How to use lightning rods in Minecraft 1.19

Introduced in Minecraft's Caves & Cliffs update, lightning rods are a great way to keep your structures safe from the forces of nature.

By placing one, lightning strikes that occur during thunderstorms will seek out the rod instead of striking miscellaneous areas and potentially causing fires, or worse, creating Skeleton Trap Horses.

Crafted from copper ingots, these rods will redirect any lightning strikes within a certain range around them. With efficient placement, you can keep villages and other large structures that are comprised of flammable blocks safe from any unintended consequences based on the weather.

However, keep in mind that lightning rods will not divert lightning strikes from tridents enchanted with the Channeling unless struck directly.

Depending on the size of the area you'll need to protect, you may need multiple lightning rods to get the job done.

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A guide to using a lightning rod in Minecraft

A lightning rod catching a stray lightning bolt in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

Before using a lightning rod in Minecraft, you'll need to craft one. The recipe calls for three copper ingots to be placed in a vertical column in the crafting table's grid.

Copper ingots themselves are created by smelting raw copper ore in a furnace. The ore is quite common in most parts of the Overworld, particularly on mountaintops and inside dripstone cave biomes.

Once players have their copper and lightning rod, using it is quite easy. All that's required to use one in Minecraft is to place it by equipping it and right-clicking or pressing the Use/Activate button on your console's controller.

Lightning rods can be placed atop or on the sides of nearly any block in the game, and once they're placed, they will redirect any lightning strikes within a 128-block spherical radius. This includes bolts created by the Channeling enchantment placed on a trident, if the weapon makes direct contact with the rod.

One of the best upsides is that lightning strikes that hit the rods will never result in the creation of a Skeleton Trap Horse in Minecraft. This ensures that players won't have to worry about being attacked by skeletal horse riders as long as they're within a lightning rod's radius.

It's also important to note that the heat from the lightning bolt can still cause fires around the bolt in some cases, but most flames are immediately extinguished by the ongoing rain.

Lightning strikes that hit a rod can still harm entities that stand too close it, and lightning causes some of the highest damage in the game. This can be used tactically to keep enemies at bay if the rods are well-placed.

A lightning rod struck by a bolt will also cause the block it's attached to to emit a redstone signal for eight ticks. This means Minecraft players can harness the power of lightning itself to automate their redstone machinery.

No matter how a Minecraft player decides to employ their lightning rod, it's easily used simply by placing it. These have many creative uses that aren't readily apparent, so it's certainly worth experimenting to find intriguing and unique applications in-game.