold in your world.