Nether survival guide

Barrages of ghast fireballs. The groans of zombified pigmen. Seas upon seas of lethal lava. Lots and lots of mushrooms.
The Nether is obviously a dangerous region with the aforementioned threats, but there are a couple of resources that can be obtained from there, including (but not limited to) glowstone, cooked porkchops, and mushrooms.
Whatever your purpose for travelling to the dimension is, you'll need to be prepared (in most cases).

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  Another view of the wilderness (and mushrooms).

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  Bridge and a ghast. (The latter was removed for obvious reasons.

Prerequisites

Firstly (and this is very, VERY important), store your valuables away.
You may end up dying in the Nether sometimes and we don't want you to lose your hard earned items.
With that in mind, bring:

• An iron sword and any pickaxe you can easily obtain
• A bow and several stacks of arrows
  • If you believe in "more dakka = better outcomes", then bring 9+ stacks of arrows
• A crafting table and some wood logs for additional tools
• Spare tools just in case (Unless you're Mystic or above, then in which case, use /lb t for infinite wooden pickaxes)
  • /kit food and /kit starter (Wooden tools and bread) can be used in emergencies
• Food (unless you can defeat pigmen without taking much damage)
• Armor isn't needed, but if you really want it, use leather &/or iron variants
• Torches or flint and steel for lighting (Though for the latter, take care to not light yourself!)
• A few stacks of blocks ( cobblestone preferred)
• Skills in combat and navigation
• Optionally, get some fitting and awesome music for your trip

And you'll need a Nether portal to enter the dimension itself.

General tips

• Stay vigilant, and when you're crossing steep cliffs, hold the crouch button (Shift by default) till you reach the other side.
• Use bows to take down Ghasts from afar instead of reflecting their fireballs; client-server lag makes any attempt at reflecting fireballs difficult.
• Feel free to excavate into the landscape to reach other parts of the landscape.
• Cobblestone bunkers are recommended if you're planning to hunt down zombified pigmen.
  • If you want to hunt in the open wilderness, use a bow. And be ready to repeatedly shoot.
• If you're extracting glowstone above lava, then place cobblestone across the width and length of the glowstone node you're extracting, and make walls by extending the borders vertically to not let any dust fall into lava (and to protect yourself).
  • Remember to crouch while doing this.

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  Example inventory layout.

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  Battling a Ghast with a bow.

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  A water pool near spawn.

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If you're a staff member, you can either:

• Play fair, switch off god-mode, not fly and not use /heal (boring).
• Obliterate the legions of Hell with your staff powers (more fun ferfer).

The choice is yours to make.