The best Minecraft enchantments for every item

The best Minecraft enchantments are Mending and Unbreaking III on everything you use a lot, plus the strongest pick for each item: Sharpness V on your sword, Protection IV on your armor and Efficiency V with Fortune III on your pickaxe.

Below are all 43 enchantments in Java 26.3 with their max level, followed by the combination we’d go for on each item.

How does enchanting work?

• Enchanting table: craft one from a book, two diamonds and four obsidian. Put in an item and some lapis lazuli and pick one of three offers. The best offer needs you to be level 30, but it only costs three levels and three lapis lazuli. An XP farm gets you those levels quickly.
• Bookshelves: the level 30 offers need 15 bookshelves, with exactly one block of air between the table and the shelves.
• Anvil: apply enchanted books to your gear or merge two of the same item. Every anvil job makes the next one on that item more expensive. Anything costing 40 levels or more gets the message Too Expensive! in Survival.
• Librarian: villagers with a lectern sell enchanted books, Mending included. You’ll never get Mending from the enchanting table.
• Grindstone: strips enchantments off an item and gives some experience back. Curses stay put.

Which enchantments are there?

Wind Burst only comes from ominous vaults in trial chambers. No librarian sells Soul Speed, Swift Sneak or Wind Burst.

What are the best enchantments for each item?

• Sword: Sharpness V, Looting III, Sweeping Edge III, Fire Aspect II, Unbreaking III and Mending. You can skip Knockback, which keeps knocking mobs out of reach.
• Spear: Lunge III launches you forward when you jab. Pair it with Sharpness V, Unbreaking III and Mending, and keep some food handy, because every lunge costs hunger.
• Armor: Protection IV on all four pieces, plus Unbreaking III and Mending. On top of that, Respiration III and Aqua Affinity on the helmet, Swift Sneak III on the leggings, and Feather Falling IV with Depth Strider III on the boots.
• Pickaxe: Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Mending and either Fortune III or Silk Touch. Plenty of players carry two: one for ores and one to pick blocks up whole.
• Bow: Power V, Punch II, Flame and Unbreaking III, plus Infinity or Mending.
• Crossbow: Quick Charge III, Unbreaking III, Mending, and Multishot or Piercing IV.
• Trident: Loyalty III with Channeling and Impaling V, or Riptide III if you want to fly through the rain.
• Mace: Density V for huge hits or Breach IV against armored targets, with Wind Burst III to bounce back up after a smash attack.
• Fishing rod: Luck of the Sea III, Lure III, Unbreaking III and Mending.

Which enchantments can’t go together?

• Only one of the four protection types per armor piece.
• Sharpness, Smite and Bane of Arthropods rule each other out, and so do Density and Breach on a mace.
• Fortune or Silk Touch.
• Depth Strider or Frost Walker.
• Infinity or Mending on a bow.
• Multishot or Piercing.
• Riptide, or Loyalty and Channeling.

How do Mending and Unbreaking keep your gear alive?

Mending repairs your gear with experience: every experience point you pick up fixes two points of durability on a Mending item in your hands or armor slots. It only works on what you’re holding or wearing. You get it from librarians, loot chests or fishing.

Unbreaking III makes tools and weapons last four times as long on average. Combined with Mending, you’ll rarely need a new pickaxe again.

An anvil tip: combine your books first, then apply them to the item in one go. That makes it easier to stay under the Too Expensive! limit. With commands on, /enchant puts an enchantment straight onto what you’re holding; more in our list of useful Minecraft commands. One more surprise: Curse of Vanishing doesn’t make items disappear when keep inventory is on.