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. It’s especially hard when using an Enchantment Table, as the enchantments your gear gets will be almost entirely random. If you’re not sure which enchantments to go for, this list contains all of the best Minecraft enchantments you can get.
Best Overall 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 a mob farm, your equipment will never run out of durability.
- 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. It is perfect for both early-game and end-game since it saves precious resources.
- Curse of Vanishing: This is a curse rather than an enchantment, but it is perfect for PVP players. It makes your afflicted item disappear when you die with it equipped or in your inventory.
Best Armor Enchantments in Minecraft
These enchantments will make sure you’re fully protected 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 protection, but you can only have one kind on a single piece of gear.
- 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 significantly damages anyone who strikes you with a melee attack. It doesn’t serve as much purpose in a solo Minecraft world, but it will make other PVP players think twice about attacking you.
Helmet
Using the right helmet can be exceptionally convenient if you frequently find yourself in water. The two most important Helmet enchantments are centered around breathing and moving underwater. Even if you don’t find yourself in water a lot, they’re great to have in a pinch.
- 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.
If you can’t get any of the enchantments above, we strongly recommend enchanting your helmet with the enchantments listed in the All Armor section.
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: Feather Falling is an essential enchantment as it drastically reduces fall damage when equipped. With the tall cliffs and deep caves of Minecraft, it’s sure to save your life while exploring the world around you.
Shield
Unlike the other types of armor, there aren’t a lot of enchantments that can be added to shields. Additionally, shields can only be enchanted through the use of Enchanted Books and an Anvil. Trying to use an Enchantment Table will not do anything.
The two enchantments below are all that can be used in the Survival or Hardcore modes.
- 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
To keep yourself alive, you’ll need to know how to enchant each weapon in the game.
Swords
The best enchantments for swords are centered around doing damage and getting extra loot from mobs.
- 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.
Bows
Like with swords, most of the bow’s best enchantments involve increasing the damage it does. However, one deals with the amount of arrows a bow needs to fire.
- 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, I would recommend replacing Infinity with Mending.
Crossbows
These crossbow enchantments can make the crossbow outshoot a regular bow and arrow any day.
- Quick Charge: This enchantment essentially decreases your Crossbow’s reload time. Quick Charge V makes your Crossbow instantly fire its arrow, making it an extremely powerful weapon against both mobs and other players.
- 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 fires three arrows at once in a cone shape, so I would recommend it if you usually play out in the open.
- Piercing makes arrows shoot through your opponent into whatever is behind them. It’s perfect for those who prefer to stick to caves or other narrow areas.
Trident
Before enchanting a Trident, make sure you know which enchantments cannot be used together. I recommend having two Tridents—one using Riptide for transportation and the other using Loyalty and Channeling for fighting.
- Impaling: If you are planning to raid an Ocean Monument, this is a great enchantment to have on your Trident. It deals extra damage to aquatic mobs, like Guardians,
- Loyalty: Loyalty is a special enchantment that makes the Trident a massively powerful weapon. A Trident enchanted with Loyalty will return to your inventory a short time after being thrown. 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 below 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 essentially ride it through the air. When combined with an Elytra, it is one of the fastest methods of transportation in Survival Minecraft.
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.
In Java edition, axes do much more damage than swords 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.
Best Tool Enchantments in Minecraft
These enchantments will not only keep your tools working longer but will also bring in more loot!
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). Each tool enchanted with this will cause increased drop rates in certain blocks.
- Ores mined with a Fortune Pickaxe will drop more of their minerals.
- Axes enchanted with Fortune will cause more sticks, saplings, and apples to drop after chopping down a tree.
- Shovels will be able to gather more flint from gravel.
- Hoes will drop more wheat seeds, beetroot seeds, potatoes, carrots, and even saplings from leaves.
- 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. This is especially helpful for players who want to gather dirt-based blocks like Mycelium, Grass, and Podzol.
Fishing Rod
There are only two enchantments specifically for fishing rods, but they’re so helpful you should try to get both.
- 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, but it is certainly a convenient enchantment to have.
Elytra
As of now, there are no enchantments that are applicable only to Elytra. 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 cannot be placed on the same piece of armor.
How to stack Enchantments in Minecraft
The term “Stacking Enchantments” refers to combining your enchanted item with an item containing the same enchantment in order to raise the enchantment’s level on your item. It is a great way to ensure you get a high-tier enchantment version, but it’s a finicky process. There are two main ways to do this, each of which I’ll describe below.
The Enchanted Book method.
Of the two methods, this one requires the lowest amount of resources. Start by enchanting books until you get a book containing the enchantment and level you’re looking for. Combine this book with your item for a chance to raise the enchantment’s level on your item.
Here, I combined a Diamond Sword with Sharpness III enchantment with a Sharpness III Enchanted Book to give the resulting sword Sharpness IV.
The item combination method
This method requires a lot more resources, making it more costly to newer players. However, it’s perfect if you’ve looted a lot of enchanted weapons and armor in your world. This method involves combining two items of the same type with the enchantment you want to increase in the hopes of getting the next level of the enchantment.
In this example, I combined two Diamond Swords with the Looting II Enchantment to create a better Diamond Sword with Looting III.
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 first slot of an anvil followed by the Enchanted Book in the second 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.
Combining Enchanted Books
Enchanted books can be combined to create a single book with multiple enchantments.
Additionally, two Enchanted Books of the same enchantment and level can be combined to create one Enchanted Book containing the next highest level of that enchantment.
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 not remove the Curse of Binding or the Curse of Vanishing.
If you need somewhere to test out these enchantments, check out our Best Minecraft Prison Servers and our Best Minecraft Servers to Join guides here on .