Get the Best Enchantment in Minecraft

In Minecraft, you can enchant swords, armor, and many tools to give them extra potency and special abilities. There's a large random element to which enchantments are available, but the right preparation unlocks much more powerful possibilities.

Steps

Preparing in Advance

  1. Build an enchantment table. You'll need a book, two diamonds and four obsidian.[1]
    • You can make a book with one leather and three paper, or loot them by breaking bookshelves in an NPC library.
    • Diamonds are occasionally found in chests. You can also mine them from diamond ore with an iron pickaxe. The ore is rare and only found on the deepest levels.
    • Obsidian requires a diamond pickaxe to mine. The easiest way to get it is to pour water onto lava.
  2. Surround your enchantment table with fifteen bookshelves. To get access to the highest level enchantments, you'll need fifteen bookshelves. Place each bookshelf exactly two squares away from the table, on the same level or one level above it. When correctly placed with no objects in between itself and the table, the bookshelf will send glyphs through the air to the table.
    • Even snow or a torch will block the effect of a bookshelf. This can come in handy if you're looking for a lower-level enchantment.
    • To craft a bookshelf, place a row of three books in the center of the crafting table and fill the rest with six wooden planks.
  3. Reach level 30. You must be level 30 to get access to the most powerful enchantments.[2] Killing mobs, mining, smelting, and cooking are the most common ways to gain experience. If you need to grind experience quickly, here are a few ways:
    • Make a mob spawning operation Make-an-Experience-Farm-in-Minecraft or Make-a-Mob-Spawner-in-Minecraft.
    • Breeding then killing animals is a very efficient way to boost your xp. Chickens are particularly efficient, due to cheap feed (seed) and low hp.
    • "Late game" players can collect fire resistant potions, enter the nether, and find a blaze spawner to gain levels in a matter of minutes. Mining nether quartz is another, decently fast XP option in this area.
  4. Avoid over-leveling. Each time you choose the highest level enchantment, you lose three levels. Enchant something as soon as you reach level 30, then gain back the levels afterward. Dropping from level 30 to 27 costs you 168 XP, while dropping from level 33 to 30 costs 216 XP, wasting 48 XP.[3]

Enchanting Items

  1. Place your item in the enchantment table. Some items have a better chance at getting high level enchantments than others. There is a random element as well, so there are no guarantees, but keep the following info in mind:[4]
    • Gold is the best by far in terms of enchantment level, but its low durability makes it unattractive unless you have lots of experience to spare. (Similarly, wood tools and leather armor are the run ups, though far behind gold.)
    • Iron swords and tools are significantly better at getting enchanted than diamond ones. However, diamond armor is slightly better than iron.
  2. Place lapis lazuli in the second slot. Minecraft 1.8 added a lapis lazuli cost to all enchantments. If you're going for the best enchantment (lowest slot on the table), you'll need three lapis lazuli each time.
    • Lapis lazuli ore is most common on levels 13 through 16, although it's still only slightly more common than diamond.[5]
  3. Mouse over the enchantment options. Minecraft 1.8 also added the ability to see the enchantment before you choose it, by hovering your mouse over the option. You are guaranteed to get at least this enchantment, but it is possible to get a second one as well — or if you're very lucky, three or more.[6]
  4. Enchant any item to reset the options. There is no way to change the three options you have available without choosing one of them. However, you will see different options for different types of items, and enchanting one will reset the options for all of them. For example, if you don't like your options for enchanting a sword, check out what's available for bows, tools, armor, or fishing poles. If you enchant any of them then look with your sword again, you'll see three new options.
    • If you don't think any of the options are useful, choose the cheapest (top) option so you only spend 1 level and 1 lapis lazuli. Consider using a book so you can add it to an item on the anvil, as described below.
  5. Enhance an enchanted item with anvils. You can make an anvil with three blocks of iron (top row), plus four iron ingots (bottom row and center square). Among other uses, the anvil lets you pay experience to combine enchanted items and transfer enchantments from books. Here's an overview of how this works:[7]
    • Books have worse odds at getting a good enchantment, but can be combined with any item with the anvil. This will only work if
    • Two identical items (material and type) can be combined at the anvil to recover durability and combine enchantments.
    • Before combining enchanted items, make sure the enchantments are compatible. (See Warnings below.) If two enchantments are not compatible, the one from the second item will disappear.

Tips

  • Build an enchantment table before you enter a portal into the Nether. Enchanted items will be very helpful in that realm.
  • You can get enchantments without losing XP from a village priest. The priest will enchant certain items in exchange for one or more emeralds.
  • When using books and anvils, if you add two or more enchantments to a book, it will most likely give you a good enchantment when you combine it with a tool or armor.
  • In villager trading, it is best to make a farm near the village to trade with the farmers to get emeralds. Then you can trade with the blacksmith or toolsmith.
  • When you are crafting enchantment tables, pay attention to the items you are using. It costs extremely rare items.

Warnings

  • An item cannot have two copies of the same enchantment. If you combine Protection I and Protection II, it will end up as Protection II (the higher level). If you combine Protection II and Protection II, you will get Protection III (one higher than before).
  • Swords can only have one damage enchantment (Smite, Sharpness, Bane of Arthropods), armor can only have one enchantment with Protection in the name, and tools cannot have both Silk Touch and Fortune.[4]

Things You'll Need

  • Enchantment table
  • 15 Bookshelves (optional, but highly recommended)
  • 30 Experience levels
  • 3+ Lapis lazuli

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enchantment_Table
  2. ↑ http://www.minecraft101.net/r/enchanting.html
  3. ↑ http://pernsteiner.org/minecraft/levelcalc.html
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Enchantment_mechanics
  5. ↑ http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Lapis_lazuli_ore
  6. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c55uC89RDdo
  7. ↑ http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Anvil_mechanics
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