Purpur Pillar — Minecraft block

Overview

Purpur Pillar is an End block in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. Purpur Pillar has a crafting recipe, so it is renewable as long as you can source its ingredients. At a hardness of 1.5 it takes a moment to break but never slows a build down.

It needs at least a wooden pickaxe to drop anything; a weaker tool destroys it for nothing. Mining it returns the block itself, so it is safe to relocate. A full stack holds 64.

It is crafted from Purpur Slab. The stonecutter is the cheaper route: one Purpur Block gives one of these. The one thing it makes is Purpur Stairs.

About the purpur set

How long it takes to break

Purpur Pillar sits at hardness 1.5: 7.5 seconds per block with your fists, 0.25 with the correct netherite tool.

Iron takes 0.4 seconds against diamond's 0.3, so the upgrade worth making for this block is the one to diamond.

The block still breaks with a weaker tool, but below wooden it yields nothing at all — the time is spent and the drop is lost, which is the single most common way players waste a vein.

Each Efficiency level adds level² + 1 to the tool's speed, so a level V tool clears this about 2.5 times faster than an unenchanted one.

* breaks the block but yields no drop
Tool	No enchantment	Efficiency III	Efficiency V
Hand *	7.5 s	7.5 s	7.5 s
Wooden	1.2 s	0.2 s	0.1 s
Stone	0.6 s	0.2 s	0.1 s
Iron	0.4 s	0.15 s	0.1 s
Diamond	0.3 s	0.15 s	0.1 s
Netherite	0.25 s	0.15 s	0.1 s
Golden	0.2 s	0.15 s	0.1 s

Properties

Purpur Pillar resists blasts at 6, which usually is not enough when something explodes nearby. Light does not pass through it, and it emits none of its own. Stack size is 64 — the standard full stack. A pickaxe is fastest here; any other class mines it at bare-hand speed, because the bonus only applies to the class the block is tagged for.

Transparent: No
Required tool: Wooden Pickaxe