The goal of our UHC guide was to give the conceptual information for you to take and excel with. There are many elements in UHC that are all dependent on predicting your opponent and the scenario you're in which is why it's difficult to give the exact inputs neccesary for each scenario. UHC skills are ALL developed through practice. If you're looking to master UHC you won't be able to rely on duels either. Duels won't encompass everything a UHC puts against you.
Lastly, my one worry when making this was that we would miss out on certain topics. If you have a question or you want us to explain a situation in more depth, please DM or @ me or Hosthan#2511 and we'll add it to the guide.
Intro
Arguably the steepest learning curves is combining the axe, sword and shield into one technique. Lots of people ask for a definitive answer on how one person can do this or that to be better or how they can imitate what another person does but these types of question are flawed. Play-styles are developed from practice and 99% of players will play very different from another which in-turn leads to ambiguity in "finding the best" playstyle and player. So here, in this guide I'll explain some of the common ones that I see and you can mesh the information and use what works best for you. The best players are able to use each playstyle in situations where the playstyles excell.
Also there aren't really names for playstyles so take the titles with a grain of salt
General Overview of UHC Fights
The Axe
- Disables the shield!!
- Both by fully charged hits and spam clicking
- Does more damage but is slower (Lots of servers have 10-15% damage nerf on axes)
-Easier to learn hardest to master
The Sword
- Quicker and more DPS
-Harder to learn easiest to master.
Integrating the Shield
-Protecting your shield from being disabled
-Blocking other players hits
-Timing your hits between shield blocks
- There are quite a few ways to integrate the shield into your playstyle which will be covered below
Secondaries
-Vital for fights
-Include cobwebs and lava
-When used opponents need to drop their shield which is where you capitalize
Focusing on Shield and Sword ❌ 🪓
There are quite a few players who don't use the axe. They could win a game solely off of skill with their shield and secondaries. In my opinion, this playstyle is very risky. You find someone who out times you or gets exceptional shield disables, you could be in trouble.
Application
-Out-timing opponents shield hits
-Done through practice and predicting when they are going to hit you
-Not letting your shield get disabled
-Using secondaries as spacing objects and for getting their shield down
-When they disable your shield, you cobweb them.
-When you cobweb them you take the two free hits from them placing water or get a shield disable while they are stuck
-(Same concept with lava)
-Excels in cave fights/fights with little room.
Fighting Against it
- Playing for a shield disable before going in on them
-Avoiding the secondaries
-Not to get overwhelmed and panic'd (can happen easily when all your hits do 0 damage)
Downsides
-Its hard and risky to be good with it
-Certain playstyles could counter it and make your life difficult.
Focusing on Sword
The play-style I'm trying to describe is the one for people try to turn the fight into a shield-less sword fight. They go for a shield disable and proceed to get a large sword combo or a crit chain. It works as a very aggressive play-style. I personally like this play-style.
Application
-Being good with sword without shield
-Read the sword guide 😃
- Getting the initial shield disable
-If they are holding out their shield perhaps go with your axe first spam click a shield disable then use your sword
-Learn to axe main until you get a shield disable then use sword
-Overwhelming them
-Crit chains and combos
- Jumping around them for the nasty crit chains
-It's very good for dropping people before they can use their healing.
Fighting Against it
-If you aren't able to out do them with sword you will need to space them and wait the 5 seconds for your shield to return
-Use secondaries to stop their push
Axe Maining
Solely using an axe. No sword. This play-style is RARELY used effectively especially with servers that have axe nerfs, but it still possible to use. Generally people will use axe maining skills as a change up during a fight or someone will axe main until they get a shield disable. This play-style is so difficult because it's much easier to get sword combos and deal more damage.
Application
Axe Maining is more about playing smarter than your opponent
-You need to be comfortable in the terrain, meaning you have area to move around and space yourself
-Cave fights are extremely difficult to axe main in
Shield Relient?
-Shield is much more important when axe maining because without it, you will get combo'd to your death by a sword.
-You want to be able to predict when they are going to hit you
-Lots of the time when people jump they are planning to crit you.
-Predicting hits is really a skill developed from practice. The more you play the more you will recognize patterns and learn when to shield.
- You don't want to sit and hold your shield down. Doing that will get your shield easily disabled and you will die.
Secondaries
- A lot of the time when using secondaries people place a lava down before they start a combo with a sword but when axe maining you want to place the lava after the first hit.
- Secondaries are also very important for spacing people. Most of the time you will need to space people with secondaries when your shield gets disabled.
Intro
Secondaries are all those items that are not meant for combat but can be used as a weapon, or in general as a utility to help win a fight. The main 3 items that follow these requirements are Lava and Water
Secondaries require hotkeys to be used to their full extent, there's no general good for all hotkeys, but you should try side mouse buttons and the keys Z X C V R T due to how close they are to the standard WASD.
What hotkeys you choose depend basically in preferences, hand size, and generally how your brain is wired
Lava
-Obtention:
You can craft a bucket with 3 iron, then you can right click a source of lava to pick up a lava.
-Usage:
The method of usage is straight forward, you place it where your opponent is to burn them, this can server different objectives.
Offensive lavas: Harder use of lava, you use the lava mid combo to burn your opponent and make them unshield, therefore you use the lava bucket after you hit . You can choose whether to pick it up or not, both work. The main objective of this lava is disrupting your enemy.
Generally speaking it's only viable with good ping otherwise lava missplacing due to latency will make these lavas unefficient (it can be done, it's just harder.). These lavas also have a high risk, if you miss the lava you can give your opponent a breathing room to break the combo and put you
agains't a wall.
Deffensive lavas: Most common use of lava, generally speaking, any kind of lava that comes before the first hit in a exchange can be considered as a deffensive lava. The main objective of these lavas is gaining a strategic advantage over your opponent, such as time to get a gap off, obtain an easy shield disable or gain distance. This lava doesn't require low ping to be consistent, since it's use is way slower. You can choose to pick it up or not.
Cobwebs
-Obtention:
Cobwebs can be obtained by shearing them from a mineshaft, these items are useful since they can prevent enemy movement, they're specially useful to get out of crit combos and to get free hits in.
-Usage:
Basic Web: Any kind of web which you place in the floor while your opponent is moving towards you is a basic web.
The logic behind this web is moving in a way you bait your opponent for an easy crit, block placement reach is larger than hit reach, therefore you'll always get the web before the hit, giving you the edge in the trade.
Most common usage of this technique is setting up a situation where you can enforce a trade which you'll win. They're specially deadly if your opponent doesnt have their shield up or they do not have water in their hotbar.
·You can get out of them by placing water on top of the web easily.
Running Web: Any kind of web used while running from your opponent is a running web.
Very straightforward, you're running from your opponent and you use a cobweb really quickly to gain time, requires good muscle memory, tho once it has been practiced enough, it's a no brainer. Some people like to 360 flick while doing this, it's basically not required for these to work, but it can look cool sometimes.
·You can get out of them by placing water on top of the web easily.
Head Webs: Any kind of web that is placed directly on your opponent's head, is a head web.
You push your opponent against a wall by sprint hitting them and place the web in the wall so your opponent has their head in the web and you can hit them in their feet. Most used for trying to quickdrop people. Requires fast and precise movement.
·You can get out of them by breaking the web with your sword or in some cases by placing water around it, it's situational, tho you always want to try to use water first.
Intro
Projectiles(Bow, Crossbow, Trident) is a very under utilized aspect within UHC. Many people write off using them as they think the addition of shield's renders them useless. This is not the case at all, as there are many ways to work around a players shield in order to land your hits.
Bow
In Vanilla Minecraft bow's are actually disgustingly over powered (I believe a power 1 does 8 hearts to a naked person), so most servers implement a 20-25% bow nerf to counter this.
Almost everything about bows are the in 1.9+ as they are in 1.8 but there is a subtle yet somewhat annoying change that only takes a little but of practice to get used to. Your upwards momentum effects your projectile's. So jump shotting is a little bit different. You simply just have to wait until you are at the apex of your jump to shoot and you will be fine. This momentum applies to all projectiles.
Crossbow
Crossbows are a very unique projectile, especially in the realm of UHC. Crossbows can be loaded and primed for use at any time making them a very useful finishing weapon to secure a kill. Crossbows are also more accurate than bows are, meaning they spray a lot less than bows do.
The most important thing about crossbows is that they are able to go through shields when they are enchanted with the piercing enchantment (all you need is piercing I and that typically costs just 1 level). Their ability to counter shields make them a deadly weapon when put in the right hands. A common tactic when being bowed at is to simply hold shield and push towards the person who is bowing, using a crossbow will stop this shield push in it's tracks, as you will force them to start healing. This allows them to pair nicely with bows, shooting your crossbow at your opponent will often make them drop their shield in an effort to counter attack you, which will allow you to start using your bow to shoot them.
Basic mining knowledge
You never want to be mining above y-32 because you can’t find any useful resources such as gold and diamonds there. Gold spawns between y0 and y31 and diamonds spawns between y0 and y16. While mining, you want to 90% of the time stick to the y-level closest to 11 because that is where lava pools usually spawn. y11 lava pools is what I’ve found to be the most frequent place for diamonds to spawn. Using a texture pack with highlighted ores is important because it allows you to see ores that are on the side of a lava pool.
Maximizing efficiency
Mining is without a doubt heavily luck based. Though to make it less luck based, you want to focus on being efficient and fast while caving to give yourself as many opportunities for diamonds and gold to spawn. These are a few ways I found to be useful for efficiency.
Memory
Having good memory and not forgetting for example where you’ve already been in the cave cuts down the time you end up spending in that cave by a huge amount. Say I were to explore a cave, but I kept running in circles and going back and forth in the same already explored area. This would give no new opportunities for diamonds and gold to spawn. Say now that I were to only explore areas where I haven’t already been. This allows me to move from different areas of the cave very quickly and give myself a ton of opportunities for ores to spawn.
Staying in caves
While stripmining can be very effective at times, It makes mining entirely luck based weather you find ores or not. You want to always stick to caves because the amount of area you are able to cover is way larger then that while stripmining. Now to effectively stay in caves, knowing how they generate has a huge impact. Take me for example, when I’m mining my brain recognizes certain generations and I can tell where a cave is gonna be going up or down, if it’s gonna expand or not, and even if there is gonna be a cave behind a wall. Caves are also more likely to spawn on top of each other, so if you’re stuck in a y=40 cave there’s a good chance there is gonna be a cave bellow it.
Looking for new caves
You are bound to eventually run out of cave, when this happens your best bet is to start stripmining/dive mining to try and find a new one. Dive mining is when you put yourself in the swimming position by using for example a water bucket or trapdoor. This is a very effective method for covering a lot of distance quickly.
Some key things to think about while looking for a new cave is using your c-counter which basically shows the amount of air blocks that are in front of you (this is a vanilla feature). I myself know borderline perfectly how to use the c-counter and it allows me to very reliably find new caves. (It’s hard to put into words but I’ll do my best to explain it). Once I run out of unexplored cave, I go to the nearby ends of my cave (like the south, west, north and east end) and look straight into the wall to see what my c-counter is (though if the cave that just ended was towards north east I won’t bother really checking those ends because they’re already explored). If you now have an end towards a direction you know you haven’t been with a c-counter of more than around 20, that is the direction you want to be mining in (I should add that you don’t want to be spending a lot of time doing this, if the ends of the cave are very far apart and you already have one with a c-counter of like
30 I’d just stripmine in that direction). If you find yourself stripmining towards a high c-counter and it suddenly goes down to like 8 or less, you want to look to your left/right the c-counter should rise again and there should be a cave very soon in that direction. Using sounds is also a great way to find new caves. You could use subtitles to look for sounds like “lava pops” and “water flows”
To find caves very easily, I however don’t use this as I find using actual sounds way more fun. If you don’t have a high c-counter in any direction/don’t hear any sounds you might be in what I call a void-pocket (idk if there’s an actual term for it) which is basically a very large area where caves can’t spawn besides random y-level lava pools. If you think you’re in a void-pocket your best bet to find a good new cave is probably just to relocate (go to surface and run for a while then dig down).
A new method called the clay trick was recently discovered and is the best and most consistant way to find any ore. What you want to look for is patterns of clay/gravel under water which should look something like this but can be cut off by other patterns such as sand (this wont effect ore spawning)
The first thing you wanna do when you find a clay/gravel pattern is to check what biome its in. If you're in a swamp and looking for diamonds you want to count 7 blocks south from the center of the clay pattern because the most common numbers for seeds is 6 or 8 (its important you don't go outside of the chunk border, if the chunk border end but you haven't counted 7 block you want to continue on the opposite side of the chunk, and if the pattern itself is on the edge of a chunk border you want to count in the chunk where the center is)
Not all seeds have the same number of blocks to count and some doesn't work at all, here are some numbers which could work
On servers where ores don't spawn outside of caves clay trick will not be very effective at all. Though in theory if the diamonds from the clay trick spawned inside of a cave it will work which is why mining under swamp water is a good idea (This area). By doing this you are likely to get diamonds from the clay trick without using it and just mining normally.
Team Work Within UHC
Good communication is essential to winning games, an under geared team with good teamwork always has a chance to beat the better geared team.
Mindset
This one may seem silly but your mindset truly does have a great effect on how you and your teammates play. Being negative never helps with your ability to play the game. Keeping a positive attitude will always increase your chances for success.
Teamwork
Good solid teamwork is vital to winning team games. Making good call outs is important, while at the same time not being obnoxious with them. If you over use "I'm dead I'm dead" no one is going to want to help you.
You need to be very observant of your surroundings, who's fighting who and how they are doing in said fight. Tell people when they should disengage or turn and fight someone else. In big team fights you should always be trying to get 2v1's. So always be on the lookout to get them.
And a final thing, just be an enjoyable teammate. No one likes an annoying person ruining it for everyone.
The Nether
Going to the Nether is a very risky strategy if you're playing to win. High risk high reward.
The Risk
When you go to the nether you could of course die to PvE. No water bucket, lava, piglins, piglin brutes and other mobs. Once you're experienced enough, PvE won't be the risk. The real risk lies within RNG. You could go to nether expecting any of the items/structures that will soon be mentioned and find nothing and be stuck full iron once meetup occurs with little chance of success.
End Crystals
By far, the most OP item in the game. One shots multiple people. Some servers like COSO have them disabled while a server like Apollo has them enabled. To make an end crystal, you need a ghast year and an eye of ender (ender pearl and blaze powder) with glass. If you don't know how to use an end crystal, I recommend the soon to be made vanilla pvp guide. Getting these resources can be difficult considering most servers have reduced mob spawning.
Remember, if you get an end crystal, it's likely your gear will be very bad from staying in the nether the entire game and it's entirely possible that when you use the crystal it will kill you also so you must be smart about it.
Nether Fortresses
Nether Fortresses have blaze spawners, nether wart, and chests. Blaze Spawners are found in the section of the fortress where there are no chests. Nether wart is found in the section of the fortress where there is chest, adjacent to stairs. Chests can contain gold, saddles, diamonds, obsidian, and a few other items.
I've attached here an image of a guide to brewing the different kind of potions. Note that most servers have configs on what potions are enabled or disabled. Regeneration is always disabled. Strength is essentially always disabled. A lot of the time tier two potions are also off. In game you'll be able to see the full configuration for the game
Bastions
Bastions are the best way to win a game off staying in the nether. Piglin Brutes make looting them dangerous (they will kill you in two hits).
The best way to kill Piglins and Piglin brutes is by lavaing them. Attacking them with a weapon will draw aggression from all the other piglins. Wearing gold armor will make Piglins neutral to you unless you do something to disturb them which includes attacking them, opening chests, or breaking gold items.
Certain bastions are easy to loot, others difficult, and in some there is no point in raiding.
This is a bridge bastion which is easy to raid. You can easily grab the gold blocks and leave with massive profit.
This is the treasure bastion. This has the most gold and the best loot. The chamber on the right has a chest (where the gold blocks are) that can have netherite, diamond armor and more. The tall building on the left has a few chests that have arrows, crossbows, and sometimes gold. On the outside of the tall building, gold blocks can be found (image attached).
This bastion is difficult to raid. You need to make it all the way into the middle to get the loot and piglin brutes can easily jump down on you and kill you. What most people do to raid this is build a bridge to the center island and then box in the gold blocks in the chest so you are secure and piglins can't kill you when you open the chest and break the gold blocks.
This is a successful raiding of a treasure bastion. Note that a roof in the box is extremely important and you will die without one. Note Magma Cube Spawner. They spawn full sized and make bridging into the bastion very difficult.
Wall of treasure bastion that has gold blocks. Really easy to take these gold blocks.
There are many other different types of bastions, but the two aforementioned are the most straight forward and easy to raid. All the others change on generation.
If you find a bastion with a double chest at the bottom. Digging behind the double chest (into where you see the opening) ALWAYS has gold blocks. Generally around 10 gold blocks.
This formation is often, but not always, found in bastions that have netherwart in the center of it.
In most bastions, if you look under the blocks that have piglin snout faces, there will be gold blocks.
Lots of bastions will have a high point that looks like this. There are multiple double chests, that have decent loot (nothing that can win you a game). To loot the chests you should either lava all the piglins and brutes then block up all entrances to the room or tunnel in from the roof of the building and open the chests from above.
Netherite Mining
Mining for netherite is straightforward. The best y level to mine for netherite is y-10. Some UHC games will have a scenario called hasteyboy which gives all tools efficiency 3. When this is enabled you can instantly break netherrack making mining netherite easier.
An effective way to find netherite is using beds. Blowing up a bed will explode a large area which increases your chances of finding netherite.
Ancient debris is only mineable with a diamond pickaxe. Four ancient debris and four gold equals one netherite ingot. To use a netherite ingot, you must use a smithing table and combine a netherite with a piece of diamond equipment.
Surviving
Tips for Survival
-Cobwebs can be used to avoid fall damage. (substitute for mlg water bucket)
-Twisted vines also serve the same purpose, but you need to hold space when you land on a
twisted vine.
-You can actually use water buckets in the nether if you craft a cauldron. This can be useful since, in Nether pvp, a lot of people have a, “if I’m going down, I’ll take you with me!”, mentality, which means that they will place lava on you and possibly themselves to get you during the fight. But if you are quick with a cauldron and water, the enemy will die, and you’ll extinguish yourself.
- Riding boats off of cliffs avoids fall damage with no risk of death.
- Note that there is a bug where falling exactly 49 blocks or 111 blocks. Generally a
host will respawn you if this happens
Fighting in the Nether
Fighting in the nether is extremely dangerous and often leads to both players dying or a heavy expense of healing.
Fighting in the nether is dominated by lava and cobwebs. Without water these two secondaries are extremely OP. Having a lava placed on you with bad gear generally means you will die. Even with good gear you will take heavy damage.
The best tactic for nether pvp is cobwebbing someone and placing lava ontop of the cobweb that they are in.
UHC Gamesense
Gamesense is the set of decisions you do during a UHC game, and how good these are is how good your gamesense is.
Typically this refers to decisions as:
- How to spend your resources efficiently
This means how good you are at using your current resources to give you an edge agains't your opponents, things like focusing on a good sword , bow or axe depending on your style, making diamond pieces other people won't have, prioritizing golden heads over golden apples when crafting.
- Which fights you must avoid and which fights you must go for
This means being able to tell which fights you will not win and which fights you might have a shot at, also having in mind possible third partying from other players waiting for a good moment to strike and catch you offguard on low health, also known as cleaning.
- What's the best way you can spend your time
This means being able to make profit out of your time, for example, lots of people like to waste time looking for people in coordinates where it's very unlikely, travelling large distances, or focusing on things that depend on RNG , like structures, too much. You only got a set amount of time, make a profit out of it.
- Being smart during Meetup
This means being able to keep a good position when the border is smaller and your position between 2 people could lead to your death, you will always want to be in a safe spot during meetup and be the one who has a good ground
-Deal with terrain well
Making use of the terrain to your advantage can change a game, if you're undergeared hiding in trees is a good idea, if you have good gear walking around plain terrain may benefit you. If you have a good bow there's no reason to jump off from a high position besides border, in general, terrain is another tool to win UHCs.
-Knowing when to stop chasing someone
Sometimes people will not want to fight you and will make the run of their lives, in certain occasions you might want to leave them be, as following them further might lead to you being trapped, or you wasting more time than how worth is everything you get out of the kill
Trading
For UHC purposes, trading has three main goals. Obtaining diamond gear, OP enchanted books, and good bows/arrows. It's better to trade in place of mining under certain conditions. Some scenarios make it much easier to trade, such as team inventory and timber and others make it harder. It's also best to trade when you have teammates. A large drawback of trading is that you won't have golden apples to heal and the other is that you won't have strong weapons (no enchants).
Obtaining Diamond Gear
The most popular form of trading is for diamond armor. To do this, you need to first get a blast furnace and fletching tables. You need one armorsmith villager (blast furnace workbench) and one with preferably a coal trade. In the event you have a coal trade, it will be around 15 coal per emerald, which will help level up the villager.
The next step is using the fletchers. First you need to gather wood logs and a lot of wood logs. Then you get as many fletcher villagers as you need and use their first trade of 32 sticks per emerald to gather as many emeralds as you can. Then you use the emeralds you acquired to level the armorsmith to the diamond armor trade where you can then obtain diamond armor.
Fletchers
Fletchers also can give items that benefit you. A common fletcher trade is 1 emerald for 16 arrows, 1 emerald for a bow, a few emeralds for a crossbow, and others. These all are beneficial to get if you have the ability to do so. A highly leveled fletcher will get an enchanted bow which can have upwards to a power three flame bow. Lastly, the fletchers last trade provides a tipped arrow. The arrows can be game changing but it's hard to reach the fletchers last trade and even if you do reach that last trade you could be given a useless arrow or receive a trade for a tripwire hook.
Enchanted Books
By using the lectern work station, you can make a librarian villager. A librarian will give a random enchanted book trade that can range from aqua infinity to sharpness V (better the enchant the higher the price). The best way to use this to your benefit is to cycle the villager. To cycle a villager all you need to do is place, check the enchanted book trade and if its not what you want, break the lectern and try again. You do this over and over again until you get the enchant that you want. Some people go for OP armor, swords, or a long term investment such as fortune.
Timing
UHC is always timed. Eventually a border will close in and your trading endeavors will end. Another thing to note is how __villagers only restock trades during the daytime__ which is very important when dealing with your fletchers. The best path you can take when trading is preparing what you need right after the scatter, as in getting blast furnaces, fletching tables, finding a village, and gathering wood then mine during the night to get coal and on that second day start trading and leveling up your villagers. If you're fast enough, you can gather everything you need and begin trading on the first day cycle of the UHC.