XP in Minecraft: Everything players need to know

XP within the blocky universe of Minecraft means "Experience." XP was added to Minecraft back in its Beta version, over ten years ago. Despite being so ancient, XP is still a core game mechanic within Minecraft.

The concept of XP also bears little functional resemblance to any other mechanic in the game. Naturally, this results in a lot of newer players having a lot of questions and misconceptions.

This article aims to act as a helpful guide to assist with players' understanding of important information regarding how XP works in Minecraft.

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Everything players need to know about XP (Experience) in Minecraft

What does XP do in Minecraft?

Since its introduction, the uses of XP within Minecraft have remained relatively constant.

XP orbs ready to be collected by a player

Primary uses of XP include enchanting, repairing, renaming, or combining enchantments on a specific item. XP is also notably used for the Mending enchantment specifically to automatically repair an item.

XP also gives players 'levels,' of which the progress bar for each level can be found on the bottom of the HUD (heads up display). Through every level in which a player progresses, more and more XP will be required.

The exponential relationship for this can be seen in the graph below:

Graph showing XP required per level

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How do players get XP in Minecraft?

Players can collect XP by simply walking close to XP orbs, which hover in mid-air and float in water.

Players can spawn XP orbs through many different activities, including mining certain ores, killing mobs, smelting ores, breaking bottles o' enchanting, fishing, trading, killing other players with XP, breeding animals, and much more.

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What is the best way to get XP in Minecraft?

As previously mentioned, there is a wide variety of things players can do to gain XP. However, players can farm certain specific activities to generate a large amount of XP in a short time.

Specifically, some of the best and fastest ways players can farm XP include mass breeding animals, farming quartz in the nether, respawning and defeating the Ender dragon, and smelting clay.

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Minecraft XP fun facts & lore

• Most baby mobs do not drop any XP when killed, even though their adult counterparts do.
• If a mob is killed via potions fired from a dispenser, no XP will be dropped.
• The max experience a player can collect is 238,609,311. After this number is reached, the XP bar will disappear entirely.
• Every five levels a player obtains, a sound will be played to mark the occasion.
• Mojang has implemented five different unused sprite designs for the XP orb, all of which exist in the code but are entirely unseen in the live game.