Mini Hacks for Minecrafters: Mastering 1.9

Our lone right arms have been leading the way forward in Minecraft since the beginning. Now with 1.9, if you’re a lefty, or if you are up for giving your world double the trouble, you have a whole other hand to use. When you open your inventory, you’ll see the new slot for your second hand to the lower right of your character. The slot has an outline of a shield in it, because a new primary ability of wielding with two hands is blocking with a shield. (That’s right, you can no longer block with your sword!)

You can switch which hand is your main or primary hand. Click Options on the Game Menus screen, then click Skin Customization. Click the Main Hand: Right/Left button on the bottom right to toggle which hand is your main hand. Because a player’s main hand can be the right or left hand, the non-main hand is called the off hand.

1. Press F to move an item to your off hand. Proceed.

1. In your hotbar, select the item you want to go in your off hand. This item should be something with right-click functionality, like a torch that you place with a right-click.

2. Press F to move that item to the off-hand slot. The off-hand slot will appear to the left of your hotbar, if your primary hand is the right hand. If your left hand is your main hand, then the off-hand slot will appear to the right of your hotbar. Of course, you can also press E to open your inventory and drag items to your off-hand slot.

3. Scroll or press 1 through 9 to select another item in your hotbar. As usual, the item appears in your main hand, ready to use. This item should be something that doesn’t have a right-click functionality, like a pick or a sword (now that swords can’t block).

4. Now you can left-click the item in your main hand, and right-click will right-click the item in your off hand.

F will also switch what’s in your off hand and main hand.

This dual wielding feature can kind of backfire. The game will first look to right-click something in your main hand, and only if that won’t work, goes to your off hand for the right click. If whatever is in your off hand breaks or runs out, the game will try to right-click the item in your main hand. Or maybe the item in your main hand only right-clicks in some situations. For example, a shovel doesn’t have a right-click function unless it is pointed at a grass block. (See page 81 to read about grass path blocks.)

Or maybe, like me, you haven’t been paying much attention to what’s in your off hand, or you’ve mistakenly clicked F. All this means that you can easily wind up spamming blocks or torches around you or just waving your arms about. To avoid this confusion, keep your off-hand slot empty until you have a specific use for it. Here are some great uses:

• Mining: Torches in the off hand, pickaxe in your main. This lets you place your torches with a simple right-click as you dig out the precious ores.

• Blocking and Attacking: Shield in your off hand, sword (or axe) in your main. See page 8 for more about your new shields and page 31 for using the axe as a weapon.

• Potions and Attacking: A potion (or healing milk) in your off hand, sword in your main. This lets you quickly drink a potion in between strikes on your foe.

• Moving and Attacking: Ender pearls in your off hand, sword in your main. The Ender pearls let you move fast away from (or sneak up fast to) your enemy in a fight.

• Seeding a Farm: Seeds in your off hand and a hoe in your main. (The first right-click hoes the grass block, the second right-click places the seeds.)

• Growing and Harvesting: Seeds in your off hand, bone meal in your main. (On hoed land, the first right click places the seed, and the second bone-meals the seed.)

• Melee and Range: Bow in your off hand, sword in your main.

• Healing by Eating: Food in your off hand, sword in your main.

• Ladder Up: Building blocks in your off hand, and ladders in your main. Right-click to place the first stone block, and keep right-click pressed. Now you’ll automatically switch between your right hand and left hand to create and climb a pillar of stone with attached ladders. This happens because your first right-click (and third, fifth, and so on right-clicks) are at the top of the ground or a just-placed stone block. Your second right-click (and fourth, sixth, and so on right-clicks) are clicking the front side of the stone block you just placed. (This great tip is from YouTuber and Minecraft expert xisumavoid.)

• Find Your Way: Map in your off hand, anything in your main. You won’t be doing any left- or right-clicking with the map, so any right-clicks will apply to what’s in your right (main) hand.

Place a slimeball in your right hand, and nothing in your off hand. Press F5 twice to move to third person view. Now press F rapidly. It looks (a little) like you are juggling! Or, place a redstone torch in one hand and a regular torch in the other. When you press F rapidly, it looks like the torches are lighting up and off!