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How to gain experience fast in Minecraft

Gather experience quickly and efficiently.

In Minecraft, experience is vital to ensuring you are continuously getting more robust in the fight for survival. It is helpful for multiple reasons. You can spend it on repairing and enchanting items, or if you have a Mending enchantment on a tool or weapon, collecting experience orbs will repair whatever item you have that enchantment on. Luckily, there are many ways to earn experience, but some methods can take a while to pull off. Here are the fastest ways to earn experience in Minecraft.

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Best ways to get XP quickly in Minecraft

Breed animals

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An easy way to gain experience without much work is to breed Cows or Sheep. At first, the output will be minimal, but the more animals you have, the more orbs you will get. First, capture two Cows and Sheep and put them in a fenced-in area. Now start breaking tall grass until you begin getting Seeds. Craft a Hoe and start tilling the ground near your animal pen. Plant the seeds, and eventually, you will start getting Wheat to grow.

Now that you have Wheat, go to your Cows and Sheep and feed it to them. This will put them into breed mode (you will know from the hearts that pop up around them). Once they are both in this mode, they will take care of the rest. Once the baby is born, you will earn the experience. As they grow, continue feeding them to get more experience in big batches.

Build a mob farm

While you could go out into the dark and fight various mobs for experience, that requires a lot of movement, and you are putting yourself in danger. Instead, consider setting up a situation where the mobs are dumped automatically into a small area where you can quickly take them out.

For an accessible early game mob farm, watch the below video from Dusty Dude. The only essential materials for this build are five stacks of wooden planks or cobblestone and some water. Of course, to make the collection process profitable, you can add on to the farm as you gather more resources.

Find a Mob Spawner

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Mob Spawners are a great, but sometimes dangerous way to get XP quickly in Minecraft. Be sure to bring at least five Torches that you place on each side of the block to stop them from coming in. Now that it is safe, it is time to set up the room so the mobs will fall into one area where you can safely kill them. Place Water on the ground so that it will push any incoming mobs into a corner where you can easily take them out without putting yourself in danger.

Set up a trade market with Villagers

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Trading items with Villagers is a surefire way to collect plenty of experience. As you trade with them, they will level up and allow for more trading opportunities (until they run out of supplies). First, gather Villagers in separate encasements so they will not run away or be attacked by mobs. In each housing area, place a Bed for each Villager to sleep and restore their trading resources the next day.

Keep in mind which profession the Villager has, as the items they want will change depending on it. We recommend making as many Farmer Villagers as possible, as they are probably the easiest to gather items for.

Related: All Villager workstations in Minecraft

Fishing

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While it may seem slow and uneventful, fishing in Minecraft is a very effective way to gather experience rather quickly. First, craft a Fishing Rod from three Sticks and two String and find any water source block.

The key to making this method more lucrative is catching individual Enchantment Books or enchanted Fishing Rods while fishing. If you notice any of the following books or enchantments on a Fishing Rod, be sure to use that rod.

  • Mending I: Restores durability to the item when you pick up experience orbs.
  • Lure III: Makes catching things go faster and less time waiting for the bobber to go underwater.
  • Luck of the Sea III: Makes it more likely to catch treasure instead of junk.
  • Unbreaking III: Only needed if you do not have Mending. Increases the durability of the item by giving it a chance not to lose durability when used.

Use a console command

Finally, if you want to cheat and save time, you can use a console command to give yourself experience. To do this, open up the chatbox and type /xp [number]L [player name]. This will give whatever player is named that number of levels. For example, if I wanted to give myself 10 experience levels, I would type the following:

/xp 10L REV X SHADOWS

If you do not include the L, you are only giving yourself experience points, not levels, so it will be much less.


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Author
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John Hansen
John Hansen is a Full-time Staff Writer for Gamepur as well as a host for the YouTube channel Pixel Street Videos where he co-hosts a weekly gaming podcast and more. His favorite games include Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Left 4 Dead 2, and Overwatch. He covers Overwatch 2 and other FPS titles, Minecraft, Sonic the Hedgehog, Legend of Zelda, and whatever zombie games are placed in front of him.