Enchanting is one of the vital components of RPG sessions I play with my friends in Minecraft. If you want to get the most out of your enchantments in Minecraft, I’ve got all the information you’ll need in this guide.
What are the best enchantments in Minecraft?
Minecraft has dozens of enchantments for all the equipment in Minecraft, so it can be difficult to know exactly which one is best. Worse still, enchantments are more or less random, and you’ll have to carefully use Enchantment Tables, Grinding Wheels, and Anvils to get the very best for your item. Here are the best Minecraft enchantments you can get.
Best Minecraft Enchantments for Tools, Weapons, and Armor
These enchantments apply to all tools, weapons, and armor in Minecraft. For this reason, and since they are massively convenient when applied, we have marked them as the best overall enchantments in the game.
- Mending: If you want your gear to last much longer, be sure to attach Mending. Its primary purpose is to replenish your gear’s durability by absorbing the XP dropped from each mob. This makes it one of the most convenient enchantments because it fixes your gear without spending valuable resources. If you have this enchantment and use it as a semi-automatic mob grinder, your equipment will never run out of durability.
- Curse of Vanishing: This is more of a curse than enchantment, for it makes your afflicted item disappear when you die. The only way to physically keep a cursed item in your possession is by storing it in a chest before your death.
- Unbreaking: This enchantment is best used in tandem with Mending, but it is a solid option by itself. Unbreaking makes it so your gear might not lose durability when you use it (or when it’s applied to armor when you take damage). This enchantment is perfect for both early-game and end-game since it saves precious resources.
Related: Minecraft Pillager Outpost Seeds 1.18 (PS4, PE, Bedrock, Java)
Best Armor Enchantments in Minecraft
All Armor
These armor enchantments are perfect for any pieces of armor you have:
- Protection: This is a must for every piece of armor because it gives you four additional 4% of armor protection for each level per piece you have enchanted. You can upgrade your Protection for a maximum of four levels. There are different kinds of protections, but note that they’re mutually exclusive, meaning you can only have one:
- Blast Protection: Reduces the damage you receive from explosions.
- Projectile Protection: Reduces the damage you take from projectiles like arrows and rocks.
- Fire Protection: Reduces the damage you receive from open flames and lava.
- Thorns: Thorns III will be a thorn in the side of any would-be attackers on a PVP server. It doesn’t serve much purpose in a solo Minecraft world, but once another player on a PVP server finds out you have it, they will think twice about attacking you. This enchantment significantly damages anyone who strikes you with a melee attack.
Helmet
Using the right helmet can be exceptionally convenient if you frequently find yourself in water. Minecraft version 1.17 added Wet Caves to the game, which are caves filled with water. That makes the enchantments listed below far more useful! They don’t serve a lot of purpose outside of that, so if you can’t get any of the enchantments below, we strongly recommend enchanting your helmet with the enchantments listed in the All Armor section above.
- Respiration: This enchantment lets you hold your breath underwater for an extended period. It’s very useful if you are harvesting coral or exploring oceans.
- Aqua Affinity: Aqua Affinity is crucial for players who need to go deep-sea diving for resources and Ocean Monuments. It removes the penalty to your mining speed for mining underwater.
Boots
It’s best to put utility enchantments on Boots to protect you from environmental effects or even help you walk on water!
- Depth Strider: Boots with Depth Strider are best used with a Helmet that either has Aqua Affinity, Respiration, or both. Depth Strider removes the speed penalty for swimming underwater and gives your character much more maneuverability while swimming.
- Frost Walker: This creates a frosted ice block when you walk over water. If you are on an island map, or you simply don’t enjoy going underwater in Minecraft, this is a good enchantment to have. However, we recommend Feather Falling for your general day-to-day Minecraft play outside of this scenario.
- Feather Falling: With the changes to Minecraft in version 1.17 (the Caves & Cliffs update), Feather Falling is an essential enchantment overall. Cliffs appear more often (some have higher drops), and caves pose a much greater threat. You can ease these complications with Feather Falling, which makes it so any fall damage you take is drastically reduced. With Feather Falling IV, you can drop from the max world height and still not die!
Shield
There are only a few enchantments that you can apply to shields. You can apply the Curse Of Vanishing enchantment, but that only stops other players from picking up the shield if you die. Remember that Shields can’t be enchanted at the Enchanting Table. Instead, you’ll need a book with the appropriate enchantment. With that, you can apply the enchantment at an Anvil.
- Mending: This is an ideal enchantment for shields, as they’re already in your off-hand slot, meaning they’ll benefit from the enchantment anytime you pick up experience.
- Unbreaking: As with any armor, Unbreaking is a great enchantment for the shield, as it makes it last even longer. Unbreaking III, coupled with Mending, means you’re never losing your shield.
Best Weapon Enchantments in Minecraft
Swords
- Sharpness/Smite: Your melee damage is greatly increased with Sharpness V or Smite V. Sharpness I and Smite I provide little help, so we recommend only seeking this enchantment if you can use the best tier. With Sharpness V, you can one-shot (kill with one melee attack) most living mobs. With Smite V, you can one-shot most undead mobs, like Zombies and Skeletons.
- Looting: Looting III is crucial for end-game items and resources. It not only increases the rate at which those rare items drop (like mob heads) but also increases the number of items dropped (e.g., skeletons will drop several bones instead of just one or two). Looting III would easily top our list of best overall enchantments if it didn’t only apply specifically to swords.
- Fire Aspect: Fire Aspect is absolutely crucial for PVP servers. With it, your enemies are set on fire when you strike them. Fire Aspect I is better than nothing, but Fire Aspect II will keep your opponents sweating and use precious time to douse themselves or to take potions that protect them from fire damage. The battle was over before it began if they didn’t have the means to eliminate Fire Aspect’s effects.
Bows
- Power: This enchantment doesn’t provide much help unless you get Power IV or Power V. However, once you do, you can cut your combat time in half. If you’re an expert in aiming your bow, this is the most essential enchantment you can have. While all other enchantments require more strategy, Power just provides excessive damage for the archery skill you already have.
- Punch: Punch can be used for both offense and defense and is an all-around massively convenient enchantment. If you use Punch II, it knocks your opponents back much farther than normal when you strike them. You can use it to knock them off of cliffs or simply create distance between you and them. If you have the right skills, you can also use it on yourself to keep yourself in the air with Elytra.
- Flame: Flame is essentially just Fire Aspect for Bows. When your Bow is enchanted with it, all arrows you fire will be fire arrows. If you strike an opponent with it, they will immediately catch on fire. Need we say more?
- Infinity: Infinity allows for a single arrow in your inventory to fire infinite arrows. This is an extremely helpful enchantment if you frequently run out of arrows. If that’s not an issue for you, we recommend using one of the other enchantments listed above.
Crossbows
- Quick Charge: This enchantment essentially just decreases your Crossbow’s reload time. Quick Charge V makes your Crossbow instantly fire its arrow, making it an extremely powerful weapon against all mobs, including other players. We strongly recommend using this in tandem with Multishot or Piercing.
- Multishot or Piercing: You can only have one of these enchantments on your Crossbow, and which one you choose largely depends on how you play the game. Multishot is for you if you are usually out in the open and on the surface since it fires three arrows in a cone rather than just one. If you are usually in caves or narrow areas, then Piercing is for you since it makes the arrows shoot through your opponent and into whatever is behind them.
Trident
- Impaling: If you are planning to raid an Ocean Monument, this is a great enchantment to have on your Trident. The only downside to it is that it only deals extra damage to aquatic mobs and has no effect on the damage multiplier for mobs on land.
- Loyalty: Loyalty is a special enchantment that makes the Trident a massively powerful weapon. Tridents can be melee weapons or thrown as ranged weapons. Loyalty makes it so throwing them results in the Trident returning to your inventory after a short time. The higher the Loyalty level on your Trident, the quicker it returns to you.
- Channeling: Channeling is one of the most interesting enchantments in the game because it can force a lighting strike on mobs struck by it when thrown. This only applies during a Thunderstorm, and the mob must be exposed to the open sky for it to work. If the correct conditions are met, each of the mobs changes into the following when struck by a lightning strike:
- Creeper: Charged Creeper
- Villager: Witch
- Pigs: Zombified Piglins
- Mooshrooms: Opposite color Mooshroom
- Riptide: Riptide allows for fast transportation for the player under specific conditions. If the player is standing in water, rain, or snow, they can throw the Riptide-enchanted Trident to teleport to where the Trident lands. This makes this item one of the fastest methods of transportation in Survival.
Axe
Axes are sometimes frequently neglected, but in my opinion, they are some of the best weapons in Minecraft because of their additional use as a tool. However, in the Java edition of the game, axes do much more damage than swords but with a slower attack speed. They also have a few unique effects with enchantments when used as a weapon.
- Efficiency: When using Efficiency as an enchantment with an axe, it has a 5% per level increased chance of disabling a shield.
- Sharpness/Smite: As with swords, Sharpness and Smite are great for increasing your damage overall against all mobs and undead mobs, respectively.
Related: Why is Minecraft Realms not saving?
Best Tool Enchantments in Minecraft
Axe, Shovel, Hoe, & Pickaxe
- Fortune: Fortune is considered one of the most popular Enchantments because it increases the number of resources dropped when you mine specific block types (most notably Diamonds). Because of the changes to Ore blocks in Minecraft 1.17, this enchantment is essential to have on at least one Diamond Pickaxe. In 1.17, all Iron, Gold, and Copper Ore Blocks drop Raw Ore (which is affected by the Fortune enchantment) instead of Ore Blocks (which are unaffected).
- Efficiency: Efficiency increases the speed at which your tool can mine blocks. While any increased speed can be helpful if you’re in a rush, this enchantment is usually only worth it as Efficiency IV or Efficiency V. We strongly recommend using this with Unbreaking. Otherwise, your tools can disappear before you even realize it.
- Silk Touch: Silk Touch makes it so the blocks you mine drop the blocks themselves rather than raw materials. An example of this would be that using Silk Touch on a Diamond Ore Block will make it drop a Diamond Ore Block when mined rather than a Diamond-like it usually does. This is an extremely helpful enchantment, but many players forego it in exchange for a tool to have the Fortune III enchantment. These two enchantments cannot both apply to the same tool.
Fishing Rod
- Lure: This is the most popular enchantment for players who primarily fish for food. Lure decreases the wait time to catch something from fishing by five seconds per level. Lure III can easily make fishing the fastest way to get food in the game since you can catch a fish every couple of seconds.
- Luck of the Sea: This enchantment increases the chance of finding rare treasure while fishing and decreases the chance of finding junk. It isn’t as game-changing as other enchantments can be, like Mending or enchantments that add extra damage, but it is certainly a convenient enchantment to have.
Elytra
As of now, there are no enchantments that are applicable only to Elytra. Curse of Vanishing and Curse of Binding can be applied, but they provide nothing that is directly beneficial to the player using them. We recommend using Mending or Unbreaking III on Elytra to decrease the resources required to maintain it.
Conflicting Enchantments in Minecraft
There are several enchantments that players cannot combine on the same piece of equipment because they are conflicting. The workaround to combine them requires using /give command or editing playerdata.nbt using an NBT editor.
- Frost Walker and Depth Strider
- Both Loyalty and Channeling cannot be combined with Riptide.
- Multishot and Piercing
- Mending and Infinity
- Fortune and Silk Touch
- Sharpness, Smite, Bane of Arthropods, and Cleaving
- Protection Projectile Protection, Blast Protection, and Fire Protection (these can’t be combined but can be enchanted together)
Related: Read about the Minecraft Smite Enchantment on our sister site, Twinfinite.
How to stack Enchantments in Minecraft
Stacking enchantments is a great way to ensure you get a high-tier enchantment version, but it’s a finicky process. You need two of the same enchantments you want to apply either on items or on the book, plus the item you want to apply them on. In practice, this is what the process looks like:
- The book method: This process requires fewer resources, so it’s a preferable one. You must keep enchanting books until you get a level I book with your preferred enchantment. Use the book to combine it with the already enchanted item for a chance to get a level II enchanted item.
- The item combination method: While less arduous, this method requires wasting a lot more resources. It requires that you keep combining two of the same items with your preferred enchantments until you get a level II enchanted item by trial and error.
Best Nether Enchantments in Minecraft
These enchantments are essential if you want to go into the Nether, especially if you’re expecting a fight!
- Fire Protection: Fire Protection reduces the damage you take from all heat sources, notably fire and lava. Since the Nether has lava and fire everywhere, this is a necessary enchantment to stay protected.
- Soul Speed: You can only put this enchantment on your boots. Applying increases the speed at which you walk on Soul Sand. However, when you run on Soul Sand with boots enchanted with Soul Speed, it decreases the boots’ durability. It’s strongly recommended that you use Mending or Unbreakable on Boots enchanted with Soul Speed.
- Feather Falling: Feather Falling was mentioned above as one of the best enchantments for Boots, and it especially applies to the Nether. In some of the Nether Biomes released in 1.16, there are many steep cliffs and deep chasms. This makes Feather Falling an essential enchantment for the Nether since it protects you from taking excessive damage if you accidentally fall.
- Knockback: Knockback is crucial if you plan to explore the more dangerous parts of the Nether, especially the Fortresses. This is more of a preventative measure than a tool. It helps put distance between you and any mobs, and it can be lifesaving if you find yourself with low health while fending off mobs!
Enchanted books
You can craft enchanted books by using an enchanting table and experience points. You can also find them naturally in hidden chests or purchase them from a librarian villager. They are especially desirable because they can give an item multiple different enchantments, provided those particular enchantments apply to said item.
Within Survival mode, obtaining specific enchantments for particular tools – such as Unbreaking for shields – is exclusively possible through Enchanted books. To utilize an enchanted book, position an item in the initial slot of an anvil, followed by a book in the adjacent slot. To finalize the enchantment, you must possess the necessary amount of experience. It’s important to mention that deploying an enchanted book results in substantial discounts at the anvil. Additionally, enchanted books can be combined, much like combining tools or weapons, resulting in a single book with enhanced or multiple enchantments.
How to disenchant items in Minecraft
To disenchant items in Minecraft, simply put the item into the Grindstone to remove all enchantments. By using Grindstone to disenchant your items, you will get some experience back, depending on the enchantments applied. Unfortunately, doing so will still not remove the Curse of Binding and Curse of Vanishing.
Before you go, be sure to check out our Best Minecraft Adventure Maps and Best Minecraft Challenge Maps to see some of the best worlds that Minecraft players have made!
