You've seen the clips. Someone jumps off a pillar a hundred blocks high, falls like a meteor, and deletes a Warden in a single hit. It looks broken. It looks like a cheat code. But honestly, figuring out how to make the mace in Minecraft is only half the battle; the real challenge is actually surviving the process of gathering the materials. This isn't your standard "stick and stone" crafting recipe. You can’t just go punch a tree and hope for the best.
The mace is a high-tier, heavy-hitting weapon introduced in the 1.21 Tricky Trials update. It changed the combat meta forever. Before this, we just spammed Sharpness V swords or hoped for a lucky axe crit. Now? It’s all about verticality. If you have the guts to dive into a Trial Chamber, you can craft a weapon that scales its damage based on how far you fall. It’s high-risk, high-reward, and incredibly satisfying when you land the hit. If you miss? Well, gravity is a cruel mistress.
The Two Ingredients You Actually Need
Forget everything you know about crafting tables for a second. You don't need iron ingots or diamonds. To craft a mace, you need two very specific items that only spawn in one place: the Heavy Core and the Breeze Rod.
The Breeze Rod is the easy part, relatively speaking. You get these by hunting down Breezes—those annoying, purple-eyed whirlwinds that hop around Trial Chambers firing wind charges at your face. When they die, they drop 1-2 rods. It’s a lot like hunting Blazes in the Nether, just with more jumping and less fire.
The Heavy Core is where the nightmare begins. This isn't a guaranteed drop. It’s not even a "drop" in the traditional sense. You have to find an Ominous Vault inside a Trial Chamber and unlock it with an Ominous Trial Key. The drop rate for a Heavy Core is roughly 2.25%. That’s low. You might get it on your first try, or you might spend three hours fighting waves of armored Bogged and Spiders before you see that gray block pop out of the vault.
Putting it Together
Once you have both, the recipe is vertical. Open your crafting table. Put the Heavy Core in the top middle slot. Put the Breeze Rod directly underneath it in the center slot. That’s it. One core, one rod.
Surviving the Trial Chambers
You can't just stroll into a Trial Chamber with leather armor and a dream. These structures are sprawling, copper-filled gauntlets. If you’re serious about learning how to make the mace in Minecraft, you need to understand the Ominous state.
Standard Vaults won't give you the core. You need to trigger an Ominous Trial by drinking an Ominous Bottle (which you get from Raid Captains or standard Vaults). This turns the Trial Spawners blue. The mobs get better armor. They start firing wind charges or dropping potions on your head. It’s chaotic.
I’ve seen players get overwhelmed because they didn't clear the area first. The Breeze is the most dangerous mob here because it knocks you back into other traps. Use a shield. Seriously. Use a shield to deflect the wind charges, then rush in with a sword to get your Breeze Rods. Don't even bother with the Ominous Vaults until you’ve cleared the surrounding spawners, or you’ll be reading a "You Died" screen while trying to loot your prize.
Why Your Mace Damage Feels Weak
So you made the thing. You jumped off a hill, hit a zombie, and... it didn't die?
Here’s the nuance most people miss: the mace is useless if you stay on the ground. Its base damage is okay, but its soul is the "smash attack." When you fall at least 1.5 blocks, the mace starts charging energy. The longer the fall, the higher the damage. There is no hard cap. Technically, if you fall far enough, you can kill anything in the game.
But there’s a catch.
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You must land the hit. If you land the hit, all your fall damage is negated. You land softly like a feather. If you miss by even a pixel? You take the full fall damage. If you jumped from 50 blocks up, you’re dead. It is the ultimate "all or nothing" mechanic in Minecraft's history.
The Enchantment Factor
To make the mace truly terrifying, you need the right enchantments. Don't just slap Unbreaking on it and call it a day.
- Density: This is your bread and butter. It increases the damage dealt per block fallen. At level V, the scaling becomes absurd.
- Breach: This reduces the effectiveness of your enemy's armor. It’s perfect for PvP or taking down heavily armored mobs.
- Wind Burst: This is the "fun" one. It’s a rare book found in Ominous Vaults. When you land a smash attack, it launches you back into the air, allowing you to chain hits like some kind of blocky superhero.
Common Mistakes and Misconceptions
A lot of players think they can just use a mace like a sword. Don't. The attack speed is slow. If you’re standing toe-to-toe with a Ravager, use an axe or a sword. The mace is a tool for initiation or finishing moves.
Another big mistake is ignoring the knockback. The mace creates a shockwave on impact that pushes nearby mobs away. This is great for crowd control but terrible if you’re trying to keep a specific mob in a certain spot.
Also, remember that the mace cannot be enchanted with Sharpness, Smite, or Bane of Arthropods. It has its own ecosystem of enchantments. If you try to force a Sharpness book onto it in an anvil, you’re just wasting experience levels.
Technical Details You Should Know
The mace has a base attack damage of 6 and an attack speed of 0.6. For comparison, a Netherite Sword has a base damage of 8 but a much faster attack speed of 1.6. This is why the fall distance is the only thing that matters.
The math behind the damage is roughly $base_damage + (distance_fallen \times scale)$. With the Density enchantment, that multiplier goes up significantly. This isn't just a weapon; it's a physics engine exploit turned into a feature.
- Find a Trial Chamber. Look deep underground in the Overworld. They are huge, made of copper and tuff blocks.
- Farm Breeze Rods. Kill the Breezes. You’ll need a few anyway because Breeze Rods are also used to craft Wind Charges.
- Get Ominous. Drink an Ominous Bottle and win the Ominous Trial.
- Loot the Vault. Pray to the RNG gods for a Heavy Core.
- Craft. Heavy Core over Breeze Rod.
- Practice. Go to a creative world and practice the timing. The hit box for a smash attack is slightly different than a normal swing.
Once you’ve mastered the drop, start looking for the Wind Burst enchantment. It’s the rarest loot in the Trial Chambers, but it turns the mace from a heavy hammer into a mobility tool that lets you stay airborne indefinitely as long as there are enemies to hit. It’s arguably the most "end-game" feeling item Mojang has added in years. Focus on getting your armor sorted first; those Ominous Trials don't play around, and the Bogged (poison skeletons) will ruin your day before you even see a Breeze.
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Actionable Next Steps:
Locate a Trial Chamber using an explorer map from a Cartographer villager. Once inside, prioritize killing Breezes for rods before attempting the Ominous Trials, as the Wind Charges they drop can help you maneuver the vertical layout of the chambers more effectively. Keep a bucket of water on your hotbar at all times—if you miss a mace smash from a high ledge, a quick MLG water bucket move is the only thing that will save your hardcore world or your inventory. After crafting the mace, immediately look for a Density enchantment book to ensure your fall damage scaling is maximized for boss fights.