If you’ve beaten the Ender Dragon and are staring out at the scattered outer islands of the End, you’re standing at the doorstep of some of the best loot in the entire game. This guide to End City Loot: Best Items and Rewards covers exactly what you can find, since End Cities are the only place in Survival mode where you can get an Elytra, and their chests are stacked with enchanted gear, shulker shells, and other late-game essentials. We’ll break down which items are worth prioritizing, how to get there safely, and the mistakes that get most players killed before they ever open a chest.
What Is an End City?
An End City is a tall, castle-like structure made of end stone bricks and purpur blocks that generates on the outer islands of the End dimension — the islands you reach by flying or jumping through an End Gateway after defeating the Ender Dragon. A single End City can be one tower or a sprawling complex of connected towers linked by bridges.
Roughly one in eight bridges extending from a tower generates an End Ship — a separate structure that looks like an inverted, purpur-colored pirate ship hovering near the city. The End Ship isn’t guaranteed, so you may need to check several End Cities before you find one. This matters because the End Ship holds the single best item in the game: the Elytra.
Every tower and the End Ship are guarded by Shulkers, floating boxy mobs that hide inside blocks and fire slow-tracking projectiles that inflict the Levitation effect. Levitation is the main hazard here — it can knock you off a tower edge and send you falling to your death, so treat every End City as hostile territory, not a museum.
Best End City Loot, Ranked
1. Elytra — the reason you’re here
The Elytra is a chestplate-slot item that lets you glide indefinitely, and in Survival mode, an End Ship’s treasure room is the only place to get one. It sits in an item frame at the bow of the ship, guarded by a Shulker, alongside two loot chests. Combine it with Firework Rockets for powered flight, and it becomes the fastest, most flexible way to travel in the game — far better than boats, horses, or even the Nether highway for long-distance trips.
2. Shulker Shells (and Shulker Boxes)
Killing a Shulker has a chance to drop a Shulker Shell. Two shells craft into one Shulker Box — a portable, stackable storage container that keeps its contents even when broken, making it the best storage-and-transport item in the game. Since Shulkers are unavoidable while looting an End City, you’ll naturally collect shells as you clear each tower; it’s worth the extra hits to farm a few before you leave.
3. Enchanted Diamond and Iron Gear
End City chests can hand you pre-enchanted diamond and iron swords, axes, and armor pieces, with enchantment odds equivalent to a level 20–39 enchanting table roll — including treasure enchantments you can’t get from an enchanting table at all (like Mending, on some pieces). This is one of the most reliable ways to get high-level gear without grinding XP or lapis.
4. Diamonds, Iron Ingots, and Emeralds
Raw diamonds and iron show up in city and ship chests at a noticeably better rate than most Overworld structures, and small stacks of iron ingots are common. Emeralds appear too, though less consistently — useful if you want to trade with villagers without building a farm.
5. Saddles
An occasional but genuinely useful find — saddles have no crafting recipe, so structure loot (and fishing) is one of only a few ways to get one without trading.
6. Potions of Healing
The aftercastle of every End Ship has a brewing stand holding two Potions of Healing. These aren’t chest loot — they’re a guaranteed fixture — but they’re a handy emergency heal if a Shulker or a bad fall catches you off guard mid-raid.
7. The Dragon Head
A decorative block sitting on the bow of the End Ship. It has no combat use, but it’s a popular base decoration and a fun trophy of the run — you’ll need a pickaxe to mine it (it doesn’t drop from breaking by hand).
What You Won’t Find
To set expectations correctly: End City chests don’t contain enchanted books, netherite gear, or totems of undying. If you’re after specific enchanted books, ancient cities, libraries, and enchanting/villager trading are better targets. End Cities are about elytra, storage, and pre-enchanted gear — not book farming.
How to Prepare Before You Go
End Cities are considered end-game content for a reason — a bad trip can mean losing your gear in the void with no way to get it back. Bring:
- A full stack of blocks (any solid block works) for emergency bridging over gaps and the void.
- A water bucket to break fall damage if you get knocked off a ledge.
- Ender pearls — a stack if you can manage it — for both emergency escapes and general mobility once your elytra is empty of rockets.
- Food — golden carrots or cooked meat are ideal since chorus fruit along the way covers hunger emergencies but shouldn’t be your main food source.
- An Ender Chest placed at your base beforehand, so a death in the End doesn’t mean losing everything (loot found on this trip can be stored via a portable ender chest if you bring one, minus your hardcore-mode caveat).
- Diamond or iron gear and a decent weapon — you’re fighting Shulkers, and their levitation attacks are dangerous even if their melee damage isn’t.
- Rockets, if you already have an elytra from a previous run — you’ll want them for getting between islands quickly.
Step-by-Step: Looting an End City Safely
- Scout from a distance first. Before landing, look at the towers and bridges to spot Shulkers (they look like closed purple-and-white boxes when idle) so you’re not ambushed.
- Clear or avoid Shulkers before opening chests. Loot chests are usually placed against outer walls, which means you can often reach and open them from outside the room without ever entering a Shulker’s line of sight.
- Loot every chest in every tower. End City towers cluster close together, and each has its own loot room, so a single city complex can have far more total loot than it looks like from outside.
- Check every bridge for an End Ship. Not every bridge spawns one, but each ship is worth checking specifically for the elytra — don’t leave a city without confirming whether a ship generated.
- Fight the Shulker guarding the elytra carefully. It’s a tight, obsidian-floored room; use ranged attacks or corner it so a lucky levitation hit doesn’t send you flying into a wall or off the platform.
- Store loot in an Ender Chest as you go, if you’re carrying one, so a death later in the run doesn’t wipe your haul.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Fighting Shulkers out in the open near a ledge. Levitation plus an edge is the single most common way players die in End Cities. Fight in enclosed rooms or with your back to a solid wall.
- Skipping the End Ship check. Some players loot the city and leave without ever finding the connected ship, missing the elytra entirely. Walk every bridge before moving to the next island.
- Running out of blocks or pearls mid-raid. End Cities are built over the void with narrow purpur walkways; a missed jump without a way to recover is an instant, unrecoverable death in most game modes.
- Forgetting rockets. An elytra with no rockets still lets you glide, but you’ll descend slowly over the void with no way to climb back up if you misjudge a jump between islands.
- Not bringing a shield. It blocks Shulker projectiles outright, which is the easiest way to avoid Levitation altogether.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an Elytra to reach an End City? No — your first elytra has to come from an End City itself. You reach the outer islands the first time by locating an End Gateway (which spawns after you defeat the Ender Dragon) and using Ender Pearls or blocks to cross between islands until you find a city.
Is every End City guarded the same way? Every tower has Shulkers, but the number and placement varies by structure size. Larger, multi-tower complexes generally mean more Shulkers and more loot rooms.
Can I find more than one Elytra? Only if you find more than one End Ship — each ship holds exactly one elytra. Larger End City complexes with multiple ships are the most efficient way to farm extra elytra for backups or trading.
What’s the fastest way to find more End Cities once I’ve looted one? Use your new elytra and rockets to glide between islands rather than pearl-hopping — it’s dramatically faster and lets you scan more towers per trip.
Is it safe to loot End Cities in Hardcore mode? It’s riskier than almost any other structure in the game because of the void and Levitation combination. If you’re playing Hardcore, over-prepare on blocks, pearls, and a shield, and consider looting with a partner who can revive your items if something goes wrong.
Final Takeaway
End Cities reward careful, prepared players far more than they reward speed. The elytra alone makes the trip worth it, but between shulker shells, pre-enchanted diamond gear, and a steady supply of diamonds and iron, a single well-cleared complex can meaningfully upgrade your entire survival world. Bring blocks, bring pearls, fight Shulkers on your terms, and check every bridge — that’s the difference between a great haul and a lost inventory in the void.