How To Make a Potion of Weakness in Minecraft

Minecraft potions have temporary effects, unlike equipment enchantments. But make no mistake. Some Minecraft potions provide massive buffs and debuffs that help players accomplish feats they otherwise couldn’t in survival and hardcore modes.

The potion of weakness is often an underutilized consumable for two reasons. It doesn’t last long, and it places a debuff on the player when consumed. But you should still know how to brew this potion because it can be used in an ingenious way.

Potion of Weakness Recipe

The potion of weakness recipe doesn’t require particularly rare ingredients. Some of them are harder to obtain than others because they require a fair bit of gearing and game knowledge.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Go to a brewing stand and bring up the crafting menu.
   
2. Add blaze powder to use as fuel and cook the recipe.
   
3. Place one to three water bottles in the bottom boxes of the brewing stand.
   
4. Add one to three fermented spider eyes to the ingredient box of the brewing stand.
   
5. Remove the potion when done.
   

Why Make a Potion of Weakness?

To newer Minecraft players, a potion of weakness might seem like a counterintuitive consumable. If you hover over the item in the inventory, you might notice it applies an attack damage debuff for 1:30 minutes.

Understanding how the potion works in different editions is crucial. The debuff reduced the attack damage by four (two hearts) in Java Edition (JE), or by 20% and then an additional flat 0.5 (quarter of a heart) in Bedrock Edition. For Bedrock, this tooltip might display how much damage you would lose with your current weapon.

Depending on the weapons or attacks of the enemy mobs, the reduction could be significant enough to nullify the damage. The common confusion in the tooltip might be one of the reasons not enough players take advantage of this potion.

But you don’t have to use a potion of weakness on your character. Instead, you can use it as an ingredient in the splash potion of weakness recipe.

Check out the steps for creating the offensive debuff splash potion of weakness:

1. Go to your brewing stand.
   
2. Add blaze powder to fuel the stand.
   
3. Place one to three gunpowder in the main ingredient box at the top of the stand.
   
4. Add up to three potions of weakness in the bottom brewing stand slots.
   
5. Remove the potions when completed.
   

You can throw splash potions of weakness at mobs to make them deal less damage for 1:30 minutes in JE (1:07 on Bedrock). You can enhance the potion to last four minutes (three in Bedrock). It’s a valuable brew to have in your inventory when engaging tough mobs, doing speed runs, or when low on health and armor.

One of the best things about the splash potion of weakness is its splash effect. It can hit multiple mobs in a small radius, making your character tankier in sketchy situations.

How to Get the Items and Ingredients You Need for a Potion of Weakness

You need four core elements to make potions of weakness in Minecraft.

• Blaze Powder
  
• Water Bottles
  
• Fermented Spider Eyes
  
• A Brewing Stand
  

How to Get Blaze Powder

The recipe for blaze powder is straightforward. Place one blaze rod in the crafting bench and get two blaze powders in return.

Unfortunately, blaze rods are only found as loot from Blaze mobs in the Nether, so they require a bit of work and fighting to obtain.

How to Make Water Bottles

You need three glass blocks to make three water bottles. It’s enough to simultaneously make the maximum allowed number of potions at the brewing stand.

Place one glass block in the middle of the lower row of the 3×3 crafting table. Slot the other two blocks at the sides of the middle row. You’re aiming for a V-shape made from glass blocks.

If you don’t have glass, shovel some sand and smelt it in a furnace using wood, sticks, or coal. The sand-to-glass smelting ratio is 1:1.

How to Get Fermented Spider Eyes

Fermented spider eyes don’t drop. Therefore, you must make them at the crafting table after scavenging some ingredients.

You must harvest sugar and brown mushrooms and kill spiders for spider eyes. Making sugar is easy if you have sugarcane, as you can make it at the crafting bench.

Spiders are easy enough to farm in caverns or out in the wild at night. And if you’re not a mushroom grower, you can find brown mushrooms in taiga environments, swamp biomes, and the Nether realm.

With your ingredients ready, place your mushrooms, the spider eyes, and the sugar in the middle row of the crafting bench. The fermented spider eye recipe uses a 1:1:1 ingredient ratio.

How to Craft a Brewing Stand

The brewing stand crafting recipe requires a blaze rod and three cobblestone blocks. Position the blocks on the lower crafting bench row and put the blaze rod in the middle.

Newer players may struggle to create their first brewing stand because it requires killing Blazes in the Nether realm. But you’ll have to do that eventually to finish the game or access potions and better crafting recipes.

How to Get Gunpowder for the Splash Potion of Weakness Recipe

You’ll need gunpowder if you want to make a batch of splash potions of weakness. One of the quickest ways to get it is by killing Creepers before they explode.

Setting up a Creeper farm can set you up with plenty of gunpowder for potions, TNT, and other recipes.

Blaze Killing Mini Guide

The most difficult part of creating a potion of weakness is killing Blazes in the Nether realm for blaze rods and blaze powder.

Typically, players would head into Nether fortresses to fight Blazes with the following items:

• Enchanted diamond armor
  
• Enchanted diamond sword
  
• Ranged weapons
  
• Food
  
• Cobblestone stacks
  
• Shield
  
• Snowballs
  

You can tackle Blaze encounters in various ways. Dodging the fireballs always works, but you must be quick and fully aware of your surroundings. If you can hit a Blaze with snowballs while avoiding the fireballs, you can kill it in eight hits.

Another way to fight Blazes is to build a safe space with an opening. It should be small enough for fireballs to not hit you, yet large enough for you to shoot arrows or snowballs.

You can also use your sword to block and deflect fireballs right back at Blazes and watch them commit suicide. However, Blazes are quick, and it may take a long time to kill them like this.

Dodging, using cover, and shooting ranged weapons or snowballs is the best and most efficient strategy. It’s worth noting that you can’t get blaze rods by means other than killing Blaze mobs in the Nether.

FAQ

How many blaze rods do Blazes drop in Minecraft?

Blazes have a 50% chance to drop a single blaze rod. You can increase your looting efficiency by using a looting enchantment. Under perfect conditions, killing a single Blaze can yield four blaze rods you can turn into eight blaze powder.

What’s the best way to kill a Blaze?

Any way that credits the kill hit to you or one of your tamed wolves is the best way to kill a Blaze. Blazes won’t drop rods if they die due to water exposure.

Does the potion of weakness work on Iron Golems?

Iron Golems are affected by splash potions of weakness. Finding a splash potion of weakness potion early in the game makes killing Iron Golems easier and safer for underequipped players.

How many blaze rods do I need?

Most players try to get at least eight blaze rods before venturing into the end, fighting the dragon, and beating the game. Blaze powder is a must-have ingredient in the Eyes of Ender recipe.

Where can I find the potion of weakness in Minecraft Creative Mode?

The potion of weakness is listed under the Food & Drinks item category on the latest Java editions of Minecraft. For Win10, Xbox, PS, and other platforms, you can find the potion of weakness in the Miscellaneous Creative Inventory menu.

Potions of Weakness – An Introduction to Endgame Minecraft Ingredient Farming

Despite requiring some hard-to-obtain ingredients, mainly blaze powder, the potion of weakness recipe is one of the cheapest in the game. In fact, it’s the only one that doesn’t need nether warts for brewing. And if you want to be as prepared as possible for tough encounters, brewing a few batches of splash potions of weakness is an excellent idea.

Let us know what you think about this potion’s potential now that you know everything about it. Do you think it’s worth the time and effort to brew? When do you wish you had it in your previous game sessions? Tell us in the comments section below.