Tutorials/Half hearted hardcore

Half Hearted Hardcore, or half a heart hardcore, is self-explanatory. It is a custom difficulty which has all the hardcore and ultra hardcore restrictions, but you are stuck on half a heart and cannot regenerate at all. If you take any damage from anything, from a boss mob to a llama, you will die and lose your world forever.

This difficulty is only for the best of the best players and you need to have definitely had a massive amount of experience on Ultra Hardcore, as well as the normal hardcore. You also need to bear in mind that even if you do meet these requirements, you need to accept the fact that it is extremely easy to lose your world, even if you have the strongest armor and buffs possible. All of the rules for hardcore and ultra hardcore still apply, so read them first.

Setting up the world[]

Creating a Half Hearted Hardcore (HHH) world requires cheat permissions, which are impossible to enable when creating a new hardcore world. To work around this, you can create a normal hardcore world, and then open it to LAN with cheats enabled.

On the new world screen, set the game mode to Hardcore. Then, inside the game rules menu, toggle 'Regenerate Health' to 'OFF'.
After creating the world, pause the game and click 'Open to LAN'.
Toggle 'Allow Cheats' to 'ON', then press 'Start LAN World'.
Type '/attribute @p minecraft:generic.max_health base set 1'. This will set your maximum health to 1 point, or half a heart.
To disable cheats, simply save the world and quit to title. When you next open your world, you will only have a half of a heart, and the challenge begins.

Notes and tips[]

HHH is nearly impossible to survive when playing, and if you take any damage, you die, and you can only spectate the world. Therefore, it's important to know how NOT to take damage. Here are some tips:

First of all, as stated before, you cannot take damage. So remember to avoid every single way possible of taking damage, albeit how pathetic, such as being stung by a pufferfish or being spat on by a llama.
Gravitate towards open areas. If you stay in the open, you will be able to recognize any potential dangers long before they become immediately threatening. It only takes one skeleton hiding behind a tree in a forest to end your world forever.
Get as much food as soon as you can. Kill every animal mob you come across on your first day, apart from sheep which you should shear. Try to save 2 of each animal and make an animal farm as soon as you can.
Sleep through every night as soon as possible. Keep a bed with you at all times so that you are never caught unprepared when dusk arrives. Any hostile mob that happens to spawn could very quickly bring your world to an untimely end.
As soon as you get enough iron, make a shield and keep it in your off-hand slot. It blocks damage from most mobs, including creepers and blazes.
When you get a water bucket, keep it in your hotbar in your inventory and never remove it, as it will save your life. (Make sure you learn how to use it.) If you get a powder snow bucket, replace that with the former, since you can MLG with it in the Nether as well as the other two dimensions.
When you get a golden apple, keep that in your hotbar as well and never remove it either, as, again, the absorption hearts will save you one day. If you are lucky enough to find an Enchanted Golden Apple, keep that in your hotbar as well.
If you manage to find a woodland mansion, wear at least full max-durability iron armour, a shield and bring a diamond sword, and then raid it. Pillar up and kill vindicators to prevent their axes disabling your shield. Evoker fangs can be counteracted by swimming in the top of water 2 blocks high, and remember that the fangs will most of the time only appear where you were when the evoker was starting the spell. Make sure you kill evokers before they summon vexes, but if they do, run out of the evoker's hostile range and block the vexes with shields until they start to die. Once you get a totem of undying, move the shield to your hotbar and keep the totem in your offhand, because it will save your life. You can keep switching between the shield and totem, but be very careful. If you can, try to use the shield in your main hand and attack enemies staying crouched with the shield.
If you manage to get a beacon, put it somewhere near your base of operations and make it Resistance 2 unless you already have one which gives you that effect. Resistance 2 will make any hits on you do less damage.
If you are in the End, bring a water bucket, even if you have powder snow, because it will stop endermen from getting close to you, it will damage shulkers, and it will help you get up pillars and end cities.
If you afk, make sure you use an AFK pool that is compatible for boats so you will not lose hunger. Enclose the box fully and make sure there are solid blocks over your head to prevent phantoms from spawning and lightning strikes from hitting you.
DO NOT use an ender pearl unless you are in a life threatening situation (e.g. falling into lava) and make sure you have at least enchanted diamond armour to reduce the damage to a non-fatal amount.

Beginning[]

Half hearted hardcore can take people weeks of creating and trying worlds to get to the credit titles, and very few people have actually beaten it, but if you really want to prove yourself as a Minecraft master, here is the recommended way on how to do it.

The Overworld[]

When you start, gather only 3 logs. Make a crafting table and a wooden pickaxe, and mine 3 stone from a nearby hill or underground. Craft a stone pickaxe and use that pickaxe to gather 23 stone, which is enough for the rest of the stone tools set and also 2 furnaces. Now gather about 20 logs using the stone axe and turn a furnace into a smoker. Then you will need to try to find some surface coal and iron and mine any you see, and also kill every mob you come across. Remember not to explore any caves. If you see any grass then you need to mine it and get as many wheat seeds as you can, gather any sugarcane you see, and also pick up any dandelions and destroy any huge mushrooms using the axe. This will be useful for saturation suspicious stew. Once you get enough coal and iron, cook the food, smelt the iron and try to make a stack of torches. Then make a bucket and fill it up with water, and make a shield, flint and steel and shears, and keep the shield in your offhand. You can now kill animals with fire (be VERY CAREFUL not to burn yourself as you will immediately die if you do get caught on fire) and continue gather resources until the sun sets, but make sure to shear sheep so that you have at least 3 wool to make a bed when dusk strikes. You HAVE TO have a bed, so prioritise finding sheep to shear. As soon as the sun begins to set place the bed and immediately start spamclicking/tapping on the bed until it lets you sleep, because that is for safety. Congratulations, you survived your first day!

When you wake up, you can start building a house out of any easily obtainable material. It is not recommend you make it look pretty because you might get attached to it, and you will probably lose it at some point. Also, safety is a priority, so make sure you light up the house and make sure it is 100% mob-proof and sealed with an iron door. It is recommended you build a wall around the house and light up the area inside and around the wall to keep the mobs out. You will also need to set up a crop and animal farm (if you have mushrooms, then a manual mushroom farm as well), so hunger will cease to be a threat. And make sure to skip the nights, and try not to gather wood from forests (because mobs can spawn in the day), but from the surrounding areas instead. After you're done, you should have an outdoor crop farm, sugarcane farm, animal farm, manual sheep farm, chest room, smelting room, optionally bedroom, and some spare rooms you will need to use later, preferably for brewing or nether wart farming.

After you finish your house, you need to go mining. It is pretty obvious that you can barely go caving in this world, so instead buy Fortune 3 from a librarian villager and anvil that to a pickaxe. If you don't have an anvil, you can mine until you have enough iron and then add Fortune 3 to the pickaxe. The natural cost of Fortune 3 is in between 11 and 45 emeralds, so try to get it for as cheap as possible. Now, strip mine with unenchanted pickaxes, and block off and go in a different direction if you hit any caves. Remember, better be safe than sorry. Only use the Fortune 3 if you find an ore that can be fortuned, like coal ore, copper ore, iron ore, redstone ore, gold ore, lapis lazuli ore. If you are lucky enough and you find diamond ore, mine that as well. If you find a lava lake, immediately pour water over it and optionally pick up a bucket of lava for lava, and then obsidian farming later. If you find dripstone, mine it and all of the dripstone blocks for dripstone farming, but be careful not to jump on it otherwise you will take exactly half a heart of damage and die. After you run out of torches or unenchanted pickaxes, or are simply just satisfied with the amount of ores you have obtained, go back up to your base of operations and use multiple furnaces/blast furnaces to smelt the iron and gold mined. Then, hopefully you will have enough iron for a full set of iron armor, or maybe even enough diamonds for a full set of diamond armor! A full set of diamond armor is recommended, but you can also buy it from master level armorers. Also make a sword and then a pickaxe, and use that to mine obsidian and make an enchanting table. Once you have enough sugarcane, leather and wood, you can surround it with 15 bookshelves to get level 30 enchants (or you can buy them from librarians), and enchant your gear and a bow with maxed out enchants. You will need a lot of XP, which you can get from trading with villagers, or by building a mob grinder. While you are trading with villagers, try to buy enough ender pearls from a cleric to be able to beat the game with (16 should be more than enough), since gold is more useful for the absorption hearts from gapples and for golden carrots and potion ingredients. You can also try to level up a farmer to sell you apples and golden carrots/glistering melons, a shepherd to sell you beds which you can use to mine for ancient debris, an armorer/toolsmith to sell you diamond armor/tools if you don't have enough diamonds, a butcher to sell you cooked meat, and a librarian to buy enchanted books/bookshelves, glass and also name tags if you don't want to fish. If you choose to fish, you can also level up a fishermen to sell fish to get emeralds. It is recommended that you transport 2 villagers to your base of operations and then breed them to get the desired amount of villagers, and then make a trading hall, and if wanted an iron farm to not worry about iron again.

Then get more dandelions, both types of mushrooms, and a bowl to make suspicious stew for saturation. Once you have enough resources, make a few golden apples, keep them in your hotbar, and never remove it. It will save your life at some point. Then you can enchant armor and tools with the best enchants possible.

After you're done enchanting, you should either gather more resources and work on the base, or go to the Nether.

The Nether[]

The Nether is the most dangerous part of this challenge and this is where nearly everybody dies and loses their world. If you want to continue, you will need to go to the Nether to make progress. Read the Nether survival guide first. As usual, you can't take damage, so you need to be extremely cautious and alert due to the dangers of the Nether.

Lava will one-hit you if you fall into it. To counteract that, find some piglins and barter with them until they give you a fire resistance potion, which you can drink to save yourself if you are about to fall in it. Alternatively, you can use an ender pearl, but only do that if you have at least enchanted diamond armor.
Walking into fire will probably kill you, even with Protection 4 diamond armor, so look where you're going.
Take at least 3 bottles/splash bottles of fire resistance, and a cauldron with a few water buckets to extinguish yourself if you are on fire.
Choose to wear either a gold helmet or boots, so that piglins won't be hostile to you. Try to enchant that armor piece with Protection 4, Unbreaking 3 and Mending.
Bring at least two buckets of powder snow and some leather boots with it as well (also enchant the leather boots with Protection 4, Unbreaking 3 and Mending). Keep them in your hotbar and never remove it. Learn how to MLG with it, as it will save your life. Make sure to not use it to extinguish yourself if you are on fire, instead use cauldrons and water or fire resistance. You can also use the buckets of powder snow to get to the top of steep cliffs, fortresses or bastions.
Never attack pigmen, as they can swarm you and kill you easily.
Never dig down, because lots of floors are only one or two blocks thick, with lava underneath.
Surround your portal with cobblestone to stop ghasts from destroying it. If a ghast is shooting you then make sure to deflect the fireball back at it with a strong sword and then shoot it down with a Power 5 bow, if it is still alive.
On your first visit your priority is to find a nether fortress. Read the nether fortress survival guide on how to defeat a nether fortress. Your highest priority is to get as much nether wart and soul sand as you can and at least 10 blaze rods (Looting 3 will help you get more). When you are fighting blazes from a spawner, make sure to have fire resistance on you at all times, and do not go near the blazes or they will punch you and you will probably die. You can bring ingredients from the overworld to brew more after you have your first 2 blaze rods, although you will need magma cream.
- Alternatively, if you are short of fire resistance or are paranoid of dying, you can build a blaze spawn trap or a farm.
- Make sure to block off wither skeletons with two-block high walls and light up the corridors with torches to stop mobs from spawning.
Only explore bastion remnants if you have all the armor, tools and equipment needed and you are confident. Kill brutes by pouring lava on them. If you are in a treasure bastion make sure to break the magma cube spawners as soon as possible and kill the magma cubes with a bow or ranged weapon. Use hoppers to loot chests, since piglins won't be hostile to you if you do that, however they will if you open chests. If you want to mine a gold block(s) make sure to block yourself in fully, cover any gaps in the floor, walls and roof, and then mine it and wait for up to 2 minutes to make sure all piglins are calm again.
- You can use subtitles to detect when piglins are passive or aggressive.
Mine for netherite using pickaxes, beds or TNT until you get a full set of netherite armor and tools (beds is recommended). You can buy beds from shepherds, but make sure you have the fire resistance effect applied to you at all times if you are using them. Mine at y13 to avoid lava seas flowing onto you, and mine along a chunk border to get the most netherite.
- The best method using beds is to place the bed, place 2 cobblestone blocks in between you and the bed, then push yourself against the closest cobblestone block to you and then place a cobblestone block under your feet. Then, tap the bed and quickly punch any fire that has a very low chance to form under you (because of the 3 cobblestone blocks). The explosion would normally do exactly half a heart of damage, but if you wear full Protection 4 diamond armor you will be fine.

The End[]

Make sure your armor, sword and tools are all netherite and maxed out enchanted, and you have a bow with Infinity, Unbreaking 3 and Power 5. Armour will need Protection 4, Unbreaking 3, Mending and optionally Thorns 3, plus Feather Falling 4 for the boots, the sword will need Sharpness 5 and Mending and the pickaxe will need Efficiency 5, Mending and Silk Touch (for ender chest usage).
Also make sure you wear a carved pumpkin to stop endermen from attacking you if you look at them. You can use a texture pack to get rid of the part that blocks your vision.
Bring at least six potions of Strength 2 and six extended slow falling potions. You have a chance to get a phantom membrane when you wake up in the morning if a cat curls up and sleeps on a bed with you. Night vision can help you see the dragon in the dark, and speed and gapples will come useful in the fight too!
- Optionally, you can bring a trident enchanted with Riptide 3 and Mending, if you have enough slow falling potions or water bucket MLG experience. This will allow you to zoom through the air and will really help in accessing the caged crystals.
Also bring 2 buckets of water (to make an infinite water source) and at least 2 buckets of powder snow to tower up to the top of caged crystals.
Bring some ender pearls but only use them if you are knocked into the void. Slow falling will give you more time to throw them.
Do your best to bring as many totems of undying as you can to a fight. It might save your life.
Make sure to utilise ender chest storage as much as you can. It will really help you carry all the potions!
Bring an enchanted golden apple or two if things go south during the fight.
Bring a single arrow for the Infinity bow and use it to destroy most crystals and also shoot the dragon in the air. For caged crystals the best way to destroy them is to get close and shoot through the gaps‌^{[JE only]}, but if you have bad aim or play on Bedrock Edition, you can ignite a piece of TNT on the top of the iron bars and use a Riptide trident or a water bucket to swim down before the TNT explodes the end crystal.

Videos[]

These 2 videos are of SB737 in half hearted hardcore. The first one is him killing the ender dragon, the second is him killing all 3 bosses.

Bear in mind that in both these videos he was speedrunning.

Pixlriffs attempts to beat the game in half hearted hardcore.