There is a common misconception in Minecraft that Golden Tools are useless and simply exist to give gold another purpose. However, this is a myth and that in some regards gold tools are more useful than Diamond, Stone, and Iron.
If you are too lazy to read the fully analysis and the supporting information golden tools actually break blocks faster than any other type. However, in exchange they have the lowest durability of any other type which might seem odd but it makes sense as well.
Consulting The Wiki
The wiki breaks down the durability of the various types like this. (This is for the shovel).
Wood: 60
Stone: 132
Iron: 251
Golden: 33
Diamond 1562
Now as we can see above the Golden Shovel has the least amount of durability of all item types even less than Wood which is consistent across all item types. Now before everyone says well that’s pretty useless there is one area where Golden Shovels beat all other forms of tools and that is in the block break time.
Break Time
Block | Breaking time | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hand | Wooden | Stone | Iron | Diamond | Golden | |
Clay |
0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 |
Farmland |
0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 |
Grass Block |
0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 |
Gravel |
0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 |
Mycelium |
0.9 | 0.45 | 0.25 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.1 |
Dirt |
0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
Sand |
0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
Soul Sand |
0.75 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
Snow |
1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
Snow (layer) |
0.5 | 0.1 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
Now the above table shows that the golden shovel has the fastest break time even beating diamond by .05 seconds on basic items such as Grass, Gravel and more. Which means that there are a couple areas where using the Golden Shovel might be more beneficial.
Useless Or Not?
The simple fact remains that while the item has a faster block breaking speed to cover the same amount of blocks as you would with 1 diamond shovel you are going to need 47.33 more golden shovels than you would diamond.
1562/33 = 47.33
Now if you have an unlimited supply of gold and inventory space… Go ahead and make golden shovels but the more practical and intelligent thing to do is to make diamond tools.
I have to rate golden tools as useless.