Wait, What Happened to Minecrafts New COMBAT UPDATE?

The most controversial minecraft update in history was 1.9 entirely changing pvp mechanics one of the most loved and popular elements of the game at the time eight years later and there are still players who refuse to play any minecraft version after 1.8 with some of the most popular minecraft servers in existence

Still running on 1.8 clearly the combat change was divisive in fact ironically java is the only version which received the combat update with bedrock minecraft’s most popular edition never receiving most 1.9 changes clearly something was wrong as even mojang didn’t want to bring 1.9 combat to bedrock and after many years of backlash

And discussion from a large portion of the player base jeb began to realize that something would have to be done february the 8th 2019 he tweeted combat mechanics a vague statement a few hours later on the same day he would tweet that he was watching jitter clicking

Tutorials which for those of you unaware is a specific technique or method of clicking quickly in 1.8 combat he also mentions java and bedrock need to have the same combat system in the future as their long-term goal is version parity and having different combat systems is clearly problematic for game balance a

Few months later in july of 2019 jeb would post the official minecraft subreddit announcing a new custom java edition snapshot he was working on to test new combat mechanics this was well received as players were finally happy that mojang was acknowledging and looking into fixing pvp well most

Players anyways the missed epic from three years ago not so much but this was a good sign jeb clearly understood players frustrations and over the course of a year he would release nine combat test snapshots and the future of combat was looking bright however the last combat snapshot was released in august

Of 2020 and now almost two years later we haven’t received one since so what happened to minecraft’s combat update is it cancelled to understand that we need to look at what’s changed what’s changed just like your subscription status to me which you now should have changed to

Subscribed did it click that sub button and help me hit 500k by the end of the year no pressure anyways there were many changes throughout the year the combat tests were being released so we’ll look at the newest snapshot combat test 8c and its core changes the first major

Change is attack reach being a new element of combat and the game overall previously the vanilla minecraft attack reached was three blocks meaning you could only hit entities at a maximum distance of three blocks no matter what weapon or item you used the combat snapshot changed this and while swords

To have an attack range of three blocks the default range is now 2.5 with hoes and tridents having a reach of 3.5 the longest of any meal weapon or tool but there’s another mechanic that influences reach and that’s charged attacks just like in 1.9 combat you are rewarded with

A bonus by attacking at a timed interval the key difference now is that in the combat snapshots a charged attack doesn’t deal more damage but instead gives you increased reach so while your reach with a sword is normally three blocks if you perform a charged attack

It’s four same goes for the axon trident which also have an increased range of one block when performing a charged attack furthermore you can now do a critical attack while sprinting and jumping instead of having to stop and jump as it is now in vanilla this mechanic can be very useful as

Demonstrated in this clip as for normal attacks while the attack speed for swords was increased to 3 or 0.33 seconds compared to the previous speed of 1.6 or 0.625 seconds that basically means swords recover quicker after each attack making them less slow and clunky compared to 1.9 you can also now hold

Left click to attack and attacking with a non-fully charged sword is now viable as instead of dealing next to no damage you just have a reach disadvantage instead this makes the pvp meta a nice mix of charged and non-charged attacks as we’ll get into later the axe saw

Similar changes with its attack speed increased but also saw damaged nerfs across the board axes also always disable shields now and can be enchanted with the sweeping edge enchantment oh and speaking of sweeping edge and sweeping attacks the sword no longer has a default sweeping attack requiring the

Sweeping edge enchantment to do so now axe has also gained a new enchantment called cleaving which increases damage and also increases the amount of time shields are stunned or deactivated for speaking of shields besides being disabled 100 of the time by axes they also automatically activate upon

Sneaking this means that if you sneak you can block with a shield and attack at the same time something which isn’t possible in normal vanilla minecraft in combat test snapshots shields are actually stronger than 1.9 due to the fact that their downtime is significantly shorter than it is in

Current vanilla where seals can be disabled for up to 5 seconds the trident is much more useful in the combat snapshots as well as has an increased attack speed and reach although deals slightly less damage then we have a variety of other changes normal potions can be stacked up to 16. bows become

Less accurate if drawn for longer than 3 seconds and crossbows are stronger as the player and mob invulnerability timer is no longer triggered by projectiles which means multiple arrows can hit and do damage to the same entity at the same time eating and drinking also functions differently as they now can be

Interrupted by being attacked although liquids are consumed faster oh and attacking with a fist now does one heart of damage instead of half a heart so as you can see combat has become faster paced again and while elements of 1.9 combat such as charged attacks are still present there is now a closer

Resemblance to 1.8 combat overall clearly jeb is trying to meet in the middle with the combat changes finding a nice balance between 1.8 and 1.9 overall the changes were a step in the right direction and community centered around them began popping up consisting of 1.9 and 1.8 combat players together the

Combat test snapshot community or cts for short was founded by a player called rice cookie who created a server called combat reforged featuring kit pvp and ffa game modes this wasn’t the very first pvp server to utilize the combat snapshots as popular german server gomez hd did temporarily run a combat snapshot

Server as well but combat reforged was the first server that was well made and thoroughly designed the combat reforge community was small at the time primarily consisting of cookie and his friends yet would still manage to get the attention of jeb cookie would publicly tweet it jeb mentioning some

Changes he would like to see and jeb would privately contact cookie even giving him early access to combat snapshots to test and play around with before the public could get their hands on them in fact you may notice that after combat test 7c the next public snapshot released was 8b cookie was

Actually given access to combat test 8a privately by jeb an unreleased version of the game which contained the bedrock bridging mechanic cookie advised against this mechanic’s inclusion and jeb would agree even mentioning that this mechanic may be added in the future under the control of a game rule so in the future

We may see bedrock-like bridging in java cookie also got access to other private versions including combat test 7a and 7b so while the community may have been small they had lots of influence in the development of the later combat snapshots a few youtubers would make videos discussing the combat snapshots

And the combat reforge community which sparked the community’s growth and development allowing their discord and server to grow one in particular by a pvp youtuber named mayan manor racked up over 250 000 views and brought in a wave of new players which populate the server today even gaining jeb’s attention these

Days there exists a handful of servers running the latest combat snapshot first there’s combatreforge.com a european-based server which features skywars ffa one in the quiver and jules this server was the original one run by cookie but cookie moved on and passed a project down to another player called

Shrubby who renamed the server grenade combat enhancer.fun is another server running the combat snapshot which also features ffa as well as bed wars which was very fun to play so what is the new combat actually like when playing against skilled players well luckily for me the friendly community decide to give

Me the real combat test experience and let me say it’s quite tough at first the current pvp meta when shields aren’t involved consist of a mix of charged and non-charged attacks the main strategy is called a parry combo whereby a player initially attacks with two fast hits to

Knock the opponent away and then follows up with a sprint jumping fully charged critical attack when successful and timed correctly this can allow you to get your opponents in a loop whereby they struggle to stay close enough to reach and hit you quite similar to how

Combos work in 1.8 as you can see i can’t do this yet so i got absolutely destroyed by most of the experienced players here tridents can also be used in a similar way fishing rods are used in 1.8 pvp to stop your opponent’s momentum and honestly are surprisingly

Fun and satisfying to throw the crossbows also have a similar function as for shield well shield combat is not as popular as explained to me by the cts community shields are one of the most disliked features of the combat snapshots and they’re quite clunky confusing and unenjoyable to use in

Their current state general strategies involve just trying to block as much damage as possible and get more crits on your opponent overall as a player who prefers 1.8 combat over 1.9 i quite enjoyed the combat snapshots more than 1.9 combat that’s for sure and i advise

All of you out there to check out the servers and see what it’s like for yourself it can be a bit challenging at first but after about 30 minutes of playing i began to get more comfortable with it and it’s quite intuitive i’ve linked the ips discords and combat test snapshots down below

So clearly there is a community who enjoys the new combat many players have asked for changes for years and jeb was taking steps in the right direction so why haven’t we had a new snapshot in almost 2 years now well the likely explanation is due to 1.17 the last

Combat snapshot was released shortly after 1.16 release and with 1.17 being a big update that had a bunch of issues with the update being split features being delayed and more it’s likely jeb directed most of his efforts towards that putting the combat snapshots on the shelf for the time being that being said

Now with 1.19 having released and the majority of the caves and cliff’s features already rolled out many cts community members worry that it could be some time before more work is done jeb is still aware of the community and is actively interested in it official word from king b dogs on twitter mentioned

That combat is still going to be updated in the future but with all the issues surrounding 1.19 cancelled or delayed features and with 1.20 likely being a big update that would take up most of jeb and the team’s resources it could still be some time before we see any new

Developments in the combat snapshots as it stands now the last combat snapshot is still running 1.16 three versions behind mojang have stated that their goal with the combat snapshots is to balance pvp and pve as well as having a system of combat which bedrock and java share instead of being stuck on

Different systems but how much longer will the minecraft community have to wait to see a less controversial system of pvp i guess only time will tell i hope you enjoyed today’s video special thanks to all the members of the cts community for sharing info with me as

Well as hopping on the server to embarrass me be sure to check them out if you want to play the combat snapshots i’ve linked an easy guide to installing it below be sure to check out the servers as well thank you all so much for watching