The Mob Arena can be very fun and rewarding, and takes a while to master. However, knowing how to prepare and getting some quick tips will increase your chances of winning. While having some degree of skill fighting mobs helps, it’s not that important to be a skilled fighter. Fighting mobs is very often the last thing you want to do. This post will center around tips for preparing for Mob Arena, and give some basic tricks for surviving. All of the information is given with version 1.8 in mind.
Welcome to the chaotic death trap known as Mob Arena!
Preparation for Mob Arena
Knowing how to prepare is the first step to a victory in Mob Arena, so you need to know what you should bring to an items round. My advice: if you’re going to play to win, go all-out and risk it all. If you’re not, I suggest that you don’t waste the money. Wait until you can afford better gear.
Preparing your Inventory
Having a prepared inventory is crucial for Mob Arena victories. Although you have a lot of freedom with what you bring, there are a few necessary items. Remember to completely fill up your inventory. Having an extra slot open means you can carry less gear, and will lower your chances of survival in the Mob Arena. Here’s what I usually bring to a Mob Arena:
In the first slot, I choose to take a sword with a high level of knockback and sharpness. Knockback is very useful in defending yourself against mobs. Sharpness does a bit of extra damage to all mobs. Promotional items, such as Turkey Slicers or Ham Hackers, work well as melee weapons. Having a good bow is optional, but I recommend it. When the round is hosted in the Boss Arena, having a bow is a necessity. Withers and blazes can do high damage to armor while they’re above your sword range.
Having enchanted golden apples, or god apples, is an absolute necessity. It’s near impossible to win without them. Unless you’re cornered by extremely powerful mobs (like Netherhounds) or out of armor, the Regeneration V effect from an enchanted golden apple will keep you alive. Normal golden apples are optional. You can take a normal food item, but normal golden apples are cheap, give absorption, and have a high saturation level. If you can take a few, it’s good to do so.
Using new, enchanted armor is imperative. Your armor should include Protection IV and Unbreaking III. Having boots with Feather Falling is great in the Boss Arena. Any other enchantments on your boots or helmet are optional and probably won’t help you at all in any way. Those enchants are Respiration, Aqua Affinity, and Depth Strider. Do not put Thorns on any piece of armor. This is detrimental as Thorns causes armor to take much more durability damage than usual, and having your armor last as long as possible is very, very important.
Bringing extra armor, especially if facing players in good gear, is important. Be sure to keep an eye on the durability (a mod called ArmorStatusHUD helps here) so you can switch it out when you get the chance. If you bring two sets (one equipped and one extra) I recommend taking Voters Armor, a good unbreakable set in case you break the first two. Taking a third or even fourth diamond set, however, is a great plan.
The potions you take are up to you. I prefer three 8:00 Speed I, a Regeneration, two Strength, and a bunch of Splash Instant Health. Fire Resistance shouldn’t be necessary. God apples, called gapples by many in-game and later in this post, give fire resistance for five minutes.
Haunted Candy is also very useful. You may find yourself down a few hearts even after eating an enchanted golden apple. If this is the case, be safe and spam a few candy to get you back up to full health quickly until you can eat a gapple.
The layout of your inventory is completely up to you. That is just what I recommend. You may find something that works better for you, so I encourage you to experiment a bit. If there’s an item you need, set it up in a slot so you can hotkey to it easily.
Helpful Mods
Several mods can increase your performance in Mob Arena and make surviving a lot easier. There are countless mods that can be beneficial, but I’ll discuss three in this post: ArmorStatusHUD, StatusEffectHUD, and Damage Indicators. All three are listed on the Approved Mods list for Empire Minecraft, found at http://mods.emc.gs. Remember that if it’s not on the approved mods list, then you shouldn’t be using it.
Armor Status shows the durability of armor on-screen without the player having to open their inventory. This is especially useful in Mob Arena to help the player determine when their armor is about to break, so they can swap it out quickly. The position of this mod is customizable through the mod menu, however I prefer the top left of the screen. Here is what it shows:
Status Effect is another extremely helpful mod. This will show your effects, along with their duration, on the screen. Often I’ve had to open my inventory to check the duration of the thirty-second regeneration effect from a god apple, or see how long my speed potion has left on it. This mod fixes that, and in my opinion is much more important for Mob Arena than Armor Status. Here’s a preview of the mod:
Last but not least is Damage Indicators. While not as important as Armor Status and Status Effect, it certainly does have its applications. Damage Indicators shows the health of players and mobs when looked at. The mob modeled in the image below has 500 health, or 250 hearts. It’s best to let that mob be, even if it’s shooting at you, because it’d take hundreds of hits to kill. It’s useful to determine if a mob is worth fighting, or what health your opponents are at. Remember that while you cannot fight them, the other players in the arena are your competition. Having a good idea of where they are at in terms of health will help you to make judgement calls when deciding to fight or to avoid the mobs.
Playing Casually
Not everyone wishes to play competitively, and risk losing hundreds of thousands of rupees worth of items. That doesn’t mean you have to completely avoid Mob Arena, though. If you’re one of the people who doesn’t want to risk their items, or doesn’t have the items to risk, you have a few options.
One option is to play with iron armor, or a Voters Armor set if you have it. It costs only around 100r to get a full set of iron, and it’s free to play with Voters armor. Using inexpensive gear probably won’t get you the win, but offers some degree of protection while you experiment with different techniques
Another option that the Mob Arena offers are the ‘No Items’ rounds. There is at least one every Mob Arena, sometimes two. All players are on an equal playing field, so everyone has the same chance to win. You won’t lose any items either because you can’t play with any. It’s often a good way to experiment with fighting until you feel comfortable risking items.
In the Arena
Once you’re set on supplies, it’s time to survive… or at least try to. I’ve picked up a few tricks that I think are really helpful when fighting, especially in the ‘No Items’ rounds.
Gaining Saturation
Keeping your saturation up is only really important in the ‘No Items’ rounds of Mob Arena. Food can be eaten in the other rounds. Gaining saturation before entering the arena can be a huge advantage. The key to getting your saturation up is to eat right before you enter the Mob Arena.
To do this, you’ll need a golden carrot. Golden carrots have the highest level of saturation, making them the most effective food to use for this. Having only one in your inventory, stand on the stone slabs near the entrance to the arena, hold your ‘use item’ button, usually right click, and spam the space bar until you eat the carrot.
This will increase your saturation and keep you at full hunger for the majority of the round. Eat the carrot right before the round starts for the trick to be most effective. Leave yourself enough time, however, to still get into the arena before the round starts. You may get locked out if you don’t pay attention to the time remaining.
Learn the Mob AI
Knowing how mobs behave is very important. Mobs will start tracking the closest player, and will continue to track that player until they die or are attacked by another player. Learn how to use this to your advantage. It applies in both types of rounds, but avoiding mobs is a lot more important in the ‘No Items’ rounds.
Most importantly, you need to avoid mobs that aren’t tracking another player – these mobs will be standing still and not attacking. Once you get close to mobs that aren’t preoccupied trying to kill a player, they’ll start tracking you instead. Running through a group of skeletons, for example, can mean a very quick death.
However, mobs that are tracking a player won’t naturally stop following a player. It’s possible to get out of their view distance, but it’s somewhat hard to do. If you’re trying to get a mob off you, it’s best to kill it. All mobs will only take ten hits to kill in a ‘No Items’ round.
It’s also important that you don’t attack mobs that are already attacking another player. That has two consequences. One, the mobs will start attacking you. Usually that’s a pretty bad thing. Two, the mobs will stop attacking them. They have a better chance of survival; you have a bigger chance of death. Not good if you’re playing to win.
There are a few exceptions to this: slimes and magma cubes. They’ll damage all players they come in contact with, regardless of if they’re tracking that player. If you see a slime coming at you, get away as fast as you can.
Trying to force players to hit mobs is a surprisingly good tactic. If you’re being tracked by deadly mobs, try luring them toward a group of players. There’s a good chance one of the other players will hit that mob and it’ll be their problem.
Avoid the Corners
Staying away from the corners of the arena is normally a great idea. Try to stay near the middle of a wall. Bad things can happen to those who glue themselves to the corners…
Using Supplies
Using your gear efficiently is key to a win. Know what item to use and at what time to use it. Perfecting this comes with practice, but there’s a little bit of luck involved too. Don’t use your supplies sparingly. If you brought enough, you shouldn’t have to conserve. Always play it safe. Losing because you were being too cautious while eating a golden apple or throwing a potion is the worst way to die, because those deaths are 100% preventable.
First of all, never underestimate any mob. If you don’t keep an eye on your health, you could die to even the weakest of mobs.
Gapples are also very important. If enraged or difficult mobs are spawning, always eat a gapple to be safe. Try to not take any chances; eat the next one when you have a few seconds left on the previous Regeneration effect. StatusEffectHUD is very informative. It’ll display how much time you have left per effect, and the settings can even be configured so an effect will flash when it’s about to expire.
Swapping Armor
Arguably, the most important item is armor. You can choose to switch out your armor whenever you want to. You can switch it out before it breaks or after; it really makes no difference. However, before changing your armor set, always eat a notch apple (the golden apples with pink/purple text). This will give you a lot of extra protection when you’re standing still. ArmorStatusHUD will let you know when your armor is about to break.
However, you still have to equip the armor in a reasonable amount of time. Opening your inventory to do so can waste precious time and damage your armor/health even further. For this reason, I like to have a spare set in my hotbar. When the armor breaks, hotkey/scroll to the armor piece and right click. It saves you a few seconds and those few seconds can make a difference.
Keep Moving!
If you’re being attacked, it’s important to run around. You’ll take less hits this way, so it’s important to never get cornered. Always try to push yourself out of corners. When trapped by mobs, your armor breaks extremely quickly (sometimes, one set in a few seconds) so escaping as many hits as possible is imperative.
Adapt and Learn New Methods
While you’ll undoubtedly come up with your own tricks (I’ve been learning new strategies all the time), these are, in my opinion, the basics. I encourage you to give Mob Arena a try or two to see if you like playing if you haven’t before.
See you in the arena!
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