Potion of Swiftness in Minecraft – How to Make and Use It
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Potion of Healing
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Potion of Strength
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Potion of Leaping
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Potion of Slowness
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Potion of Swiftness
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Potion of Slow Falling
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Potion of the Turtle Master
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Potion of Fire Resistance
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Lingering Potion
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Potion of Weakness
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Potion of Regeneration
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Potion of Water Breathing
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Potion of Harming
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Potion of Night Vision
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Potion of Invisibility
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Potion of Poison
A Potion of Swiftness in Minecraft is a brewable item used to give you Swiftness, a status effect that increases your movement speed. When consumed, a regular Potion of Swiftness allows you to move 20% faster for 3 minutes. This effect applies to walking, sprinting, and sneaking but not jumping, flying, and swimming.
No matter what you’re doing, the ability to move faster is something you don’t want to miss out on as it allows you to cover more ground in a shorter amount of time, dodge attacks more efficiently, and run away from hostile mobs faster to save your life.
Similar to most status effects, Swiftness has levels I, II, III, and so on, with each level’s speed increasing by 20%. This means that a Swiftness II gives a player a 40% speed increase. For Potions of Swiftness, only Swiftness I (or simply Swiftness) and Swiftness II apply. Luckily, Swiftness I is fast enough on its own, so don’t underestimate its 20%! Players who want to move even faster than that will benefit greatly from Swiftness II.
The Potion of Swiftness is also an essential ingredient for the Potion of Slowness, a type of potion that slows you down instead. You can read more about the Potion of Slowness here:
How to Brew a Regular Potion of Swiftness in Minecraft
To make a regular Potion of Swiftness, simply follow the recipe below:
Ingredients required:
Tools required for the brewing process:
1 – Make a Water Bottle
To make a Water Bottle, you need to use 3 Glass Blocks in a Crafting Table to make 3 Glass Bottles.
Next, interact with a water source while holding the Glass Bottle you made to turn it into a Water Bottle. You only need one for this recipe, but you can put 2 or 3 in the Brewing Stand to make more Potions of Swiftness, so this is up to you!
2 – Obtain Sugar
Sugar can be crafted using a Sugar Cane or a Honey Bottle. You can either harvest Sugar Canes near bodies of water or make a Honey Bottle by using a Glass Bottle on a full Beehive.
Witches also have a chance of dropping Sugar when they die, but it’s faster and more cost-efficient to look for Sugar Canes instead.
3 – Gather Nether Wart and Blaze Rods
Nether Wart can be found growing on Soul Sand in Nether Fortresses. You’re likely to find Blazes nearby too, so defeat some to get Blaze Rods, which turn into Blaze Powder when you put them in a Crafting Table. The Blaze Powder will serve as your fuel for brewing.
4 – Brew an Awkward Potion
Once you have everything, get your Brewing Stand and make an Awkward Potion, which is the base potion for every brewable potion in Minecraft. To do this, put 1-3 Water Bottles, 1 Nether Wart, and some Blaze Powder in the Brewing Stand.
The brewing process will start once you put them in the right slots, so just wait until the Awkward Potion is done.
5 – Brew a Potion of Swiftness
Keep the Awkward Potion in any of the potion slots and put your Sugar in the base ingredient slot. Now, all you need to do is wait.
When the brewing finishes this time, you’ll get a Potion of Swiftness! This recipe produces a regular Potion of Swiftness (03:00) which lasts for 3 minutes and gives the player a 20% speed increase.
How to Use a Potion of Swiftness
You can only use a Potion of Swiftness by drinking it.
The controls are different for some Minecraft versions, but for the Java and Education Editions, you drink a potion by right-clicking and holding until your character finishes drinking.
For the Bedrock Edition:
- Keyboard & Mouse: Right-click and hold.
- Controller: Press the LT/L2/ZL button and hold.
- Mobile: Tap the screen and hold.
After drinking, an empty Glass Bottle will be left behind and you will see particle effects on the screen to indicate the status effect. You can also check your current status effect by opening the inventory menu.
How to Extend the Duration of a Potion of Swiftness
To extend the duration of a Potion of Swiftness, place a regular Potion of Swiftness (03:00) in a Brewing Stand with Redstone Dust in the base ingredient slot. This will result in a Potion of Swiftness that lasts for 8 minutes.
| Result: Potion of Swiftness (08:00) with +20% Speed |
How to Make a Potion of Swiftness II
If you want your Potion of Swiftness to have Swiftness II or enhanced speed, put a regular Potion of Swiftness (03:00) in a Brewing Stand with Glowstone Dust. Swiftness II is the only other level for Potions of Swiftness. This will give you a 40% speed increase.
| Result: Potion of Swiftness (01:30) with Speed II or +40% Speed |
How to Make the Other Variants of Potion of Swiftness
The Potion of Swiftness has Splash and Lingering variants that you can make by adding Gunpowder and Dragon’s Breath respectively to certain Potion of Swiftness variants. Arrows of Swiftness can also be crafted using Lingering Potions of Swiftness.
How to Make a Splash Potion of Swiftness
To make a Splah Potion of Swiftness and its other variants, follow the recipe below:
Splash Potion of Swiftness (03:00/02:15)
Brew a Splash Potion of Swiftness by adding Gunpowder to a regular Potion of Swiftness (03:00). You can throw this Splash Potion at another player or mob to give them Swiftness for 3 minutes in the Java Edition, or 2 minutes and 15 seconds in the Bedrock Edition.
| 🛈 Gunpowder can be obtained in many ways: killing Creepers, Ghasts, or Witches; looting chests especially from dungeons; or buying from Wandering Traders if they happen to sell it. |
Splash Potion of Swiftness (08:00/06:00)
To extend the duration of a Splash Potion of Swiftness, add Redstone Dust to a Splash Potion of Swiftness (03:00/02:15). The extended version lasts for 8 minutes in the Java Edition and 6 minutes in the Bedrock Edition.
| 🛈 An alternative is to add Gunpowder to an extended Potion of Swiftness (08:00) in the Brewing Stand. |
Splash Potion of Swiftness (01:30) with Speed II
To get a Splash Potion of Swiftness that applies Speed II, add Glowstone Dust to a regular Splash Potion of Swiftness (03:00/02:15).
How to Make a Lingering Potion of Swiftness
To make Lingering Potion of Swiftness and its other variants, follow the recipe below:
Lingering Potion of Swiftness (00:45)
Brew a Lingering Potion of Swiftness by adding Dragon’s Breath to a regular Splash Potion of Swiftness (03:00). When thrown at a block or area, the potion creates a cloud that affects players and mobs passing through it with Swiftness for 45 seconds.
| 🛈 Dragon’s Breath can be obtained by using a Glass Bottle on the Ender Dragon’s breath attack or the purple particles it leaves behind. |
Lingering Potion of Swiftness (02:00)
To extend the Lingering Potion of Swiftness, add Redstone Dust to a Lingering Potion of Swiftness (00:45). This returns a Lingering Potion of Swiftness that lasts for 2 minutes.
| 🛈 Another method is to add Dragon’s Breath to an extended Splash Potion of Swiftness (08:00) in the Brewing Stand. |
Lingering Potion of Swiftness (00:22) with Speed II
If you want a Lingering Potion of Swiftness that gives Speed II, add Glowstone Dust to a Lingering Potion of Swiftness (00:45). This potion will last for 22 seconds.
How to Make an Arrow of Swiftness Using a Lingering Potion of Swiftness
You can craft Arrows of Swiftness by putting Lingering Potion of Swiftness variants and 8 Arrows in a Crafting Table.
Arrow of Swiftness (00:22)
You can craft 8 Arrows of Swiftness by combining a Lingering Potion of Swiftness (00:45) with 8 Arrows. A player or mob who is hit by an Arrow of Swiftness will be affected by Swiftness or a 20% speed increase for 22 seconds.
Arrow of Swiftness (01:00)
To extend its duration, use an extended Lingering Potion of Swiftness (02:00) with 8 Arrows instead.
Arrow of Swiftness (00:11) with Speed II
If you want an Arrow of Swiftness that applies Speed II, use the variant of Lingering Potion of Swiftness (00:22) with Speed II and 8 Arrows.
Where to Find a Potion of Swiftness in Creative Mode
In Creative Mode, you can find the Potion of Swiftness and its variants by looking for them or searching for their names through the Creative Inventory Menu.
Another way is to use console commands. Make sure your cheats are turned on, then enter this in the chat window:
/give @p potion{Potion:"minecraft:swiftness"} 1- give: This is the main command.
- @p: This refers to the nearest player, which may be you. You can also replace this with your username.
- potion{Potion:“minecraft:swiftness”): This indicates that you want to give the entity above a Potion of Swiftness.
- 1: This is the amount of the above item that you want to have.
Note that the syntax above is for the Java Edition. In Bedrock Edition, the following syntax is used:
/give @p potion 1 14The Minecraft Wiki goes into more detail about the /give command, so check it out if you want to try other syntaxes!
What Are Alternatives to Using a Potion of Swiftness?
Obtaining the materials to brew a Potion of Swiftness can be costly so players, especially beginners, may want other options to increase speed. Here are some options:
- Tame and ride Horses. Skeleton Horses and Zombie Horses also work. Although you can ride one without a Saddle, you need one to be able to direct where the horse is going.
- Build Minecarts and Rails. While it can be time-consuming to construct a path for Minecarts to travel through, it allows you to travel faster especially if you have to go back and forth certain areas.
- Use Boats on water. Boats allow you to travel across water faster. Plus, they only need Planks which are easy to make.
- Fly. In Survival Mode, you need an Elytra to fly. Elytras are difficult to acquire since these can only be found in the End City, but they are extremely useful for traveling quickly across land or sea.
- Enchant your Boots with Depth Strider or Soul Speed. Depth Strider speeds up your movement underwater. Soul Speed speeds up movement across Soul Soil or Soul Sand, but players can just avoid walking on these blocks if they cannot afford to get the enchantment.
- Swim with Dolphins. Whenever you’re near Dolphins, they give you a status effect called Dolphin’s Grace which allows you to swim faster.
- Make a Beacon. This is a more expensive alternative and also one of the hardest things to make in Minecraft. However, it’s worth investing in due to the many boons it gives and the fact that it acts as a landmark that projects a beam into the sky which players can see from great distances.
