Netherite is still the strongest material in Minecraft 1.19 for making armor, tools, and weapons. When players first enter the world, they work with stone and iron tools. Soon enough, they find precious diamonds and start using stronger diamond tools. However, the strongest material for making gear resides in the Nether realm.
Since it is the strongest and best material to craft gears, it is also the most difficult to obtain. This particular material does not naturally generate anywhere in the world (except in treasure chests in Bastion Remnants).
Hence, if players want the rarest material, they will have to dig deep into the hellish realm to find some of the rarest blocks and convert them into Netherite.
A guide to crafting a Netherite ingot in Minecraft 1.19
1) Find Ancient Debris blocks
To obtain Netherite, players must first find ultra-rare Ancient Debris blocks from the Nether. These blocks generate deep within the realm at Y level 15. At this level, most of the realm will be submerged in lava lakes, making it extremely difficult for miners.
Players must strategically head down to the Y level and start mining in hopes to find these blocks. One easy way to find them is by exploding beds to expose large areas for spotting the blocks easily. Ancient Debris blocks are blast resistant; hence, they will not blow up in the process.
2) Smelt Ancient Debris to obtain Netherite scraps
Obtaining Ancient Debris blocks will be the most difficult part of the process. These blocks can now be smelted in a furnace to obtain Netherite scraps.
Essentially, the Netherite material is deep inside these Ancient Debris blocks and needs to be extracted. Each block will smelt into one scrap.
3) Combining scraps with gold ingots
After obtaining Netherite scraps, players can simply combine four Netherite scraps with four gold ingots to obtain one Netherite ingot.
This is one of the major uses of gold in Minecraft. An interesting fact is that Netherite gets its strength from gold since gold tools can break blocks the fastest, even if they are the weakest in terms of durability.
Once players have ample Netherite ingots, they can combine them with diamond gear. Diamond tools, weapons and armor get converted to Netherite when one Netherite ingot is combined with them on a smithing table.
Luckily, players only need one ingot to convert one gear. The strength and durability of the Netherite comes from the unique mixture of gold, Netherite scraps, and diamonds.