The Best Enchantments for Every Tool and Armor Piece

Unbreaking III means a tool or weapon loses durability on only one use in four on average, so it lasts about four times as long. On armour it skips only 30% of durability hits. Mending turns the experience you pick up into repairs, 2 durability per XP point, and your held or worn Mending gear gets that XP before your level bar does. Every row below assumes both, except a bow built around Infinity.

The best set for every item

Some enchantments rule each other out, so the last column is a choice. Use the max enchantments tool to plan the whole set, and the enchantment pages for each one's odds and sources.

Weapons: one damage enchantment each

Sharpness, Smite and Bane of Arthropods share a group with Impaling, Density and Breach, so a weapon gets one of them. Sharpness V adds 3 damage to every hit. Smite V adds 12.5, but only against undead mobs, so a second Smite sword pays off against the Wither and wither skeletons. Bane of Arthropods does the same against spiders and other arthropods, which rarely earns the slot.

Looting III raises the cap on most common drops by one item per level and adds one percentage point per level to rare drops. A zombie's Rotten Flesh goes from 0–2 to 0–5, and a wither skeleton's chance of dropping its skull rises from 2.5% to 5.5%. Sweeping Edge III raises sweep damage from 1 to 1 plus 75% of the sword's damage, and only swords can sweep. Fire Aspect II burns a target for 8 seconds and cooks the meat animals drop. On a farm sword, skip Knockback, which pushes mobs out of reach, and Fire Aspect, because a mob that dies from the burning rather than your hit gets no Looting bonus.

Spears take the sword's damage and loot enchantments plus Lunge, which shoves you forward on a jab. It needs at least 7 hunger points and costs food and durability each time.

Tools: Efficiency, then Fortune or Silk Touch

Efficiency V adds 26 to mining speed (the level squared, plus one), and only with the right tool for the block. Fortune III averages 2.2 items per block from ores like diamond, coal and emerald, with a maximum of 4. Silk Touch drops the block itself, which is the only way to pick up glass, and ores mined with it give no XP.

The two can't share a tool, so keep two pickaxes. Fortune also works on crops: carrots and potatoes drop 2–5, or up to 8 with Fortune III, so put it on the hoe you harvest with.

Armour: Protection on every piece

Protection IV on all four pieces takes 64% off the damage left after armour, and it covers everything except starvation, the Warden's sonic boom, the void and /kill. The cap, the per-type points and when to swap in Blast or Fire Protection are in how armour and protection work.

• Feather Falling IV counts three times as much as Protection IV against falls, and the two stack.
• Respiration III makes your air last about four times as long. Aqua Affinity removes the fivefold slowdown for mining with your head underwater, but not the one for floating.
• Swift Sneak III lets you sneak at 75% of walking speed.
• Depth Strider III lets you swim as fast as you walk. Frost Walker freezes the water under you instead.
• Soul Speed III speeds you up on Soul Sand and Soul Soil, but each step on them has a 4% chance to cost the boots durability.
• Thorns III has a 45% chance to deal 1–5 damage to an attacker and costs 2 extra durability each time.

Ranged weapons, the mace and the fishing rod

Bow: Power V, then choose Mending or Infinity. Infinity needs one arrow in your inventory and doesn't save tipped or spectral arrows. Mending is the better long-term pick.

Crossbow: Quick Charge III cuts loading from 1.25 seconds to 0.5. Multishot fires three arrows while using up one. Piercing IV lets each arrow hit up to five mobs in a line.

Trident: Loyalty III and Channeling work together. Channeling calls lightning when a thrown trident hits a mob under open sky during a thunderstorm. Riptide III launches you instead of throwing the trident, works only in water or rain, and can't be combined with either. Impaling V adds 12.5 damage, but in Java Edition only against aquatic mobs such as guardians, and not against drowned.

Mace: Density V adds 2.5 damage per block fallen. Breach IV makes the target's armour 60% less effective. The mace guide covers when each one wins.

Fishing Rod: Lure takes 5 seconds off the wait per level, and Luck of the Sea raises your treasure chance.

Where the treasure enchantments come from

The Enchanting Table never offers treasure enchantments.

Librarians charge double for treasure enchantments, Mending included.

Getting the set without wasting levels

1. 1.Build a table with 15 bookshelves to unlock level 30 offers. The enchantment table calculator gives the odds for each slot.
2. 2.Enchant the item itself, not a book. When the table rolls more than one enchantment for a book, it removes one at random.
3. 3.Get Mending on early, merge books with books, then apply them to the item in one go. The anvil and Mending guide explains why, and the anvil cost calculator totals each step.
4. 4.Use the anvil for everything the table won't give: the treasure enchantments above, Power V, Thorns III and Quick Charge III, Sharpness V on anything but a golden sword or spear, Efficiency V on a diamond or stone tool, Sharpness on an axe, Fire Aspect on a mace, Thorns on any piece but the chestplate, and anything on Shears or the last row's items. For a top level the table can't roll, combine two of the level below, such as two Power IV books.