How to get breeze rods in Minecraft

One of the most unexpected changes from recent snapshots is being able to find breeze rods in Minecraft's feature-filled 1.21 update previews. They were added alongside the mace weapon, new armor trims, and even some additional pottery sherds for Minecraft 1.20's archeology system.

While not as important as blaze rods, which are required to finish the game, breeze rods are shaping up to have a plethora of interesting and powerful uses, detailed below, along with how to find them.

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How to obtain breeze rods in Minecraft survival

Mob Drops

Breeze rods, like blaze rods, will probably remain exclusive drops. (Image via Mojang)

The only way to receive breeze rods in Minecraft survival is by killing mobs. More specifically, killing the aptly named breeze mob found exclusively in upcoming Minecraft trial chambers. These enemies are interesting for several reasons. From a design perspective, they are very similar to Nether's infamous blaze mob, which is just an air element variant.

Additionally, they do not fly; instead, they hop around like a spring, attacking players with wind charges—small balls of air that deal low damage but send entities flying. If a player can manage to get close enough, since the breeze is immune to all of Minecraft's most beloved ranged weapons, defeating these windborne beings will give the player one or two rods.

However, the number of breeze rods dropped is affected by looting. This enchantment, one of Minecraft's most game-changing, increases the minimum number of dropped rods by one per level and the maximum number of rods by two per level. This means that at maximum level, looting III, a single breeze can drop up to eight rods.

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Uses for breeze rods in Minecraft survival

Wind Charges

Wind charges affect all entities, not just living mobs. (Image via Mojang)

The main use for breeze rods in Minecraft is breaking them down, similar to how blazes drop blaze rods that are converted into powder and used for alchemy. However, breeze rods do not break down into powder. Instead, they turn into wind charges.

These bundles of condensed gale used to be the main drop of the breeze but are now a secondary craftable. However, this extra step is to the player's benefit. A single breeze rod in Minecraft turns into four wind charges. Breeze used to be capped at only dropping a few charges, but looting III can cause a single breeze to drop the equivalent of 32 wind charges, making them much easier to farm.

Wind charges are another interesting wireless redstone option. (Image via Mojang)

Wind charges have a ton of cool uses, such as launching players into the air to start flying with an elytra and activating redstone components such as buttons, levers, and pressure plates.

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Maces

Maces are probably the best use for breeze rods in Minecraft. Newly released, highly experimental, and probably too strong, the game's recently added mace weapon gives players an interesting way to convert fall damage into entity damage.

The unique AOE effect is locked behind breeze rods in Minecraft. (Image via Mojang)

There is no cap to this damage, so players have even been able to start one-shotting many of Minecraft's different boss mobs. This has never been possible before in survival, at least not in this way, so the community has had a ton of fun messing around with it. There is also an AOE knockback blast when hitting mobs, which is also super fun to play with.

Maces are only craftable by combining heavy cores, found exclusively as loot within trial chambers, most often from Minecraft's new and interesting vault blocks, with breeze rods. This means that trial chambers are the place to be for anyone wanting to get the most out of 1.21's upcoming features.

Breeze rods in Minecraft can also be used in an anvil to repair a damaged mace, should the player want to keep their first one around for sentimental reasons.

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Flow Template

New armor trims are always a personalization treat. (Image via Mojang)

The last use for breeze rods in Minecraft is as a component in crafting a new armor-smithing template. The crafting recipe for this new template requires seven diamonds, a breeze rod, and the armor trim, which, similar to heavy cores and breeze rods, are only available in trial chambers.