Mobs are essential to progression inMinecraft, though some mobs are a lot more useful than others. For example, when players first enter a world, their first order of business is often finding some sheep in order to collect wool for a bed so they can sleep through the night. Later on, villagers are a necessity for quickly farming resources and fully enchanting armor. However, there are several mobs that serve unique or obscure purposes that players won’t often utilize.
Minecraftreceives new additions to its mob roster in almost every update, and it’s clear that certain mobs have been pushed out of the spotlight or made seemingly obsolete. Some mobs have niche uses that won’t be obvious to most players, while others are rarer to come across and not often sought out. How can you make use of some underrated mobs in your nextMinecraftworld?
10Glow Squids Can Light Up Signs
Add A Little Flair To Your Minecraft Builds
Glow squids can be quite difficult to find, especially in Java Edition, where they can only spawn in complete darkness.In BedrockEdition, they’re slightly more common,since they can spawn in any body of water underground. On their own, many won’t find this mob particularly useful, since, much like the squid, they don’t have any notable behaviors.
However, the glow squid is the only reliable source of glow sacs. These items can be used on signs to make the text glow, which makes the writing more visible in darkness and gives it a more eye-catching design by providing an outline. Glow sacs can also be combined with item frames to make glowing item frames. Though this doesn’t add that much to gameplay,slightly improving your signs can be the first step in taking your builds to the next level.
9Snow Golems Are Great For Automation
Collect Infinite Snow
When compared to iron golems, snow golems are considerably weaker. They’re a lot easier to make, however, as they can be summoned with the use of two snow blocks and a pumpkin. When walking around,snow golems will infinitely generate snow on the ground, which can be collected using an automated farm or shovel.This is useful for any builds that you may want to use snow for, or if you want to quickly generate some blocks for scaffolding.
Snowballs can be used to damage blazes,and they are easier to obtain compared to arrows. This makes them a convenient item to bring with you into the Nether, especially if you’re trying to save your resources. Snow golems will also shoot snowballs at hostile mobs, so you may use them as an extra line of defense for your base.
8Pufferfish Aid Ocean Exploration
Breathe Underwater & Safely Transport Aquatic Animals
Pufferfish can be found in warm and lukewarm ocean biomes, and they will always drop the “pufferfish” item upon death. This can also be obtained from fishing, though the drop is only completely guaranteed if you kill the mob directly.The pufferfish item is used to make potions of water breathing,which is an absolute necessity if you plan on conquering an ocean monument, whether to find valuable loot or gather underwater materials.
Strangely, the Wither and Ender Dragon cannot receive the water-breathing effect.
One pufferfish cancreate three water-breathing potions, which, when extended, can add up to twenty-four minutes of underwater exploration time.In Bedrock Edition, the water-breathing effect will also prevent fish, squid, and tadpoles from suffocatingwhen out of water. This makes it very useful to have on hand forfish tanks or aquarium builds in survival mode, since mobs like the squid cannot be picked up in buckets and will die within seconds when beached.
7Camels Are Great For Travel
A Safe And Reliable Form Of Transport
Camels are quite a rare mob, with one spawning per desert village and only occasionally appearing throughout the biome. Though camels are a little slower than horses, they’re a very convenient and underrated mount. Firstly,camels are naturally tame, meaning players won’t have to go through the hassle of taming them to ride them,as long as they have a saddle available.
Camels hold the title of the tallest passive mob, and their hit-box is too high off the ground for most hostile melee mobs to hit. This is particularly useful in the desert where husks spawn, which can be very annoying to deal with since they don’t burn in the sun and afflict their targets with hunger. Before players are able to get their hands on aghastling or happy ghast, camels are a great way of safely transporting AFK friends.
6Armadillos Have A Unique Drop
Protect Your Beloved Pets & Scare Away Spiders
Armadillos have largely been pushed to the side by players since their release, which wasn’t helped by the fact that they’re tucked away in the Savanna and Badlands biomes, which players don’t often have a need to visit. These mobs drop armadillo scutes every 5–10 minutes, but they can also be obtained if a player or dispenser uses a brush on one of them.Armadillo Scutes are used to make wolf armor, which absorbs all damage with few exceptionsuntil the durability runs out.
Wolf armor is also dyeable, so even if you’re not planning to take your wolves into battle, it allows for a little extra customization.Armadillos also have another, slightly more niche, function where they scare away spidersin the same way cats scare creepers, which is inspired by how Armadillos eat insects in real life. you may exploit this function to create a spider farm, such as the one built byarcp08on Reddit. Although armadillos are passive and won’t attack the spiders, they can be bred with spider eyes.
5Allays Are A Key To Infinite XP
An Adventuring Assistant Or The Key To A Powerful XP Farm
Allays have a chance of spawning in pillager outpost cages and woodland mansion jail cells. Once freed, they will follow the player and pick up items. This can be useful if you find yourself slightly short on inventory space, and it can be quite handy to pick some up while adventuring.You can designate an area for your allays to deliver items by placing a noteblock nearby,otherwise they will deliver items directly to you. Even though they only have one item slot, they can carry up to a stack.
Once you have one Allay, you may easily duplicate it as many times as you want by putting a disk in a jukebox and giving it an amethyst shard while it’s dancing.
With theaddition of bundles toMinecraft,many players may find the allay obsolete, but there is another use for them which is a little less obvious. Using a potion of infestation will cause numerous silverfish to spawn whenever the target takes damage, and players can exploit this feature with the allay due to their fast regeneration. This can make a veryefficient infinite XP farm, as creating a system where the allay continuously takes small amounts of damage will cause silverfish to continuously spawn without killing it.
4Cats Are A Source Of Phantom Membranes
Warding Off Aggressive Mobs
Although they have endeared themselves to the fanbase,many players will stray away from taming cats in favor of wolves,especially since the release of wolf armor. Cats are a little trickier to tame, and they can’t fight mobs afterward. It’s common knowledge that cats repel creepers, but there is another very good reason to keep some in your base that makes them one of thebest mobs to tame inMinecraft.
Cats can only bring the player gifts if they have slept through the night, not through a thunderstorm during the daytime.
After sleeping, cats have a 70% chance of bringing their owners small gifts,the most useful being a phantom membrane, which can be used to create potions of slow falling. This is a safer way for players to obtain this item if they aren’t keen on fighting phantoms. It’s heavily implied that cats hunt phantoms when the player is sleeping, because they will repel them in the same way they scare away creepers.
3Dolphins Seek Out Resources
An Underutilized Looting Tool
Dolphins are a generally helpful mob when traveling across oceans.When players are within a nine-block radius of a dolphin, they will be granted the “Dolphin’s grace” effect, which is a small speed boost. As long as the player is still “sprinting” in the water, then nearby dolphins will follow them, prolonging the effect. This makes them especially useful if you find yourself having to escape from drowning or hostile mobs.
Dolphins Spawn In The Following Ocean Biomes:
When fed raw fish,dolphins also have the helpful ability to lead players to underwater loot, including buried treasure, shipwrecks, and ocean ruins. If you’re tired of mining and looting the traditional way, this can be a fun method of collecting resources. It’s especially relevant in the early game, since it only requires you to pick up some cod or salmon. Just make sure to stay friendly with them, since hostile dolphins will not become passive again after being fed fish.
2Bees Can Aid Redstone Builds
The Source Of Honey, A Surprisingly Useful Resource
Bees produce honey, which can be crafted into honey blocks. While it’s easy to ignore honey,the honey block is an essential in many modern redstone builds.It functions similarly to the slime block, and other blocks will stick to it when moved by a piston. However, the honey and slime blocks don’t stick to each other, which allows players tocreate the mechanisms for flying machinesand certain redstone doors. Honey can also be easier to obtain if there aren’t any nearby slime chunks.
Beehives will become full after bees return to them once they have pollinated surrounding flowers. Using a glass bottle on a full beehive will fill it with honey, and using shears on one will drop honeycomb. Bees will become aggressive towards the player if they collect honey from their hive, but this can be prevented by placing a campfire underneath it.Honeycomb has quite a few different uses, including building more hives, waxing copper blocks, and making candles.
1Endermites
Minecraft’s Most Useless Mob Can Actually Have A Convenient Use
Endermites are small, hostile mobs that most players will only see as an annoyance.They have a chance of spawning when using an ender pearl, which is a general inconvenience, especially if you’re teleporting onto a ledge. To make matters worse, they don’t drop any loot. Reddit userEhrenloser_Ereneven dubbed them the most forgettable mob inMinecraft, a reasonably common sentiment. However, they can be used to quickly obtain one of the game’s most iconic items.
Endermen are hostile towards endermites, so players can lure them to a specific area by leaving an endermite. This can be the main function of a cheap XP and ender pearl farm, since you can direct the Endermen to a location where you can easily kill them. Just make sure to name tag the endermite and place it into a minecart to keep it safe and stop it from despawning. Endermites might ultimately be the best proof that even the most “useless” mobs inMinecraftcan serve a practical purpose.
