Best way to obtain a blaze rod?

[brab]

Hello,

I'm slowly making my way up on the BTW tech tree, and after building a wind mill and enjoying some automation with the help of hoppers, I'm now moving to the next step: a hibachi. I have almost all the necessary ingredients with one exception: blaze powder to build an element. So I guess I need to go back to the nether, search for a fortress, and kill a blaze.

I was thus wondering if there is any suggestion as how to kill a blaze when on is still at the beginning of the tech tree (in particular with no potions available yet). I've had a look at the wiki but it only describes how much netherhack one needs, not how to get the element.

Thanks a lot for any suggestion.

[Ribky]

Arrows are by far the safest way.

Another fun way, if you can manage to dig through the nether fortress up to the under side of their spawning pad, is to do just that. They'll try to get down in the hole and not have a lot of room to shoot you with fire, making them easy pickings.

[Kazuya Mishima]

i managed to without armor in my most recent playthrough.

If your having trouble escaping the stronghold because blazes are spawning via your escape route i would recommend using a ton of rope and lowering yourself as close as possible to where you suspect the blaze spawners are. This way when you obtain rods you dont' have to run through more blazes that spawned behind you while you advanced forward making your escape very difficult.

[odranoel]

best thing to do really is take your time, dont rush things. first bring lots of cobble and make sure the area around your portal is safe.once you find a nether fortress heres where that cobble comes handy. blaze spawners are normally on the top of the fortress where theres nothing but lava all below you, and measlly one block high ledges keeping you from death D: so with that cobble you add another layer to those ledges, may take a lil time but once your done it will always be safe to go through that fortress, without the worry of being knocked off by an attack.

now once you find the spawner basicay use the same technique. pick the blazes off as they spawn (try and maybe enchant a diamond sword if you can or use a bow) and slowly encase the area around teh spawner so the blazes can no longer fly away, know you off, and prevents you from being attacked by ghasts. doing this i was able to baby proof my nearest nether fortress and gather all the blaze rods i wanted in a matter of hours. (and yes im still "low tech" my self, just bearly getting my first hibatchis up) and best thing is once your done you know the way back is safe and baby proof as well! :D

if your guna go for blaze rods take your time so its just a one time headache so to speak. once your done building a safe way to them, you can always come back and kill a few blazes when ever you want.

edit forgot to mention that the key to encasing the spawner is to take advantage of the time between spawns, so kill them, run up, place a few blocks, run away, kill the new spawns, repeat till finished, good luck!

[Poppycocks]

Don't forget that blazes have a lot of melee damage, make sure you don't touch them when you're being all close and personal(+30% critical chance).

[Biohazard91X]

You guys are all so careful D:

I just suit up in full iron armour, enchanted if possible but have done without, and swing my sword until things die :P

[dawnraider]

You guys are all so careful D:

I just suit up in full iron armour, enchanted if possible but have done without, and swing my sword until things die :P

Exactly what I do :). Though I never use diamonds on an enchant table. I wait until ie's.

[heyz]

Digging under the spawner is a good strategy, they'll funnel themselves down into a hole where you can beat on their "legs." If you just need a few to get going, armor up and charge! Jk, I take some netherbrick and set up a bunch of 3 high pillars just around the area outside of the spawner. You can tell if they're about to blast you, then duck behind a pillar. Advance and retreat tactfully, and don't rush it- their hp doesn't regen, yours does, and especially with a few golden apples. I just smash and grab early on, taking what I can without dying, later on when I have some serious armor and weapons, I work on building a safe piston funnel trap which will require more time out in the open and lots of spawns dropping on my head.

[Mr_Hosed]

Normally I build a little cobble shack just outside of the spawner's activation radius (16 blocks). Wood doors on both sides, 3x3 or 1x3 room inside work fine here. The idea is to run out, get some to spawn, lure them back to the shack and when they're just outside the shack you can open a door and hack away.

After I get a couple of blaze rods I'll run back, make a brewing stand, and brew some fire resistance potions (8:00 ones are 1 wart, 1 magma cream, 1 redstone). Then I go back to a spawner, use the potions and start blocking up the spawner. During this process you can end up with 20+ more rods. After it's blocked up you've got a huge selection of traps to build, but I like the basic killing room + more potions method.

Alternatively, you can get lucky and get a magma cream or 2 off magma-cubes. You'll still need atleast 1 rod to make a potion stand, but if you don't have slime balls this is a good alternative to building a supply of fire resist potions. In 1.4 the slimeballs won't be a problem <unless FC changes that ;)>

[brab]

Thanks to everyone for the great tips. I just need to take a big breath and jump right in ! (Luckily there is a fortress not too far from my initial portal.)

[Mr_Hosed]

As long as you got a place to heal up, you'll be fine is what we're all saying ;)

[brab]

Yes. And playing with hardcore spawn will make me twice or thrice as cautious ;-) Now I just need to wait until the kids go to bed to get to it.

[Panda]

Snow golems, im a wussy

[AddyBaha]

Snow golems, im a wussy

But snowgolems are melting in the nether, don't they.

I dug a gallery around the spawner with a only 1 block wide free line so I can use up
the arrows I'm getting from the skellis in my mobtrap.

[SterlingRed]

I built ethos blaze spawner farm. I know that afk is discouraged so I built a building around the farm while it was collecting a couple stacks of blaze rods. And a little enclosure for the beautiful hc chickens. Now I probably won't ever need the spawner farm again as this stock should cover my needs until I figure out how to build a combined zombie pigman, magma cube, wither skeleton, and blaze mob trap.