The (Pretty Much) Complete Guide to Minecraft Enchanting Minecraft Blog (2024)

I find myself utterly frustrated when I come across a guide that provides good information, but lacks some important details. If you've been looking for a, well, more or less complete guide to Minecraft Enchanting, look no further, because the wait is over.

Please Note that I wrote this with my knowledge prior to the 1.10 and 1.9 updates, as I recently got back into the game and struggled to learn about some of the new mechanics. If anything below is incorrect, feel free to correct me in the comments section below.

0: Table of Contents:
1: How To Enchant.
2: The Enchantments, and What They Do.
3: Using Commands to Get Unnatural Enchants.
4: IDs and Bukkit Data Values
5: Conclusion

1: How To Enchant.

Enchanting is easy and is extremely beneficial. It ultimately levels the playing field. Below, I will explain the different ways to enchant your items.

By Enchantment Table:
The best way to enchant your gear is through the use of an Enchantment Table. With a shaped crafting recipe, place a book in the top middle slot, obsidian in the direct middle, obsidian in the bottom middle, obsidian in the bottom left, obsidian in the bottom right, and a diamond in the left middle and in the right middle.

The recipe should look like this in your Crafting Table!

With an enchantment table, you will need bookshelves, experience levels, and lapis lazuli. To lace your items with the best enchantments, you will want to use the thirty level option. This can be achieved by surrounding your enchantment table with at least 15 bookshelves, collecting thirty levels, and three pieces of lapis lazuli.

Make sure your bookshelves are not touching the enchantment table as they will have no effect, your bookshelves must be at least one block away.

When you have collected all the necessary items, put your item in the left hand slot, and your lapis next to it. Enchanting an item will consume the lapis and take away the levels equivalent to how many lapis items you used.

The Way it Works:
You must have enough levels to initiate the enchantment process, and that is indicated through the number all the way to the right of the GUI below the glyphs. The number all the way to the left, next to the depiction of the sparkling XP orb is how much experience will be consumed when the enchantment is finished, as well as how much lapis you need.

By doing a third tier enchant and using thirty levels, it is possible to get up to four maxed out enchants, or just one. The Table tells you even before enchanting the item one enchant you will receive, and it's highly probable that you will get more.

By Anvil:

Enchanting is also possible and recommended through the use of an anvil. The anvil allows you to combine items of the same type and material to merge their durability and enchantments, as well as combine enchanted books, add books to items, and name your items.

Every action in an anvil takes XP Levels.

Anvils are the only way you can apply some enchantments to your gear. An example of this is Mending, which is only possible to get by trading with a librarian that holds the book. I will further explain this in another Guide.

An anvil is the only way Thorns III can be acquired, as you need to combine two Thorns II books. It is not a natural enchantment. This also must be done to acquire level five enchantments, by combining to lesser books of the same enchant and then applying the book to an item through the anvil.

2: The Enchantments, and What They Do.

Armor Enchants:

Protection: Shields the players from all forms of environmental damage. It is not as effective against single sources of damage such as the other forms of protection, and it is exclusive to armor. It's the only protection enchant that can be on your armor at once if you choose for it. However, protection cannot defend the player against hunger or the void.
Max Level: Four (IV).

Fire Protection: As the name states, it defends the wearer from all forms of fire damage, and allows the fire to burn for a shorter duration. It does not protect against other sources of damage like protection does, but offers an increased protection to fire and fire mobs. Armor Exclusive, you can only have one protection on your armor at a time.
Max Level: Four (IV).

Blast Protection: Like the above, it's all in the name. Blast protection nullifies the effects of creeper explosions, ghast fireballs, TNT, and other things that make you go BOOM. This being said, it protects from damage and explosion knock back. Like the other forms of protection, it is armor exclusive and can not be on the armor with the other enchantments.
Max Level: Four (IV).

Projectile Protection: Projectile Protection tends to be the weak link when compared to the other protections. Since it only defends the player against projectiles, such as arrows and shot fire charges, it's uses are limited but not useless. Again, it is armor exclusive and can be the only protection on the armor.
Max Level: Four (IV).

Thorns: Damages all melee and ranged mobs that attack the player, including other players, and deals more damage based on the level. Thorns also decreases armor durability at a faster than normal rate, so it's good to have thorns with it.
Max Level: Three (III).

Helmet:

Respiration: Respiration increases your breath when submerged in water per level, as well as decreases time between suffocation. It even gives improved vision. In other words, it allows you to become semi aquatic.
Max Level: Three (III).

Aqua Affinity: This enchant affects your digging speed when under water. Keep in mind you can break blocks faster in water while standing on a solid block, rather than swimming.
Max Level: One (I).

Boots:

Feather Falling: Decreases fall damage taken, from heights or ender pearls. Allows for arguably more graceful landings.
Max Level: Four (IV).

Depth Strider: With depth strider, you can move in the water faster. At its max natural level, you can move nearly as fast in the water as you can on land. Depth strider is exclusive to Frost Walker, but both will function if applied to a pair of boots with commands.
Max Level: Three (III).

Frost Walker: Freezes any still water stood on by the wearer, and turns the water into frosted ice. Yes, Minecraft added an enchantment to bring that old "Jesus" hack to life.
Max Level: Two (II).

Sword:
(Note: Most sword enchantments can be put on axes through the use of an anvil).

Sharpness: Increases dealt damage to any mob hit, the go to enchantment on most PVP servers. Sharpness is exclusive to Smite and Bane of Arthropods, as it can be the only damage modifier on a melee weapon.
Max Level: Five (V).

Smite: In relation to Sharpness, Smite adds even more damage per hit, but only affects undead mobs. These include zombies, skeletons, and the wither.
Max Level: Five (V).

Bane of Arthropods: Like the above, it increases dealt damage, but only to Arthropods. Or for those of us who are clueless of that word, bugs. Scorn those Entomologists!
Max Level: Five (V).

Knockback: Pushes foes backward further with each hit. With unnatural enchants, enchants above the Vanilla Minecraft cap, this enchant can practically make mobs vanish with a single hit.
Max Level: Two (II).

Fire Aspect: Adds fire to any mob hit, and as a bonus, it cooks any meat dropped if the animal was still on fire on death. It's important to note that the fire effects are weaker on nether mobs.
Max Level: Two (II).

Looting: Increases the amount of drops a mob leaves behind, and chances of rare items. A good example is a mob's weapon, armor, or carrots, potatoes, and iron from zombies.
Max Level: Three (III).

Bow:

Power: Increases arrow damage, and unlike swords, this is the only damage modifying enchant for the bow. It is definitely crucial to having a good, and effective bow.
Max Level: Five (V).

Punch: This enchant is equivalent in effect to the sword's knockback enchant. It throws adversaries backwards with each shot. This enchant is ideal for bow spammers, as even pulling back on the draw string a little bit can send a mob flying back.
Max Level: Two (II).

Flame: This enchant is equivalent to the sword's fire aspect. It sets mobs aflame, and deals extra damage to them. Like the sword, if an animal is shot with a flame bow and is killed on the arrow's impact, the animal will dropped cooked meat.
Max Level: One (I).

Infinity: Arguably the most important enchantment of a bow, infinity can duplicate arrows out of one. You only need to have one arrow in your inventory and it will never be consumed. You will not, however, be able to pickup shot arrows like a normal bow, because all the arrows shot are duplicated of the one in your inventory.
Max Level: One (I).

Tools:
Pick, Shovel, Axe:

Efficiency: Increases mining and digging speed of all blocks by its supported tool. Can be put on sheers as well as the tools above.
Max Level: Five (V).

Silk Touch: Allows blocks to be obtained in their pure form. This includes ores, grass blocks, glass, and ice. Silk Touch is exclusive to Fortune, you can not naturally get both enchants on a pickaxe at the same time.
Max Level: One (I).

Fortune: Like Looting, it yields more with each block break. From a vain of eight diamonds, you could acquire double the amount or more.
Max Level: Three (III).

Fishing Rod:

Lure: Like the name states, this enchant decreases the wait time between catches by luring more fish to your line. At Level eight, an unnatural enchantment in Minecraft and can only be received through the use of commands, can catch a fish almost instantly upon casting. Anything past ten will not function properly.
Max Level: Three (III).

Luck of the Sea: Decreases the amount of junk on your line and allows for a higher chance to get treasure items. Some of these items are dungeon gear like saddles, while other treasures can be enchanted tools and weapons. Junk can include bad stuff like TNT though, so be weary while fishing!
Max Level: Three (III).

All Tools, Weapons, and Armor:

Unbreaking: Increases the item's durability points, and can be placed on almost all tools, including the Elytra.
Max Level: Three (III).

Mending: Using XP orbs, items with the Mending enchant gain back three durability, and it is split between items for each orb gained. Like Unbreaking, can be used on almost any tool including Shields and the Elytra.
Max Level: One (I).

3: Using Commands to Get Unnatural Enchants.

By using a Command Block, given to a player in-game by typing /give (Player Name) 137 1, you can enchant items with unnatural enchants.

This string of commands being put into the Command Block will allow you to enchant your tool or weapon with virtually any combination, and make the enchantment levels as high as you would like.
Here is a basic command to get an enchanted item:
give @p minecraft:Item 1 0 {ench:[{id:##,lvl:##}]}

Here is an example of a player using the command I specified above in a command block.

Here is a more complex command to name, add a lore, and enchant the item:
give @p minecraft:Item 1 0 {display:{Name:Item Name,Lore:[Whatever Lore]},ench:[{id:##,lvl:##},{id:##,lvl:##},{id:##,lvl:##},{id:##,lvl:##},{id:##,lvl:##},{id:##,lvl:##},{id:##,lvl:##}]}

It would look something like this:
give @p minecraft:diamond_sword 1 0 {display:{Name:OP Sword,Lore:[Lay waste to your foes.]},ench:[{id:16,lvl:10000},{id:17,lvl:10000},{id:18,lvl:10000},{id:19,lvl:10000},{id:20,lvl:10000},{id:21,lvl:10000},{id:35,lvl:10000}]}

The weapon stated above would have the name "OP Sword," the lore "Lay waste to your foes," and the enchants Sharpness 10000, Smite 10000, Bane of Arth. 10000, Knockback 10000, Fire Aspect 10000, Looting 10000, and even Fortune 10000. If you were to kill any single mob, or any piece of grass with this sword, the drops would create so much lag your game would most likely crash. It crashed my server one time when I was fooling around and hit a piece of grass, and I learned my lesson then!

There are plugins that allow you to do the same thing on a server with a simple command, and I use it on my own server!

4: IDs and Bukkit Data Values:

Each enchant has an ID, and Bukkit configuration files handle the enchants differently. In order to make over powered weapons through command blocks, you need to know the Items IDs, and if you are ever trying to configure a plugin of some sorts on your server, knowing the Bukkit data values could be helpful.

Here is a Chart of the Minecraft Enchantment Data Values from the Minecraft Wiki:

For Bukkit, the enchantment IDs are no different, but the Data Values are:

Protection; PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL
Fire Protection; PROTECTION_FIRE
Blast Protection; PROTECTION_EXPLOSIONS
Projectile Protection;
Feather Falling; FALL_PROTECTION
Respiration; OXYGEN
Aqua Affinity; WATER_WORKER
Thorns; THORNS
Depth Strider; DEPTH_STRIDER
Frost Walker; (FROST_WALKER?)
Sharpness; DAMAGE_ALL
Smite; DAMAGE_UNDEAD
Bane of Arthropods; DAMAGE_ARTHROPODS
Knockback; KNOCKBACK
Fire Aspect; FIRE_ASPECT
Looting; LOOT_BONUS_MOBS
Efficiency; DIG_SPEED
Silk Touch; SILK_TOUCH
Unbreaking; DURABILITY
Fortune; LOOT_BONUS_BLOCKS
Power; ARROW_DAMAGE
Punch; ARROW_KNOCKBACK
Flame; ARROW_FIRE
Infinity; ARROW_INFINITE
Luck of the Sea; LUCK
Lure; LURE
Mending; (MENDING?)Remember, don't get the Bukkit Enchantment Data Values, the above, mixed up with the Minecraft ones!

5: Conclusion
There is probably much more I could cover, and I will continue to learn more until I can cover the detail I have neglected. Thank you for choosing my Guide to read over the many on PMC. If you appreciated the work I put into this, or learned something new, leave a diamond, or a comment down below!