Minecraft’s combat is more profound than it looks, featuring all sorts of ways to customize your gameplay experience. Among those methods is Enchantments — a magical way of modifying your weapons like the sword, mace, bow and trident.
This guide will cover Sword Enchantments, explicitly detailing the best ones, such as Fire Aspect, Bane of Arthropods, and many more.
Updated 4/17/2025
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What Are Sword Enchantments In Minecraft?
Sword Enchantments modify a Sword’s properties, making it stronger or increasing its durability.
For example, the Fire Aspect Enchantment makes killing Mobs easier as it sets them on fire, dealing temporary damage on top of your normal attacks. The Sharpness Enchantment increases melee damage for whatever weapon it’s on.
There are many Enchantments to try out, assuming you have the materials for them.
How To Enchant A Sword In Minecraft
Enchanting a Sword in Minecraft requires an Enchantment Table, some Bookshelves, and Lapis Lazuli.
Bookshelves
Creating Bookshelves requires six of any Wood Plank and three Books.
Organize them as follows via the Crafting Table:
Lapis Lazuli
You can find Lapis Lazuli while exploring in caves. You’ll notice it is available in stone blocks with blue streaks:
Craft An Enchantment Table
Craft an Enchanting Table by gathering resources such as a Book, two Diamond, and four Obsidian. Organize them as follows via the Crafting Table:
Once you’ve crafted an Enchanting Table, surround it with Bookshelves as follows:
Surrounding the table with Bookshelves increases the Enchantment levels it can offer. Higher level Enchantments are not only more powerful, but may grant you additional Enchantments when granted.
There is technically a fourth ingredient you must pay attention to: your experience bar.
When you place a Sword in the Enchanting Table, you’ll notice that the higher-level Enchantments will require a certain level of experience points. You must be at that level to successfully enchant the Sword.
Gain experience points by defeating enemies, smelting items, and mining specific resources like Redstone, among other methods.
If you find a Book with an Enchantment on it, you can use an Anvil to apply it to your Sword.
Best Sword Enchantments Minecraft Has To Offer
Of course, the best Sword Enchantments in Minecraft are entirely subjective, but here’s our list of them.
1. Mending Enchantment
The Mending Enchantment is great to have if you’re a frequent fighter. This Enchantment repairs your Sword when you collect experience points, allowing for an essentially unbreakable weapon. It’s especially ideal for Diamond Sword or Netherite Sword users, as repairing these weapons becomes expensive quickly.
There is only one level of Mending, but that’s all you really need.
2. Unbreaking Enchantment
The Unbreaking Sword Enchantment is a powerful adjustment, allowing your Sword to avoid taking durability damage when you swing it. Pair this with the Mending Enchantment and your Sword will be virtually unstoppable.
You can level Unbreaking up to three, with each level giving you a higher level of durability reduction.
3. Sharpness Enchantment
The Sharpness Enchantment adds damage to every Sword swing. Each Enchantment level increases your Sword damage by 0.5 times said level, plus 0.5.
The highest Sharpness Enchantment level is Sharpness V.
4. Looting Enchantment
The Looting Sword Enchantment will make hostile Mobs and other Mobs drop extra loot upon defeating them.
This Enchantment level peaks at Looting III, with each level increasing the amount of items a Mob can drop.
5. Fire Aspect Enchantment
As mentioned earlier, Fire Aspect applies fire damage to each Sword swing.
This fire will last four seconds, piling onto the damage you normally do with a Sword.
You can level the Enchantment up to two, with each level doing more damage than the one before.
A Mob defeated while on fire will also drop cooked meat, if it normally drops meat, that is. For instance, defeating a Pig with Fire Aspect will occasionally drop cooked meat.
You can also light TNT and Campfires, among other items that can be lit, using Fire Aspect.
6. Sweeping Edge Enchantment
The Sweeping Edge Enchantment is only available in Minecraft: Java Edition. This is because the sweeping mechanic, in general, is only possible in Java.
Every time you attack in Java, you’ll notice that a small bar next to your reticle will slowly fill. If you let it finish, your Sword will attack in a sweeping motion, attacking multiple Mobs simultaneously.
The Sweeping Edge Enchantment increases the sweep’s damage output.
You can level it up to three, with each level doing a bit more Sword damage than before.
7. Knockback Enchantment
The Knockback Enchantment is a powerful addition to any Sword type. Especially a Diamond Sword.
Knockback does exactly what you think it may — it knocks enemies back a fair distance, depending on the Enchantment’s level. You can use this to knock Creepers off of high cliffs in caves, for instance. It’s best to use on hostile Mobs, keeping them away from you to minimize damage.
You can increase the Knockback effect by sprinting into an enemy.
8. Smite Enchantment
The Smite Sword Enchantment deals additional damage to undead Mobs. Examples of undead Mobs include Zombies, Skeletons, Zombie Villagers, and even the Wither.
You can level Smite up to five, with each level doing more damage to undead Mobs than the previous one. Combine this with the power of a Diamond Sword or a Netherite Sword to deal some severe damage to these unnatural hostile Mobs.
9. Bane of Arthropods Enchantment
Bane of Arthropods is similar to Smite in that it does extra damage to specific Mobs. In this case, the Bane of Arthropods Enchantment deals bonus damage to Arthropod Mobs such as Spiders or Silverfish.
You can level the Enchantment up to five, with it dealing extra damage to Mobs per level. This Enchantment also adds the Slowness IV effect on Arthropod Mobs, almost acting as multiple Enchantments on the same Sword.
Higher Enchantment levels will increase the Slowness effect.
From here, you can equip your Sword with the best possible Enchantments. With that in mind, why not try using Enchantments with your friends?
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Max is a freelance writer with a love for gaming and technology. He’s always looking for the next big game to play and tinkers with tech in his remaining free time.
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