How to Obtain & Use Heavy Core Blocks in Minecraft

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Discover locations, recipes, and stats for this rare Minecraft block

Co-authored by Zac Churchill and Hannah Dillon

Last Updated: September 19, 2025 Fact Checked

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Obtaining Heavy Core

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Why get a heavy core?

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Heavy Core Uses

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Heavy Core Stats

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Other Ominous Vault Items

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If you're trying to make a mace in Minecraft, you might be wondering how exactly you get one of the components: the heavy core block. This block is rather elusive and can only be found naturally in ominous vaults. In this article, we go over how exactly to find heavy cores, how to use them, and what their stats are. Keep reading to learn more.

How to Get Heavy Core Blocks

To get a heavy core, drink an ominous bottle, then complete an ominous trial to get an ominous trial key. Use the key to open an ominous vault. There's a 7.25% chance an ominous vault will give you a heavy core. You can also mine heavy cores that have been placed in the overworld by other players.

Section 1 of 5:

How to Get Heavy Core

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1
Loot The only place to loot a heavy core is from ominous vaults in trial chambers. In order to open the ominous vault, you must drink an ominous bottle, then complete the ominous trial. The ominous trial spawner has a 30% chance to spawn an ominous trial key^{[1]
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Research source}, and the ominous vault has a 7.25% chance of having a heavy core inside of it.^{[2]
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Research source} Because of these odds, it might take you a few tries before you find a heavy core.
- Trial chambers are found underground in the overworld. The starting room of a trial chamber is generated between Y=-40 and -20, but the entire structure usually exists between Y=-20 and 0.^{[3]
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- If you're not sure where the nearest trial chamber is, you can enter your world seed in Chunkbase's seed map viewer to see where the trial chambers are located in your world. If you don't know how to find the seed of your world, check out this wikiHow article.
- On average, you'll need to loot about 13 ominous vaults before you find one heavy core (though you may have to open less or more to actually find one, depending on RNG).
Note: the items cycling inside the vault do not affect what item drops when you open it.
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Mining If you find a heavy core block outside of a trial chamber, you can mine it. Any tool works (even by hand), but a pickaxe is recommended as it's the fastest. A heavy core block will always drop itself when it's broken.
- Without any Efficiency or Haste enchantments, refer to the following list to see how long it will take to break a heavy core block with your pickaxe:
  - Wooden Pickaxe: 7.5 seconds
  - Stone Pickaxe: 3.75 seconds
  - Iron Pickaxe: 2.5 seconds
  - Diamond Pickaxe: 1.9 seconds
  - Netherite Pickaxe: 1.7 seconds
  - Golden Pickaxe: 1.25 seconds
- Heavy cores don't naturally generate, so you won't find one just wandering around in the wild. However, you can always take one that you've already placed (or steal one from another player).
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Creative Mode If you're playing Minecraft in creative mode, you can skip the hassle of finding a naturally spawning heavy core and instead spawn one from your creative inventory in the "Ingredients" tab. You can also simply search for "heavy core" in your inventory to find it.

Section 2 of 5:

Why get a heavy core?

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Heavy cores are an important crafting material for making powerful weapons. Heavy cores are most notably used to make maces, which are strong weapons in Minecraft that do more damage the farther you fall before hitting an enemy. Read how to craft a mace with a heavy core below.

Section 3 of 5:

Heavy Core Uses

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Mace The main use of a heavy block is for crafting a mace. To craft a mace, you'll need one heavy core and one breeze rod. Place the heavy core in the top middle square in the crafting grid, then place the breeze rod in the center square in the crafting grid to craft a mace.^{[4]
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- Breeze rods are dropped by Breeze mobs.^{[5]
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  Research source} There is a 100% chance that a Breeze will drop at least one breeze rod when killed. Breezes are found in trial chambers, so you'll likely gather plenty of breeze rods before you find a heavy core.^{[6]
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  - You can use any extra breeze rods to craft wind charges, or you can hold onto them to repair your mace.
- The mace is a powerful weapon in Minecraft. When wielding the mace, you'll do more damage if you fall a long distance before hitting your enemy.^{[7]
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  Research source} This pairs perfectly with the Density enchantment.
  - To repair a mace, you can either combine two damaged maces together to add their remaining durability together, or you can use the anvil to combine a damaged mace and a breeze rod.^{[8]
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    Research source} One breeze rod will restore 25% of the mace's durability.
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Note block If you place a heavy core under a note block, it will create a snare drum sound.
- Note blocks can be mined from ancient cities, or you can craft one with 8 planks and 1 redstone dust.^{[9]
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  Research source} Note blocks play a sound when they are attacked, used, or activated by redstone components.
The most practical use of the heavy core block is for making maces, but you can always use them as decoration around your base. If you want to pick up a heavy core block after placing it, simply mine it with any tool (though a pickaxe is preferred). Silk touch is not required to mine heavy core blocks.

Section 4 of 5:

Heavy Core Stats

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- Rarity: Epic
- Renewable? No
- Stackable? Yes, up to 64
- Tool for mining: Pickaxe
- Blast resistance: 30
- Hardness: 10
- Luminous? No
- Transparent? Yes
- Waterloggable? Yes
- Flammable? No, including from lava
- Piston interaction: Can be pushed by pistons, but can't be pulled by sticky pistons. They will not stick to slime or honey blocks.

Section 5 of 5:

Other Ominous Vault Items

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While it might take you a while to find a heavy core inside an ominous vault, there are a lot of other great items you can get from these vaults that makes it worth hunting them down:^{[10]
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- Emeralds (56.2% chance)
- Wind charge (47.4% chance)
- Arrow of Slowness IV (37.5% chance)
- Diamond (26.4% chance)
- Nothing (25% chance)
- Flow Armor Trim Smithing Template (22.5% chance)
- Enchanted Golden Apple (22.5% chance)
- Flow Banner Pattern (15% chance)
- Ominous Bottle III - V (13.9% chance)
- Block of Emerald (13.8% chance)
- Enchanted Crossbow (11% chance)
- Block of Iron (11% chance)
- Golden Apple (8.3% chance)
- Enchanted Diamond Axe (8.3% chance)
- Enchanted Diamond Chestplate (8.3% chance)
- Music Disc (Creator) (7.5% chance)
- Enchanted Book (5.5% chance)
- Block of Diamond (2.8% chance)