A beacon is 3 obsidian, 5 glass and 1 nether star: glass across the top row, the star in the centre, obsidian across the bottom.
Eight of those nine ingredients are trivial. The ninth is the whole project, because a nether star drops only from the Wither, and killing the Wither is a fight you prepare for rather than one you wander into. That fight has its own guide: how to beat the Wither.
Step one: the nether star
Summoning the Wither needs 3 wither skeleton skulls and 4 soul sand or soul soil, placed in a T shape.
The skulls are the bottleneck. Wither skeletons drop a skull at roughly 2.5% without Looting, so expect to kill a great many of them. Looting III roughly doubles that rate and is worth enchanting a sword for specifically. Wither skeletons spawn only in nether fortresses, so this is a trip you make while you are down there for ancient debris anyway.
The Wither drops exactly one nether star, always. There is no Looting bonus and no second star.
Step two: the pyramid
A beacon on its own does nothing. It needs a pyramid of mineral blocks directly beneath it, and the pyramid's height decides which powers are available and how far they reach.
Any mix of iron, gold, emerald, diamond and netherite blocks works, and mixing them costs nothing in effectiveness — a pyramid of iron performs exactly as well as one of netherite.
| Tier | Layer sizes | Blocks in this layer | Running total | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3×3 | 9 | 9 | 20 blocks |
| 2 | 5×5 | 25 | 34 | 30 blocks |
| 3 | 7×7 | 49 | 83 | 40 blocks |
| 4 | 9×9 | 81 | 164 | 50 blocks |
A full four-tier beacon is 164 blocks, which is 1,476 ingots if you build it from iron. That is an iron farm's worth of output, not a mining trip's — which is why most survival worlds run one or two tier-3 beacons long before they run a full one.
The beacon pyramid calculator does the per-tier arithmetic for any mix of materials.
Two placement rules that break beacons in practice:
- The beacon must see the sky. Every block above it, all the way up, must be transparent — air, glass, stained glass — or the beam never lights. Leaves and slabs will block it.
- The pyramid must be directly under the beacon and centred on it. Each layer sits one block below the last, one block wider on every side.
Step three: choosing a power
Right-click the beacon, put one iron ingot, gold ingot, emerald, diamond or netherite ingot into the slot, and pick a power. The item is consumed once, not per use.
| Tier reached | Powers unlocked |
|---|---|
| 1 | Speed, Haste |
| 2 | Resistance, Jump Boost |
| 3 | Strength |
| 4 | Regeneration in the second slot, or the same power again to upgrade it to level II |
The second slot at tier 4 is the reason people finish a pyramid. Choose the same power twice and it runs at level II; choose Regeneration and you get a second effect alongside your first.
Haste is the one that changes how the game feels. Haste II with an Efficiency V pickaxe breaks stone instantly and takes deepslate down to two ticks a block, which turns a large excavation from an evening into a few minutes. Speed II is the choice for a base you cross constantly. Resistance II is a combat beacon — see armour, shields and the damage formula for how it stacks with everything else.
Range, and how the effect behaves
Range runs from the beacon in a box, not a sphere: 20 blocks at tier 1 up to 50 at tier 4 sideways and downward. Upward it is not symmetric — the box reaches that same range plus the rest of the world height, so everything above a beacon is covered no matter how high you build. Standing inside that volume applies the effect and keeps refreshing it, and when you leave it the effect runs on for a few more seconds before expiring.
That trailing duration is worth planning around. A beacon at the bottom of a mine covers the shaft you are digging, not the branch you wandered 60 blocks down — but it will follow you for a moment, which is why people misjudge the edge.
Cosmetics
Placing stained glass anywhere in the beam's path above the beacon dyes the beam that colour, and stacking several colours blends them. It has no mechanical effect whatsoever, and it is the cheapest way to make a base visible from a thousand blocks away.
Is it worth it?
For most worlds, a tier-3 Haste beacon is the sweet spot: 83 blocks, no second-slot upgrade, and every mining project afterwards is faster. Push to tier 4 when you have an iron farm running and the second slot starts to look free rather than expensive.
If you have not built the Wither arena yet, do that first; everything on this page depends on it. And if you are still gathering the gear for that fight, every structure and its loot is the shortest route to the enchanted equipment it needs.
Frequently asked questions
Can I mix block types in the pyramid?
Yes, freely. Iron, gold, emerald, diamond and netherite blocks are interchangeable and can be mixed within a single layer. Build it out of whatever you have most of — that is almost always iron.
Why is my beacon not lighting up?
Nine times out of ten, something is above it. The column of blocks from the beacon to the sky must be entirely transparent. The other cause is a mis-sized pyramid: each layer must be a complete square, two blocks wider than the one above it, centred under the beacon.
Does the pyramid material change the effect?
No. A netherite pyramid grants exactly the same powers at exactly the same range as an iron one. The only difference is the cost.
Can two beacons stack?
Their effects do not add — two Haste beacons still give you Haste, not Haste II. What two beacons do give you is two different powers at once, which is the usual reason to build a second one.
How many wither skeleton skulls do I need?
Three per Wither, and one Wither per beacon. With Looting III on the sword the skull rate roughly doubles, which in practice is the difference between an evening in a fortress and several.
