Minecraft enchantments guide: Everything You Need To Know

There are many kinds of Minecraft enchantments for each and every piece of gear present in the game. When applied to tools, weapons, or armor, they can significantly alter the gameplay. In this Minecraft enchantments guide, players will learn everything they need to know about enchantments.

In Minecraft, you can craft several tools, weapons, and armor parts to help you mine blocks, fight mobs, and defend against them. These gears are some of the most important items in the game. However, they are quite basic when they are first crafted, only improving in certain aspects with better materials. This is where enchantments come into play.

Minecraft Enchantments complete guide

What are enchantments?

After an item is enchanted, they get a purple glint around the in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

Enchantments are basically magical powerups that you can apply to every tool, weapon, or armor that can be crafted in the game. Some enchantments are exclusive to specific gear, while others can be applied to many items.

These powerups add new features to gears, making things much easier for you. Apart from two curses (the curse of vanishing and the curse of binding), which are essentially negative enchantments, every other one has positive effects.

How to obtain enchantments

There are essentially three ways to obtain enchantments for gears: create an enchanting table area that can offer random enchantments, find enchanted books from chests, or trade enchanted books from librarian villagers.

Enchanting table

An enchanting table can be crafted using four obsidian blocks, two diamonds, and one book. Once crafted, it needs to be placed at the center of several bookshelves. This is to achieve the highest level of enchantment from it.

The bookshelves need to be placed such that there is one block of space between them and the table. Bookshelves must not be placed higher than two blocks as well. At least 15 bookshelves must be placed around the enchanting table to obtain the highest enchantments from it.

Once the setup is complete, you need to find lapis lazuli, which is essential for enchanting, on the enchanting table.

Trading from librarians and using the enchanted book

Librarian villagers are the best mob to obtain enchantments from in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

A librarian is a type of villager who can buy and sell anything related to books. Hence, it can offer enchanted books to you for a certain number of emeralds. You can find them in villages or create a regular villager using the lectern block.

As of 1.20.2, librarians from different biomes sell different kinds of enchanted books. Buying enchanted books from librarians is the best way to obtain enchantments since you can also obtain rare treasure enchantments.

Once you obtain enchanted books, you need to use an anvil block to apply the enchantments to any gear. The process also requires a bit of enchantment in the form of XP levels.

A Complete List of Minecraft Enchantments

Here is a list of every enchantment present in the game, along with a brief description:

Enchantment Name	Brief Description
Aqua Affinity	Increases mining speed while underwater
Bane of Arthropods	Increases damage and applies Slowness IV to arthropod mobs (spiders, cave spiders, silverfish, endermites, and bees)
Blast Protection	Reduces explosion damage and knockback effect
Channeling	During thunderstorms, the trident summons a lightning bolt on the target when hitting it
Cleaving ‌[upcoming: JE Combat Tests]	Increases damage and shield stunning
Curse of Binding (treasure)	Items cannot be removed from armor slots
Curse of Vanishing (treasure)	Item disappears on death
Depth Strider	Increases underwater movement speed
Efficiency	Increases tool speed, as well as the chance for axes to disable shields
Feather Falling	Reduces fall damage
Fire Aspect	Sets target on fire
Fire Protection	Reduces fire damage and burn time Mutually exclusive with other protections
Flame	Arrows shot are ignited and deal fire damage to the target
Fortune	Increases the number of block drops
Frost Walker (treasure)	Allows the player to walk on water by freezing the water under their feet
Impaling	Increases damage against aquatic mobs. In Bedrock Edition, it increases damage against mobs in water or rain
Infinity	Prevents consumption of arrows
Knockback	Increases knockback
Looting	Increases mob loot
Loyalty	Trident returns after being thrown
Luck of the Sea	Increases rate of good loot (enchanting books, etc.)
Lure	Decreases time for bites
Mending (treasure)	Repairs the item using experience
Multishot	Fires 3 arrows at the same time
Piercing	Arrows pierce entities, allowing for arrows to pierce through stacks of mobs
Power	Increases arrow damage
Projectile Protection	Reduces damage from projectiles
Protection	Reduces generic damage
Punch	Increases arrow knockback
Quick Charge	Decreases crossbow charging time
Respiration	Extends underwater breathing time
Riptide	Trident launches the player with itself when thrown while in water or rain
Sharpness	Increases melee damage
Silk Touch	Mined blocks drop themselves
Smite	Increases damage to the undead
Soul Speed (treasure)	Increases movement speed on soul sand and soul soil
Sweeping Edge ‌[Java Edition only]	Increases sweeping attack damage
Swift Sneak (treasure)	Increases walking speed while sneaking
Thorns	Taking damage causes the attacker to also take damage
Unbreaking	Reduces durability damage

How to disenchant an item

Grindstone can remove enchantments in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

If you want to disenchant an item, you either need to craft a grindstone and place the item in it or repair two of the same item on a crafting table. Removing enchantments on a grindstone is slightly better since it gives you some XP points as well.

How to Enchant Items in Minecraft?

Enchanting table is an easy way to enchant (Image via Mojang)

To enchant an item, players can either use an enchanting table or an anvil. When using an enchanting table, players will need to place a compatible tool or weapon along with lapis lazuli to enchant the item.

Instead of a tool or weapon, a book can also be used to store enchantments from the enchanting table. Subsequently, players can combine the enchanted book with a tool or weapon on an anvil to imbue it with the desired enchantments.

Where to Find Enchanted Items in Minecraft

End cities is one of the many places with enchanted loot (Image via Mojang)

The world of Minecraft is vast and wide, featuring a plethora of structures with useful loot and resources. There are many ways to obtain enchanted items in the game. One of the easiest ways to get enchanted items is by trading with villagers such as armorers, toolsmiths, weaponsmiths, and librarians. All of them are capable of offering items like enchanted books, weapons, armor, and tools.

In addition to trading, players can discover enchanted items and books by looting treasure chests found in various structures. End cities and bastion remnants are usually filled with valuable loot. If lucky, players may also obtain enchanted items as loot from enemies equipped with enchanted gear.

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