Serious Dedication: How to Use Up a Diamond Hoe in Minecraft

Serious Dedication is an advancement that sounds simple: completely use up a netherite hoe until it breaks. In practice, a netherite hoe has 2031 durability, which means you need to perform 2031 hoe-related actions to break it. This guide covers the fastest methods to burn through that durability.

What the advancement actually requires

Despite the name mentioning diamond in older versions, the current advancement (1.21+) actually requires you to obtain a netherite hoe. The advancement "Serious Dedication" is earned by using a netherite hoe until it breaks, or in some versions simply by upgrading a diamond hoe to netherite. Check your advancement description in-game to confirm which version you are on.

Getting a netherite hoe

1. Craft a Diamond Hoe: 2 Diamonds + 2 Sticks in a crafting table.
2. Obtain a Netherite Ingot: Mine Ancient Debris in the Nether (y=8 to y=22 is optimal), smelt it into Netherite Scrap, combine 4 Scrap + 4 Gold Ingots to make one Netherite Ingot.
3. Use a Smithing Table: Diamond Hoe + Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template + Netherite Ingot.

Fastest ways to deplete the hoe

Each of these actions consumes one durability point:

Method 1: Tilling dirt (fastest manual method)

Right-click on dirt or grass blocks to till them into farmland. Each till uses one durability. Place a large flat area of dirt blocks and till across it in straight lines. With sprint-tilling you can cover about 200 blocks per minute. At that rate, breaking the hoe takes about 10 minutes of continuous tilling.

Method 2: Breaking leaves and hay bales

Hoes are the fastest tool for breaking leaves, hay bales, sponges, target blocks, sculk blocks and other soft blocks. Each broken block uses one durability. If you have a large jungle or dark forest nearby, clear-cut the trees and then break all the leaves. This is slower than tilling but more practical if you need the resources.

Method 3: Breaking nether wart blocks

Nether wart blocks in the Crimson Forest are instant-break with a hoe and there are thousands of them on Huge Crimson Fungi. Fly around a Crimson Forest breaking wart blocks and you will burn through durability quickly.

Do NOT use Unbreaking

If your goal is to break the hoe as fast as possible, do not enchant it with Unbreaking. Unbreaking III triples the effective durability, meaning you would need approximately 6000+ actions instead of 2031. If your hoe already has Unbreaking, use a grindstone to remove enchantments first.

Mending makes it impossible

If your hoe has Mending, it will repair itself as you gain XP. Remove Mending before attempting to break the hoe. The grindstone removes all enchantments except curses.

Tips

• Set up a flat dirt platform 45x45 blocks (2025 blocks) and till the entire thing. One extra row finishes the job.
• Water destroys farmland if it flows over it, so avoid placing water nearby while tilling.
• If you want to re-use the area, jump on the farmland to convert it back to dirt, then till again. Jumping on farmland reverts it.
• In some versions, the advancement triggers when you upgrade to netherite rather than when the hoe breaks. If the advancement pops during the smithing table upgrade, you are done.

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