Tiers

Tiers refer to the different levels and materials of tools and weapons.

Tiers

There are currently six tiers in the game: wood, stone, iron, diamond, netherite, and gold. The tier of an item determines its mining level, durability, mining speed multiplier, damage bonus, enchantability, and repair item.

Tier name	Mining level	Durability	Mining speed multiplier	Damage bonus	Enchantability	Repair item
Wood	0	59	2	0	15	Planks
Gold		32	12		22	Gold Ingot
Stone	1	131	4	1	5	Cobbled Deepslate Cobblestone Blackstone
Iron	2	250	6	2	14	Iron Ingot
Diamond	3	1561	8	3	10	Diamond
Netherite	4	2031	9	4	15	Netherite Ingot

Mining level

The mining level of a tool is an internal numeric value that represents an additional restriction to breaking blocks, in addition to requiring a specific type of tool. Blocks in the tag minecraft:needs_diamond_tool require a tool with mining level 3 or higher, the block tag minecraft:needs_iron_tool mandates a mining level of 2 or higher, and the tag minecraft:needs_stone_tool means the tool must have at least mining level 1. Blocks that are in none of those block tags can be mined with any tool tier, but may still require a certain tool type.

A golden pickaxe is unique because with a mining level of 0, it cannot mine its own respective ore or material block (gold-related blocks), which require a mining level of at least 2.

In the vanilla game, all blocks that require a non-zero mining level happen to also require a pickaxe to obtain the block in item form. And while netherite tools have a higher mining level than diamond tools, no blocks in the vanilla game differentiate between these two mining levels.

Affected items

Swords, axes, pickaxes, shovels, and hoes all use tiers.

Other mechanics

Other mechanics in the game use these tiers for various purposes.

• Ancient debris, blocks of netherite, crying obsidian, obsidian, and respawn anchors require a pickaxe to have a mining level of 3 or better.
• Diamond ore, blocks of diamond, blocks of emerald, emerald ore, blocks of gold, gold ore, blocks of raw gold, redstone ore and deepslate variants of mentioned ores require a pickaxe to have a mining level of 2 or better.
• Blocks of copper, copper ore, blocks of raw copper, cut copper, cut copper slabs, and cut copper stairs of all levels of oxidation, blocks of iron, iron ore, blocks of raw iron, blocks of lapis lazuli, lapis lazuli ore, lightning rods and deepslate variants of mentioned ores require a pickaxe to have a mining level of 1 or better.

History

[hide]Java Edition Indev
0.31			20100131				Tier system for wooden, stone, iron, diamond, and gold tools added. Each tier has a different mining speed multiplier and durability. Swords also have a different damage bonus.
			20100201-2227				Added mining levels. Before this update, blocks and ores could be broken by hand.
			20100202-4				All tools can now be used to hit mobs. Damage bonuses apply to all tools instead of just swords.
20100206-2034							Added hoes. Since they did not mine any block types faster, the only differences between each tier were their durability and their damage bonus.
[hide]Java Edition Infdev
20100313							The durability of diamond-tier items has been increased from 257 to 513.
[hide]Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.3							The durability of diamond-tier items has been increased to 1025.
[hide]Java Edition Beta
1.2							The durability of wood, stone, iron, and diamond tier items have been increased to about twice the previous value.
							The mining speed multiplier of gold-tier items has been increased to 12.​
[hide]Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3				Added the enchanting system. Each tier has a different level of enchantability.
1.4.2			12w41a				Added the ability to repair items in an anvil. Each tier requires a different material to be used.
1.9			15w35a				Damage bonuses no longer apply to hoes.
1.13.1			18w30b				The durability of all tiers has been decreased by one due to the fix of MC-120664.
1.16			20w06a				Netherite tools added to tier system.
			20w09a				Hoes can now break certain block types more quickly, making them affected by mining speed multipliers.
			20w22a				Blackstone can now be used to repair stone-tier items.
1.16.2			20w29a				Tools are now sorted based on their tier in the creative inventory.
1.17			21w07a				Grimstone (now called Deepslate) can now be used to repair stone-tier items.
			21w08a				Cobbled deepslate is now used to repair stone-tier items instead of regular deepslate.
[hide]Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0							Added stone-tier items. They have infinite durability.
v0.3.0							Added mining levels. Before this update, blocks and ores could be broken by hand.
							Added wooden-tier items. They have 11 durability.
							Stone-tier items' durability has been decreased to 132 uses.
v0.3.2							Added diamond, gold, and iron tier items.
v0.3.3							The durabilities of all tiers have been increased to match Java Edition. The durability of gold tools was not increased, but they were given a speed boost.
v0.4.0							Added hoes. Since they did not mine any block types faster, the only differences between each tier were their durability and their damage bonus.
v0.12.1			build 1				Added the ability to repair items in an anvil. Each tier requires a different material to be used.
							Added the enchanting system. Each tier has a different level of enchantability.
[hide]Bedrock Edition
1.16.0			beta 1.16.0.51				Netherite tools added to tier system.
1.17.0			beta 1.17.0.52				Cobblestone and cobbled deepslate can now be used to repair stone-tier items.
							Stone can no longer be used to repair stone-tier items.
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Tier system for wooden, stone, iron, diamond, and gold tools added.​
TU14		1.04					Added the ability to repair items in an anvil. Each tier requires a different material to be used.
[hide]New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Tier system for wooden, stone, iron, diamond, and gold tools added.

See also

• Armor materials
• Materials