Ever since the early days of Minecraft, Obsidian has been universally regarded as the strongest, hardest-to-break block in the game.For a long time, that was the status quo. But ever since the Nether Update, Crying Obsidian, a new variant of Obsidian has been added. To say a new block that takes just as long as Obsidian to break has been added is a little disingenuous, considering the naming scheme. Regardless, today’s blog will leave you with all you need to know about this fairly new block, its uses, purpose, and everything else. Let’s get started.
Crying Obsidian
Crying Obsidian is a luminous variant of Obsidian that can be used to craft Respawn Anchors. It produces purple particles when placed. A Diamond or Netherite Pickaxe are required to mine Crying Obsidian.
Acquiring Crying Obsidian is not that much more difficult than acquiring regular Obsidian. They are generated in Broken Portals. Piglins have a chance to give them to you through bartering, and they can also be found as loot in chests in Bastion Remnants.
I recommend going for the Broken Portals, as you won’t have to go to the Nether and it’s the least amount of hassle required of the three.
Uses
Like Obsidian, Crying Obsidian is a blast-resistant block with a blast resistance of 1,200. It also cannot be destroyed by the Ender Dragon.
Crying Obsidian can also be used to craft Respawn Anchors, a useful block that allows respawning of the player in the Nether.
When placed, Crying Obsidian produces purple droplet particles, as if it was “crying.” These droplets are purely decorative, and they look very nice if I do say so myself.
Crying Obsidian also gives off light, with a light level of 10. This is quite useful, as Crying Obsidian is the only blast-resistant light source in the game. Use this for some of those dangerous builds that you need light in!
Crying Obsidian cannot be pulled or pushed by Pistons or Sticky Pistons. Could’ve figured that one out from its namesake.
Trivia
Crying Obsidian is actually a very old block that initially was planned to be added 9 years prior to 1.16. Apparently, the use of Crying Obsidian was going to be to reset a player’s spawn point using Lapis Lazuli, but this function was taken by the Bed once it was added. The community are the ones that heavily requested Crying Obsidian return as a way to respawn in the Nether, and so Mojang actually listened and implemented a system that would allow this. Brandon from Mojang explained that the plan was to add cracked Obsidian, but it was then decided that Crying Obsidian would take its place due to high player demand and it being an overall more original idea.
There was also discussion of being able to make Crying Obsidian from regular Obsidian by throwing the block through a Nether portal, but Mojang instead decided to use Piglings as a way to farm the block.
Conclusion
That’s everything! Crying Obsidian is quite an interesting block, with a deep and rich past built upon community feedback and popularity. If it weren’t for the Minecraft players grouping up and voicing their opinions, Minecraft wouldn’t have this block, and probably any items associated with it either. It isn’t game-breaking or anything, but it’s here to stay and that’s a good thing. In any case, I hope you learned something new, and have a great day.
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