Minecraft Armor and Weapons

You can make armor and weapons (other than bows) out of lots of materials. The stronger the material, the longer they last, and the more damage the weapons do.

The materials for armor, in ascending order of strength, are:

Leather, gold, iron, diamond

The materials for swords, in ascending order of strength and damage, are:

Gold, Wood (although both do the same damage), Stone, Iron, Diamond

When making a sword or piece of armor, you must use the same material throughout, but you can make armor from several pieces using different materials (leather helmet and iron chestplate, for example).

When you open your inventory, you will see an armor line, portrayed by 10 full or empty chestplates.

Making and wearing a helmet fills 1.5 spots on the armor line. This is it's usefulness at full power. As it gets damaged, the helmet will be less effective.

A helmet is made by placing armor crafting material (leather, gold ingot, iron ingot, diamond) into the middle 3 squares and 2 bottom corners in the 3x3 crafting grid.

Take the helmet from the grid and place it in your inventory in the top box (out of four) beside your avatar's picture. Your avatar's picture will now show you with a hat, and if you press F5, you can see your avatar with your new helment.

The chestplate fills 4 spots on the armor line, and is the most useful piece of armor in Minecraft.

To build a chestplate, take 8 pieces of material, and put them in a 3x3 crafting grid with only the top center spot empty.

Take your new chestplate and place it in the inventory box second from the top beside your avatar.

Leggings are the second most useful piece of armor in the game, filling 3 armor spots at peak efficiency.

Leggings are made in a 3x3 crafting grid using 7 pieces of material, with only the center square and bottom center square empty.

Leggings go into the 3rd inventory slot next to your avatar.

Finally, let's get you some kicks.

Boots are made from just 4 pieces of material, and are placed in the bottom two corners and left and right boxes of the center row in a 3x3 crafting grid. Although it takes 4 crafting spaces, boots cannot be made in the 2x2 crafting grid.

Boots provide 1.5 spots of armor protection.

Note: This makes boots more efficient than helmets, as you only need 4 materials for the same protection that a helmet provides with 5 materials. Even so, if you want full protection, you need to make a helmet, chestplate, leggings and boots.

Swords are your primary melee weapon in Minecraft. You CAN beat monsters with your shovels, axes and picks, but the sword is much more effective.

Swords are made in the 3x3 crafting grid using 2 materials, one atop the other in the top center, and center squares, with a stick below them in the bottom center square.

Take your new sword and add it to your toolbar. To use it, scrollwheel over to it and click (repeatedly, until monsters fall down).

Bows are unique in the game, as once they are made, they don't have durability issues, and will last forever, unless you lose them.

Arrows on the other hand, are fired from the bow, and if they hit the target, are lost. If they miss, they can be picked up.

Bows and arrows are only made one way, and don't benefit from other materials (you can't make uber-deadly diamond-tipped arrows, unfortunately.

Bows

Bows are made using three sticks and three strings (taken from spiders).

Place 3 strings, one atop the other, down the left side of the 3x3 crafting grid. Place sticks in the top center, middle right and bottom center squares. This will create a bow. Add it to your toolbar at the bottom, and scroll over to it to use it by right-clicking it. (Clicking your bow will cause you to swing with it, instead of shooting it).

Arrows

Arrows are made using one flint, one stick and one feather (from zombies or chickens).

Place the flint at the top center of the 3x3 crafting grid, with the stick in the center square, and the feather below them in the bottom center square. This will make 4 arrows. Arrows do not need to be in your toolbar to fire them, just your bow.

Note: You can occasionally collect arrows dropped by skeletons when you kill them, or they die from the sun.

When you right click the bow, it will fire an arrow (with a satisfying twang) to where you point the cursor. Firing it straight on level ground gives you a range of about 15 blocks, with the arrow sinking due to gravity effects. Varying the angle of the bow up gives you slightly longer range, up to about 50 blocks at a 45 degree angle. Targets move around quickly so firing long distances are not really efficient, but are possible.

It's best to practice at ranges of 5-10-15 blocks to get the feel for the bow, and learn to nail targets at these ranges.

Monsters have 10 hearts, just like you do, and an arrow does 2 hearts of damage (requiring 5 arrow hits to kill a monster).

A diamond sword does 5 hearts of damage, so two swings is enough to kill a monster. Iron takes 3 hits, stone takes 4 hits and gold/wood take 5 hits.

Although making and maintaining arrows can be a pain, I find it easier to sit back and fire than trying to wave my sword around while invariably getting hit by monsters, and risking getting blown up by creepers. This is especially true if you get surrounded, as every time you get hit, you get stunned briefly (or at least it seems that way), and if there is lag, you can get overrun.

Even being charged by 2-3 targets, you can unload quickly with the bow, with each hit knocking your target back enough to keep them at bay until you can turn them into pincushions.

Be aware of your arrow count though (which you can do by placing them in your toolbar, although it's not required). There's nothing worse than twanging with your bow, and then suddenly nothing happens because you're out.

If you ARE out, and in hostile territory, have your sword on your toolbar as well so you can roll over to it if you need to (and vice versa from sword to bow).