Swords

Swords are weapons used to kill mobs or players (if multiplayer PvP is on) quicker, but are not required to defeat them. They also can remove several blocks faster than using bare hands (such as leaves, wool, glowstone, and Soul Sand), but instead of one use of the Durability Bar, it counts as two uses. Killing larger slimes with a sword will also prevent more slimes from spawning. In The Nether you can find Zombie Pigmen that use Golden Swords, but they do not drop their swords when killed. Because mobs require fewer hits to kill with higher level swords, you will use these swords less, which causes diamond swords to last an extremely long time.
Stone (or better) swords revert minecarts in one hit with no decrease in durability, whereas wooden swords require two hits. You can make a wooden sword (in same pattern but with planks), golden sword (same pattern but with gold ingots), stone sword (same pattern but with cobblestone), iron sword (same pattern but with iron ingots), and diamond sword (same pattern but with diamonds ( gem). )