Minecraft: Best Enchantments For Swords [Top 10]

Here is a complete guide on the best sword enchantments in Minecraft.

Featured Image: Best Enchantments for Sword in Minecraft, Enchanting Table, Base
Best Sword Enchantments in Minecraft

Enchanting a sword increases its potential considerably in terms of damage, range, and durability. We have different enchantments for each purpose. Lets have a look at some of the best enchantments for Swords in Minecraft.


Key Takeaways

  • There are various ways to put enchantments on your sword in Minecraft. These include the use of an Enchanting Table and Anvil.
  • The player can find enchantments by exploring the world or engaging in certain activities. Explicitly, these activities include Trading, Fishing, or Loot.
  • The Enchantments improve the stats of any swords they are applied to. Moreover, some enchantments also hand out unique traits when applied to a sword.
  • If the player uses an Enchanting Table, he generally needs experience points and Lapis Lazuli. If the player uses an Anvil, then the player can use an Enchanted Book and the sword holding the enchantment’s property.
  • Some enchantments will conflict with the others, meaning the player will have to select only one enchantment in such a scenario.

The potential of enchantment for each sword is different in Minecraft. You must get a Netherite sword first to get the best sword, as its potential is greater than the Diamond sword. The base Netherite sword has eight attack damage and 1.6 attack speed.

Base stats of a normal Netherite sword
Netherite Sword Base Stats

How To Get Sword Enchantments In Minecraft

Although enchanting is a trickier part of the game, it is also quite easy to obtain its fragments ( Enchanted Books ). There are only a few, and approachable possibilities to get the best enchantments for your sword in Minecraft.

Exploring

Minecraft’s open world is so inviting to the players due to the fun and major activities that players encounter while exploring. Exploring this pixelated world often benefits players because of its rewarding dynamics. Following this, players can also have a chance to find some of the best enchantments that they can apply to their weapons.

The exploration covers most of the aspects where a player can find Enchanted Books. These books will have a chance to carry effects that can be applied to your sword and boost its stats and functionality. Specifically for sword enchantments, there are various ways to get them while exploring.

  • Chest Loot: Players can find enchanted books while strolling through different generated structures such as Woodland Mansion, Desert Temple, Dungeons, etc. However, the chest loot will have a chance to carry an enchanted book in it. The Java and the Bedrock Edition have the same places where these chest loots are generated. But, the chance for an enchanted book to be in it may vary on the game’s edition.
  • Drops: If you encounter a village being raided, you can act as a hero for the villagers and engage in the battle to defend that village. It will be beneficial because Vindicators and Pillagers may have a chance to drop an enchanted book upon death.

Fishing

Fishing for sword enchantments Minecraft
A Fishing Rod To Find Enchanted Books

Surprisingly, a Fishing Rod can get you a valuable catch if fortune smiles upon you. Players can engage in fishing to receive an enchanted book as a treasure.

If you find your chances thin while doing so, enchant your fishing rod. Use the Luck Of The Sea enchantment to increase your chance of finding a treasure.

  • By default, your chance to get a treasure through fishing is 5%.
  • Luck Of The Sea at level 1 will increase the chance to 7.1%. At level 2 of this enchantment, the chance will be 9.2%. However, level 3 will have an 11.3% chance to draw an enchanted book you may use on your sword.

Trading

Enchanted book trade in Minecraft
Enchanted Book Trades for Swords

The least hectic method to obtain an enchanted book is by trade offers. You can find a Librarian who will grant you the opportunity to receive an enchanted book from him. The enchanted book he will provide would depend on the chances regarding its effects, which means that there is a chance you will get an enchanted book that you can apply to your sword. The trade requires a Book and 5 – 64 Emeralds.

Learn the best trades and traits of villagers in our guide on Minecraft’s best villager trades.

How To Put Enchantments On A Sword

Before knowing the best enchantment for swords, you must first know how to craft an enchantment.

Enchanting Table

Crafting an enchanting table requires four obsidian, two diamonds, and a book.

 

Minecraft recipe for an enchanting table
Enchanting table recipe.

Enchanting using an enchantment table requires a book, an ore called Lapis Lazuli, and certain experience levels. You can obtain books by crafting them using three pieces of paper and a piece of leather or discover these chests across your world. To get Lapis, you have to mine the Lapis ore, or you can sometimes find it in treasure chests.

Once found, place these materials on the enchanting table with your sword to get the enchantment you want. To get maximum-level enchantments, place bookshelves around the enchanting table. New versions of Minecraft require fifteen bookshelves around the enchanting table to get the maximum 30-level enchantments.

Bookshelves arrangement around an Enchanting Table
Enchanting Table

Anvil

You can also enchant your sword using an anvil. You must obtain an enchanted book first.

Get Enchanted books by finding treasures/chests. You may start digging your world to discover a buried treasure, there is a chance you will find one.

Another best way to get Enchanted books is by trading. Find a Liberian villager and trade with him. A librarian NPC trades emeralds, papers, books, glass, and leather. So, it is pretty easy to level him up and get enchanted books.

The third approach to getting an enchanted book is fishing. It takes time and can be annoying sometimes, but it is quite helpful when you want rare enchantments like Mending.

Anvil Recipe and Enchantment process
Enchantment using Anvil.

Best Enchantments For Swords

The best enchantments for swords in Minecraft are explained as follows:

Sharpness

Sharpness increases the base attack damage of the sword. It is the most popular enchantment in Minecraft because it focuses on enhancing sword capability of dealing damage.

On top of that, sharpness has five tiers. Tier 1 sharpness increases the attack damage by 1. The following tiers each have an increment of 0.5 to the attack damage. To put it simple, the sharpness-V Netherite sword has an attack damage of 11.

Enchanting Netherite sword with sharpness V
Sharpness-V Netherite Sword

A standard Netherite sword puts an end to a zombie in 3 hits. A Sharpness-V Netherite sword will hit a zombie two times before it hits the ground.

Moreover, players can utilize the sharpness enchantment on any of the mobs in Minecraft. On the other side, it is also well-utilized in PvP battles. You will win your duel if you have an enchanted sword with sharpness while fighting a regular sword. If you want to know more, you can check out our detailed Minecraft sharpness enchantment guide.

However, this enchantment has some limitations regarding being compatible with a sword. It is to say that the Bane of Arthropods can not be practiced on a sword that holds a few other enchantments of somewhat similar effects. Namely, these enchantments are Smite or Bane Of Arthropods.

Unbreaking

Unbreaking is the best enchantment for durability. This perk is not limited to a sword but also works on other weapons, armor, and tools. Breaking your sword is inevitable, but this cruel fate can indeed be delayed by using Unbreaking. Unbreaking also comes with 3-tiers of upgrades.

Enchanting Netherite sword with Unbreaking III
Unbreaking-III Netherite Sword.

A Netherite sword has a base durability of 2032. Unbreaking almost doubles its durability, i.e., 4062 on tier 1, 6069 on tier 2, and 8128 on tier 3. This means your sword is four times as durable and will last four times longer. Unbreaking is not as good as mending but can be easily obtained and is widely used.

Looting

As the name suggests, Looting enchantment increases your loot drop. It is one of the best enchantments for swords in Minecraft because of allowing players to increase the loot drop in their world.

Although this enchantment does not have any contribution to the combat but is undoubtedly helpful in survival mode, looting also has three tiers of upgrades. Each tier increases the drop rate by one and the chance of dropping a rare item by 1%.

Enchanting Netherite sword with Looting III
Looting-III Netherite Sword

There is nothing wrong with getting more food and drops. Looting is most helpful while slaying mobs like Endermen, Blazes, and Wither Skeletons. The drop rate from these mobs is relatively low, but you can quickly obtain these rare materials if you have looting III.

More drops from looting-III enchantment
Looting-III Drops

Mending

Also known as the “Treasure Enchantment” because it is rarer than the other enchantments and is incredibly useful. You cannot forget Mending when discussing Minecraft’s best enchantments for swords. You can’t get Mending by Enchanting table, so you have to fish or trade for it.

Enchanting Netherite sword with Mending
Mending Netherite Sword

Mending is the most valued enchantment, as its abilities are unparalleled. This enchantment increases the sword’s durability by using XP. It restores two durability points by consuming one experience point. This is especially useful for swords because if you are getting enough experience points, your sword will never break.

Fire Aspect

Want to eat cooked food and avoid poisoning? Don’t want to mine for coal or wait for your food to cook. Just enchant your sword with Fire Aspect. This is one of the coolest enchantments that exist in Minecraft.

Enchanting Netherite sword with Fire Aspect II
Fire Aspect-II Netherite Sword

Fire Aspects applies a burning effect to mobs and enemies. Unlike most sword enchantments in Minecraft, Fire Aspect only has two tiers of upgrades. On a Netherite sword, tier 1 burns for 3 seconds, and tier 2 burns for 7 seconds. Meaning tier 1 deals 1.5 hearts worth of damage, and tier 2 deals 3.5 hearts worth of damage.

Zombie burning through Fire Aspect perk
Fire Aspect Burning Effect

This enchantment is useful in PvP mode as it deals an extra bit of damage by burning effect. You get a massive advantage over your enemies if you have Fire Aspect. If you are in the bedrock edition, you can also trigger TNTs and light candles or campfires with this enchantment.

Knockback

This enchantment knocks the enemies away. It has two tiers of upgrades. Tier 1 gives 109% Knockback, and tier 2 gives 190% Knockback. This means tier one pushes enemies three blocks, and tier two pushes enemies six blocks away.

Knockback is most useful in PvP mode, fighting against creepers and a group of mobs. In a PvP battle, you can easily win a battle even if you do not have good equipment to drain the HP out of the opponents.

Enchanting Netherite sword with knockback II
Knockback-II Netherite Sword

If an army of mobs is chasing you, or you want to slay some creepers, this enchantment will be useful as it will prevent the creepers from blowing and you from getting hit by multiple mobs simultaneously.

Despite its advantages, this enchantment can sometimes be annoying. You may want to slay a mob or loot an enemy in PvP, and knockback pushes it back or throw the entity in lava. So, think before enchanting your sword.

Sweeping Edge

Everyone knows axes deal more damage than swords. One advantage of swords over axes is the sweep attacks. It means you can hit multiple mobs simultaneously with a sword.

Sweeping Edge boosts this unique ability of swords. It is a 3-tier enchantment with a damage boost of 50% on the 1st, 67% on the 2nd, and a massive 75% on the 3rd.

Enchanting Netherite sword with sweeping edge III
Sweeping Edge-III Netherite Sword

This enchantment increases the sweeping damage, meaning you can combine it with other damage-boosting enchantments to increase its punch further.

Sweeping edge is helpful when facing a bunch of mobs or battling against more than one player in a PvP. A simple Netherite sword will take 4-6 sweeps to slay a row of three zombies, while a Sweeping Edge-III Netherite sword does the job in 2-4 hits.

Smite

Smite is the enchantment you are looking for if you want to slay a zombie with a single slash. This enchantment deals massive damage to undead mobs. More than half of the entities in Minecraft are undead, thus making Smite a treasured addition to your sword enchantments.

Smite has five upgrade tiers, and each tier increases the damage toward undead mobs by 2.5. So, a Netherite sword enchanted with Smite-V will deal 20.5 damage to undead mobs killing zombies in a single hit.

Enchanting Netherite sword with smite V
Smite-V Netherite Sword

Smite is a useful enchantment, but unlike Sweeping Edge, it cannot be combined with Sharpness. This enchantment damages zombies, skeletons, phantoms drowned, etc., and works on withers. This feature makes it a top contender among the best enchantments for swords in Minecraft.

Smite enchantment is incompatible with the sword already under the effect of a few other enchantments. These enchantments are Ban Of Arthropods or Sharpness.

Bane Of Arthropods

Like Smite, Bane of Arthropods is a mob-specific enchantment doing more damage to arthropod mobs. The arthropod mobs are spiders, cave spiders, silverfish, bees, and endermites. Similar to smite, it also has five tiers to upgrade each tier, adding base damage of 2.5 toward arthropod mobs. With a Netherite sword, you can get damage of 20.5 toward these mobs.

Enchanting Netherite sword with Bane of Arthropod V
Bane of Arthropod-V Netherite Sword

This enchantment slows the target mobs when hit, but if you have tier-5, you can end these mobs in one blow.

You can not apply Bane of Arthropods enchantment to the sword under the effect of either Smite or Sharpness.

Curse Of Vanishing

Curse of Vanishing is a sword enchantment with a negative effect. This enchantment makes your sword disappear when you die. While it is a curse, some people still make good use of this enchantment in multiplayer battles. When you die in a multiplayer battle, the enemy will pick up your loot and equip your valuable sword.

Enchanting Netherite sword with curse of vansishing
Curse of Vanishing

The players curse their swords to avoid them getting into the enemy’s hands.

Multiplayer Mode/PvP mode useful enchantments
Best Enchantments for Multiplayer Mode

Conclusion

Minecraft can be adamant if you are not enchanting your equipment. On the other hand, if you are playing with the proper enchantments, your gaming experience will be enjoyable.

Minecraft is an open world with different scenarios to experience every day. Sometimes you are chased by a mob army; sometimes, you fight your friends or assist them in end-game bosses. Meanwhile, these best enchantments for swords in Minecraft make these experiences entertaining and the game enjoyable. Happy enchanting gamers!

Similar Read: Guide to the Nether and the End

Was this helpful? 🎮

Good job! Please give your positive feedback ☺️

How could we improve this post? Please Help us. 🤔