Which is the best level to mine Ancient Debris at in Minecraft?

Ancient Debris. Image via Minecraft
Ancient Debris. Image via Minecraft

Since it was the only way to upgrade diamond armor and weapons, Netherite became one of the most coveted items in the game after its addition in the 1.16 Minecraft Nether update. This new element provided a huge durability and enchantment boost to armor and weapons, even if they were fully enchanted. Netherite is a difficult item to acquire, though. It requires dangerous amounts of time spent traversing and exploring the Nether. There are a couple of ways of acquiring it.

One way is to use beds. Beds will explode when used in the Nether, which opens up a lot of space to see if any Ancient Debris is there. That block is impervious to blast damage. The bed method is a lot faster but is a bit more dangerous than the other method: strip mining.

Strip mining is a common practice among Minecraft players. It's one of the simplest ways of searching for particular resources, most notably diamonds and Ancient Debris. There are certain Y levels that have better spawn rates for those items. Diamonds are on Y level 12. What Y level can Ancient Debris be found at?


Mining Ancient Debris in Minecraft

In order to upgrade a piece of diamond armor or a diamond weapon (which is the ultimate goal of finding Netherite), it requires just one Netherite ingot. However, one Netherite ingot doesn't cost just one block of Ancient Debris. One block of Ancient Debris turns into one Netherite scrap. Four of those, plus four gold ingots, will make one Netherite ingot.

Unlike diamonds, there's not really a singular Y level that has the best chance of having Ancient Debris. Anywhere from Y level 8-22 is a pretty good bet, with 15 being considered the best level to go to. Within one chunk there is usually no more than one or two blocks of Ancient Debris. A chunk can have up to five, but usually doesn't.

Ancient Debris. Image via Minecraft
Ancient Debris. Image via Minecraft

Ancient Debris is hard to come by and will require a lot of pickaxes to find. Netherrack doesn't take much to break, but Minecraft players will likely have to mine a lot of stacks of it. Players will likely need to mine through at least four chunks to find enough for just one Netherite ingot. For a full set of armor, players would need to mine through 16 chunks at a minimum.