Minecraft Beacon Crafting Guide (Full Crafting Guide)
Tuesday April 28, 2026
Last updated Tuesday April 28, 2026
If you've ever stared down at a chest of gold blocks wondering what to do with them, the answer is usually: build a beacon. A beacon gives you permanent buffs in a wide area around your base — Speed, Haste, Strength, Resistance, Jump Boost, and Regeneration — and the only catch is that crafting one requires beating the toughest boss in the game. This guide walks through the full path: gather the materials, kill the Wither, craft the beacon, and build the pyramid that powers it.
Everything below applies to Minecraft Java Edition 1.21 and is also accurate on current Bedrock Edition.
What you need to craft a beacon
The beacon recipe needs three materials, in this exact arrangement on a crafting table:
Slot row Items Top row Glass · Glass · Glass Middle row Glass · Nether Star · Glass Bottom row Obsidian · Obsidian · Obsidian
That's 5 glass, 1 Nether Star, and 3 obsidian. The recipe is documented on the Minecraft Wiki Beacon page and has been unchanged since 1.13.
Glass is trivial — smelt sand in a furnace. Obsidian you can mine with a diamond or netherite pickaxe wherever water meets a lava source, or pick up naturally from ruined portals. The hard part is the Nether Star. There is exactly one source: killing the Wither.
Step 1: Get three Wither Skeleton Skulls
Before you can spawn the Wither, you need three Wither Skeleton Skulls. These only drop from wither skeletons in Nether fortresses, and the drop rate is brutal: a flat 2.5% per kill, increased by 1% per level of Looting, maxing out at 5.5% with Looting III. In practice you should expect to kill 30–60 wither skeletons to get three skulls.
Tips that actually help:
Take a sword with Looting III. Drop rate goes from 1-in-40 to roughly 1-in-18.
Wither skeletons spawn most reliably in the dark walkways and stair sections of Nether fortresses. Block off normal skeleton spawns by lighting up brick areas, so you only get withers.
Bring milk buckets. The Wither effect from their melee attacks ticks your health down for 10 seconds and stacks.
Step 2: Gather soul sand and obsidian for the spawn
You need 4 blocks of soul sand (or soul soil — they work interchangeably for spawning). Soul sand generates naturally below Y=34 in the Nether and inside the Nether wart rooms of fortresses. Soul soil is found in Soul Sand Valley biomes.
While you're in the Nether, also stockpile obsidian if you haven't yet. You'll want at least 4 blocks for the beacon recipe and a buffer in case the Wither blows your build site apart.
Step 3: Spawn and defeat the Wither
The Wither is summoned by placing soul sand in a T-shape and topping the three upper blocks with wither skeleton skulls. The T can be horizontal or vertical, and the last block placed must be one of the skulls — otherwise the structure won't trigger.
Layout (top-down for vertical T):
[ ][S][ ] <- skull row
[s][s][s] <- soul sand top of T
[s] <- soul sand stem
Where to fight it matters more than how. A few proven setups:
Bedrock ceiling of the Nether (Y=128). Dig up to bedrock, hollow out a 3-block-tall room, and spawn the Wither there. Its initial explosion is contained and it can't fly through bedrock.
Deep underground in a 4×4 obsidian box. Slow to dig, but it survives the spawn explosion.
End dimension. No surface to break, lots of room, and the Wither cannot reach the central island if you wall yourself in obsidian.
The Wither has 300 health on Java (600 on Bedrock). At half health it gains armor and stops being shot by arrows that aren't tipped or enchanted, so the cleanest method is:
Phase 1 (100% → 50% HP): bow with Power V and Infinity. Stay at distance.
Phase 2 (50% → 0%): switch to a netherite sword with Smite V and rush it. The Wither counts as undead, so Smite tears through its armor phase.
Drink Strength II potions, Resistance, and Regeneration. Eat golden apples on cooldown. When it dies, it drops one Nether Star.
Step 4: Craft the beacon
Bring the Nether Star, 5 glass, and 3 obsidian to a crafting table and lay them out as shown above. You now have a beacon block — it works as a placed object, not as a tool.
A bare beacon does nothing on its own. Place it on the ground and you'll see the trademark sky beam, but the GUI will be greyed out until you build a pyramid under it.
Step 5: Build the pyramid
The beacon sits on top of a pyramid built from any combination of iron blocks, gold blocks, diamond blocks, emerald blocks, or netherite blocks. The block type is purely cosmetic — every valid block contributes equally to the pyramid level. Mixing materials is fine, so most players use iron for the bulk and a few gold or diamond blocks for accent.
Pyramid sizes and what they unlock:
Level Pyramid layer added Blocks added Total blocks Range Effect duration Powers unlocked 1 3×3 9 9 20 blocks 11 seconds Speed I, Haste I 2 5×5 25 34 30 blocks 13 seconds + Resistance I, Jump Boost I 3 7×7 49 83 40 blocks 15 seconds + Strength I 4 9×9 81 164 50 blocks 17 seconds + Regeneration I (secondary), or any primary power upgraded to II
The numbers come straight from the Beacon page on the Minecraft Wiki. The beacon's effect duration is calculated as 9 seconds plus 2 seconds per pyramid level, and the radius increases by 10 blocks per level. Effects refresh constantly while you're inside the area, so the duration matters mainly when you walk away — at level 4 you keep your buffs for nearly half a minute after leaving the zone.
Building order
A 4-level pyramid is built bottom-up:
Place the 9×9 base (81 blocks).
Center a 7×7 layer on top (49 blocks).
Center a 5×5 layer on top of that (25 blocks).
Center a 3×3 layer on top (9 blocks).
Place the beacon block on the center of the 3×3.
There must be no opaque blocks (other than bedrock, water, and a few transparent blocks) directly above the beacon, all the way up to the build height limit, or the beam won't shine and the beacon won't activate.
Step 6: Activate and choose your effect
Right-click the beacon to open the GUI. You'll see one of three states depending on pyramid size, with selectable icons for the unlocked powers. Pay the activation fee — one of the following: an iron ingot, gold ingot, diamond, emerald, or netherite ingot. The cost is the same regardless of pyramid size, and you only pay it when you change effects, not continuously.
Pick the primary effect that fits your day-to-day:
Haste I/II for mining bases — by far the most popular pick.
Speed I/II for travel hubs and overworld bases.
Strength I/II for combat arenas and PvP.
Resistance for raid farms or anywhere damage is incoming.
Jump Boost for parkour or tall builds.
If you have a 4-level pyramid, you also get a secondary slot that can either be Regeneration I, or you can spend the secondary slot to upgrade the primary effect from level I to level II.
Common mistakes that break the beacon
Sky obstruction. Even one solid block above the beacon kills the beam. Glass, slabs (top half), and water are fine; full opaque blocks aren't.
Wrong block types in the pyramid. Netherite-block-shaped slabs, stairs, or walls don't count. It must be the full block (iron block, gold block, diamond block, emerald block, or netherite block).
Off-center pyramid. The beacon must sit on the exact center of the top layer. If your 3×3 layer isn't directly under it, the pyramid level reads as zero.
Forgetting the activation cost. A new beacon shows greyed-out powers until you pay the ingot/gem fee for the first time.
Start small, upgrade later
A full 4-level pyramid eats 164 iron blocks (1,476 ingots), so most players don't build the whole thing at once. A 1-level beacon for Haste I costs just 9 iron blocks and immediately makes mining sessions noticeably faster — that's where to start. Once you have an iron farm running you can swap in 5×5, 7×7, and 9×9 layers without ever dismantling the beacon on top.
Get the skulls, kill the Wither, lay 9 iron blocks under your beacon, and you've got permanent Haste I in your base for the rest of your world.