Playing Through: The Nether and The End - The Ultimate Player's Guide to Minecraft - page 272

Remember, you're here mainly for the blaze rods. Collect them from each killed
blaze until you have 10 or so, then head back to the portal and the bright, sunny,
verdant Overworld.
Place your spoils of victory in a chest near the fortress entry point now and then,
just in case you die. You can come back and pick them up later, or grab them on
the way out after you've hit your quota.
That's all there is to it, really. It's not so difficult on Normal difficulty, and becomes quite
easy once you've done it a few times.
Nether Mobs
You'll meet an interesting mix of mobs while exploring The Nether. If you're properly
equipped, they won't present too much of a problem:
Zombie pigmen —I first introduced these in Chapter 5 , “ Combat School ,” page
83 . Avoid fighting them because, as with zombies, you'll get rushed by a mob.
Their drops aren't really worth the risk, and you'll find a lot more swag in a fort-
ress.
Ghasts —With a fittingly ghastly moan, these huge floating mobs attack you from
a long distance (see Figure 12.5 ). They're quite slow moving but spit out danger-
ous fireballs that can cause as much damage by an indirect hit, setting the nether-
rack around you on fire, as they do directly. Take care of them with two to three
fully charged arrows, and dodge the fireballs by moving just a few blocks out of
the line of fire. If you're brave enough, you can also fish them in with a fishing rod
and hack at them with a sword. Ghasts drop magma cream and ghast tears, both
useful for brewing, but you'll need to find one over land or pull it in with a fishing
rod so the drops don't burn up in lava.