When players jump into the sandbox game Minecraft, the possibilities are endless. But whether you’re planning on building something grand, speedrunning the game as fast as you can, or simply seeing where the journey takes you, you’re going to want to ensure you have the right equipment to aid in your endeavors.
For all players looking to take on the more dangerous side of Minecraft, weapons are the key to success.
There are quite a few unique weapons players can obtain and enchant like axes, swords, and bows, but one of the most deadly weapons of all is the crossbow.
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Although the crossbow deals damage from a distance which might make players think it would be weaker than weapons that directly strike enemies up close, the crossbow actually features a perfect balance between brutal damage and long-range combat. Because of this, it is quite a powerful tool for players to have in their arsenal.
While the crossbow is excellent at dealing damage on its own, which any unlucky player likely already knows if they’ve come across a Pillager or Piglin that is wielding one, it does have some drawbacks like its long reloading period. Luckily, most of the crossbow’s drawbacks are easily fixed with the help of the right enchantments.
All crossbow enchantments in Minecraft
Unlike regular bows, players can load their crossbows with either regular arrows or explosive firework rockets. This makes it a more versatile tool as it has two different forms of projectiles and most of the enchantments that players apply to it will work regardless of which of the two players load their weapon with.
There is a total of six different enchantments that can be applied to a crossbow in Minecraft:
- Mending (I)
- Multishot (I)
- Quick Charge (I-III)
- Unbreaking (I-III)
- Piercing (I-IV)
- Curse of Vanishing (I)
Out of the six available enchantments, three are exclusively available for this weapon, five are immensely beneficial, and one should be avoided at all costs.
Best crossbow enchantments in Minecraft 1.19
While players will likely want to wait to enchant most of their armor, weapons, and tools until they have obtained either a diamond or Netherite version of them, the crossbow only has one version. This means players can choose to enchant it whenever which makes it an immensely useful weapon to utilize in the early stages of the sandbox game.
1) Mending
Before you are going to invest your levels into enchanting any piece of equipment or gear in Minecraft, you should always utilize the powerful Mending enchantment first.
Putting a ton of time and effort into gathering the required experience for powerful enchantments is very time-consuming and costly but the Mending enchantment will help ensure any asset you enchant will last forever.
With Mending applied, the durability bar of the crossbow, which is featured at the bottom of the crossbow icon in players’ toolbars, will be replenished as they engage in activities that grant experience. The entire purpose of the crossbow is to vanquish mobs which is an activity that grants experience and will thus always replenish the health of your powerful weapon.
2) Unbreaking
The Unbreaking enchantment pairs extremely well with the Mending enchantment as the duo complement one another to ensure your powerful gear never breaks. Without this enchantment applied, every time you fire a shot with your crossbow, its durability will deplete slightly which brings it closer to breaking.
With Unbreaking applied, each shot that players fire with the crossbow has a chance of not reducing the durability at all. This enchantment essentially makes your crossbow much tougher and less prone to breakage.
The Unbreaking enchantment, combined with the Mending enchantment, will ensure your weapon never breaks as long as you continue to utilize it during activities that grant experience. This enchantment has three levels with the Unbreaking III enchantment being the most effective at decreasing the amount of durability consumed.
3) Quick Charge
The exclusive Quick Charge enchantment can only be applied on crossbows. Most Minecraft players would likely agree the long reloading time is the biggest drawback that crossbows possess, but with the highest level of this enchantment applied, players will never need to worry about reloading speed again.
Each level of the Quick Charge enchantment will decrease the reloading time by 0.25 seconds. With Quick Charge III, which is the highest level, applied, players will be able to load their crossbows at a speed that is slightly faster than reloading a regular bow.
If players utilize commands to enchant a crossbow with Quick Charge they can also grant it the powerful Quick Charge V enchantment. This enchantment will reload the crossbow instantly but is technically a cheat beyond the regular advanced levels that are obtainable in gameplay.
4) Multishot
If you love the crossbow but wish it would shoot out more than one arrow then the Multishot enchantment is one you should prioritize applying. Multishot has just one level but will cause every singular arrow that players shoot with the crossbow to instead fire off as three arrows.
This enchantment will work on both regular arrows and firework rockets which means players can choose either way to vanquish foes and the Multishot enchantment will still be activated. As powerful as this enchantment can be at combating the regular single-target function a crossbow possesses, it does come with two potential drawbacks.
The first drawback is this enchantment will consume more durability than usual. A regular arrow shot with Multishot applied will consume three points of durability while a firework rocket shot with Multishot applied with consume a whopping nine points of durability. While this certainly sounds like a lot, it is quite easy to negate with both Mending and Unbreaking applied so players do not need to worry about their weapon breaking as long as they have both enchantments also equipped on their crossbow.
The second potential drawback of the Multishot enchantment is it conflicts with Piercing. Multishot is generally regarded as the better of the two, but this may differ based on your own playstyle and you may thus struggle to choose which one you want to apply to your weapon since Multishot and Piercing can never exist on the same crossbow.
5) Piercing
The Piercing enchantment causes any arrow players shoot from the crossbow to continue after passing through the first target onward to other ones. The number of additional targets the arrow will seek increases with each level and with the highest level of Piercing, which is IV, applied, players’ arrow will hit a total of five foes within the vicinity.
While this enchantment can be powerful for vanquishing a few foes within a given area, it does conflict with Multishot, which is generally regarded as the more powerful of the two. Players will thus always have to choose between the two when enchanting their crossbow since the two can never coexist on the weapon together.
Unlike Multishot, Piercing does not have any effect on firework rockets that are fired from a crossbow with this enchantment applied. This is yet another reason players will likely want to choose Multishot instead of Piercing.
Outside of the five powerful crossbow enchantments, there is also a sixth one that is harmful rather than helpful. This is the Curse of Vanishing enchantment which is a curse rather than a useful enchantment that players will want like the rest.
With the Curse of Vanishing enchantment applied, players will permanently lose their crossbow if they die while holding this item anywhere in their personal inventory. Players who die can usually run back to where they perished to gather all of their loot, but the Curse of Vanishing will instead cause the piece of gear to vanish forever.
Players will never come across the Curse of Vanishing enchantment at an enchantment table, but it may already be applied to crossbows players find around the world or from special locations like an End City, Stronghold, Jungle Temple, or found as chest loot, from fishing, from completing raids, and through trading with a village librarian.
While there are currently just six enchantments for the crossbow, players might see more arrive in future Minecraft updates. Enchantments do not seem to be a feature that Mojang regularly updates, but players did get a new enchantment during the Wild Update. This enchantment was Swift Sneak, which is a leggings-exclusive enchantment that allows players to move more quickly while sneaking and was specifically designed to grant players the ability to sneak around the Warden in the Deep Dark biome.
Minecraft’s next update, which is 1.20, currently has no enchantments planned, but this could change as the update draws closer.
If not, there is still always a chance more crossbow enchantments could arrive in later updates since Mojang is still actively adding to the sandbox game.
