You’re in a deep cave searching for ore and you stumble into a dungeon filled with skeletons. You only have a pickaxe in hand and no means of blocking their fatal blows.
We will guide you on how to make a shield in Minecraft so you can survive the attack and grab the loot.
The Shield is a Minecraft defensive tool that has replaced blocking with swords as of 1.9 for the Java Edition and 1.10 for the Bedrock Edition.
This is a very useful piece of equipment when you are heading into caves, dungeons, or other dangerous parts of the map. If you’re heading to the Nether or even further beyond, don’t forget to pack a shield or two with you.
Only one type of shield currently exists; however, it is possible to customize a shield using a banner only in Java Edition.
Banner patterns are not proportionate to the shield, so the design will display on the shield differently than on the banner. Adding a banner pattern to a shield does not affect the function of the shield.
Now, making a shield is extremely simple.
The main ingredients are wood plank blocks and an iron ingot. Use 1 iron ingot and 6 wood planks in the crafting grid (3 x 3). Also, you’ll need both the Furnace and Crafting Table to make your shield. You can then decorate your new shield as well.
Collecting wood
Find yourself a tree and chop it down. Your lumberjack skills result in little blocks of wood logs (Survival Mode) scattered across the terrain that you need to gather. You can use anything to chop down trees — even your fist — except for a sword.
Note that you can use any combination of wood to create a shield — you’re not locked into using six blocks of the same wood plank type.
Make wood planks
Now that you have wood, you need to create wood plank blocks. You’ll need six wood plank blocks to craft a shield.
Open your Crafting Table. Place one woodblock (log, normal. or stripped) into any square in the crafting grid.
Drag the resulting four wood plank blocks down into your inventory. Repeat the steps for the other four wood plank blocks.
Gather Iron Ore
You’ll need iron ore to craft iron ingot, one of the shield’s ingredients. You can’t miss these blocks: They have little yellow and tan flakes, as shown above.
The ore is located at sea level or slightly lower in veins of up to 10 blocks. You’ll need a stone pickaxe at the very least to mine this ore.
You can also acquire iron ore dropped from fallen iron golems, which you can find near villages.
Make Iron Ingot
Here we show you how to make iron ingot from iron ore using a Furnace.
Open your Furnace. Add fuel to the bottom square. This can be wood, coal, charcoal — whatever you have that burns.
Place iron ore into the top square. Drag the resulting iron ingot down into your inventory.
Making the Shield
Open your Crafting Table. Place six wood plank blocks into the crafting grid in the shape of a Y i.e. The top two squares in the first column, the bottom two squares in the second column, and the top two squares in the third column.
Place one iron ingot in the remaining top box in the second column. Refer to our screenshot above for the correct placement. Drag your new shield down into your inventory.
Customizing Your Shield
If you want to add some flair to your shield, you can actually customize how it looks by combining it with a banner. Banners can be found and created; you can also dye the wool that you create the banner out of to give it a different colour. The banner can be placed onto the shield in the crafting grid, side by side in the 3×3 grid, with the shield directly in the middle and the banner to the left.
You can find banners around the world as well; these have different patterns and will really give your shield some style!
- Black Banner – Woodland Mansions
- Brown Banner – Outside of houses, meeting points, or in savanna villages
- Gray Banner – Woodland Mansions
- Light Gray Banner – Woodland Mansions
- Magenta Banner – Outside of End Cities
- Ominous/Illager Banner – Raid Captains or Pillager Outposts
Using your Shield
Using a shield will help to protect you against any attack coming from in front of you. You can hold a shield in either hand. To use it, right-click. When using a shield:
- damage from melee (or hand-to-hand) attacks will be reduced by 66%
- you will take no damage from projectiles such as arrows
- you will be protected from some other attacks suck as flame or punch effects on arrows
- your movement will be slowed as if you were sneaking
Be aware that if you hold a shield in your Main Hand, the right mouse button will always make you use the shield. If the shield is in your Off-Hand, (the inventory slot with a shield on it!) then it depends on what you have in your Main Hand.
You can use a shield with a sword or axe in your Main Hand.
You can’t use a shield with a bow, or food, or a potion in your Main Hand.
You might be able to use a shield with a torch or placeable block in your main hand, but only if you are not able to place that item with a right-click.
Repairing Your Shield
Your shield will be damaged whenever it blocks an attack, and eventually need repair. When you are attacked by a player using an Axe, there is a chance that your shield will be disabled for five seconds.
There are two ways you can repair a shield! You can combine two damaged shields together and they will form one repaired shield. the second way is by using an anvil, it requires planks.
Shield Enchantments
There are currently only three enchantments you can place on a shield, and two of them are actually pretty good!
Unbreaking III – You’ll want this on pretty much every piece of armour, weapon, and your shield. It gives a chance that any time your item is used, it will not be reduced in durability. The higher the ranking you have of Unbreaking, the less likely your item is to take a durability hit.
Mending I – Whenever your item has reduced durability, you will slightly restore it when collecting an Experience Orb.
Curse of Vanishing I – This one is not so useful; it just makes it so the item that is enchanted will disappear upon death.
Shields in Combats
Shields, being easily craftable early game, can be used to fight mobs and clear dungeons, raids, or caves.
Being able to negate all damage from common mobs, including creepers, without losing much durability, shields decrease the need for armour.
Shields are commonly placed in the off-hand slot. Once equipped, a player can right-click or crouch to raise the shield and block incoming attacks(100%) from enemy mobs or players.
Attacks coming from within a 180° radius in front of a player will be negated, with an exception being Redstone-activated TNT.
It is possible to deflect arrows with a shield, directing them back at the enemy who fired said arrow, making it both a defensive and offensive tool.
But a crossbow with the piercing enchantment will pierce through the shield and hit you, and a bow with the Flame enchantment will still make you catch on fire as will tipped arrows which will still give you the effect.
A player’s movement speed is decreased while the shield is raised. Blocking attacks while being cornered is a good way to ensure safety, and can give some time for the cornered player to recover.
Take note that shields will not protect players against some attacks like fire. In Bedrock Edition, the player might have a disadvantage in blocking because they have to crouch to block an attack, lowering their movement speed, so its best to use this for defensive purposes.
When the shield blocks an attack of 4 (hearts) or stronger, it takes damage equal to the strength of the attack, plus 1.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Are shields in Minecraft Wii U?
In Minecraft, a shield is a defensive item and is one of the many items of armour that you can make. It is used to protect a player against attacks.
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Can you put thorns on a shield?
There is a possibility of enchanting the shield with thorns, make it so the thorns effect works only when the shield is in blocking mode and not when the player is carrying it.
For Java edition, you put a banner and a shield together in the crafting menu, and you get a custom shield. However, custom shields do not work on Bedrock or PS4 editions, unfortunately.
