There are many different weapons and tools at your disposal in Minecraft, so knowing the best enchantments for each item can be confusing.
Swords have the option for some of the best enchantments in the game, with higher-level enchantments granting better results, but there is an abundance of enchantments available to them which can make figuring out which ones to pick a difficult task.
While it might logically make sense to try and equip every available enchantment to a given weapon, this is not possible in Minecraft and in fact can hinder how a weapon performs. Certain enchantments conflict with each other which means that players will have to choose between them while others are simply useless and should be avoided.
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Opening an enchantment table and seeing all the different kinds of enchantments that appear every time you enchant something new can make it hard to know what exactly you should be looking for.
If you are aiming for the most versatile and powerful sword possible, here is a list of the best sword enchantments to improve your gameplay in Minecraft.
Best Minecraft Sword Enchantments
Of all the sword enchantments available to players in Minecraft, only seven are actually worth equipping.
1) Mending (I)
Perhaps the best enchantment in all of Minecraft is Mending, which can be applied to a variety of equipment including swords.
Enchanting items takes a lot of work and hard-earned levels, so save yourself the hassle of constantly having to create new weapons by applying Mending to your sword. This enchantment will replenish your sword’s durability any time you hit something that drops experience.
Pretty much all mobs in Minecraft drop experience which means players will consistently be earning experience throughout all battles. Hostile mobs, which you will likely be using your sword against more often, drop more experience and mend your sword more quickly.
2) Unbreaking (I-III)
If you are putting effort into enchanting something, you will want to make sure you enchant it with Unbreaking to increase its durability. Unbreaking helps reduce durability depletion with a chance to not wear it down on every use, depending on the level of Unbreaking.
This is another enchantment that is not exclusively available on swords but should always be equipped on them. Unbreaking is a powerful enchantment across all levels, but players should try to get Unbreaking III for the best durability increase.
3) Sharpness (I-V)
The Sharpness enchantment essentially increases your melee damage output. This makes your sword more powerful against all types of mobs. The exact amount of damage increase is dependent on the level of Sharpness you enchant it to, so try to enchant it to a higher level of Sharpness for the best results.
4) Looting (I-III)
The looting enchantment increases both the quantity and quality of mob drops. Enemies will drop more items and the chance of getting rare items is higher when they are hit with a Looting sword.
When hitting passive animal mobs, such as sheep or pigs, Looting yields more food per drop and is thus incredibly useful for farming lots of food at a rapid pace. Looting is also handy for quickly gathering mob drops from dangerous enemies that can be more difficult to face, such as Blaze Rods from Blazes.
5) Fire Aspect (I-II)
Fire Aspect is one of the best enchantments in Minecraft because it allows players to set any target of their choice on fire. Mobs also take repeated fire damage from this enchantment.
Any type of mob that drops food, such as cows or sheep, will drop fully cooked products and save players the hassle of cooking up raw food in a smoker or furnace. Against hostile mobs, Fire Aspect makes battles easier and quicker by dealing consistent damage after just one hit.
6) Knockback (I-II)
The Knockback enchantment increases the knockback performance of the sword that receives this enchantment. This is especially useful for mobs like Zombies or Creepers since you can knock them further away to keep yourself safe from their direct hits or explosions.
7) Sweeping Edge (I-III)
This enchantment increases sweep attack damage towards mobs. It makes hitting multiple mobs easier and more efficient while also knocking them back slightly.
Sweeping Edge is especially effective against annoying mob groups like silverfish. This enchantment is currently only available for Java Edition but is planned to be added to Bedrock Edition sometime in the future.
The worst sword enchantments in Minecraft
Outside of the seven great enchantments, three more are also available for swords in Minecraft, but these are very lackluster and should be avoided at all costs.
1) Bane of Arthropods (I-V)
This enchantment will inflict better damage and grant level IV of slowness against arthropod mobs in Minecraft. It will work on the following:
- Spiders
- Cave spiders
- Silverfish
- Bees
- Endermites
Bane of Arthropods isn’t bad per se, but it is always a better choice to equip any sword with Sharpness instead. These two enchantments cannot be applied to the same weapon and Sharpness works against any foe while Bane of Arthropods is specific to just a few mobs.
2) Smite (I-V)
For the same reason Bane of Arthropods should be avoided, so too should players stray away from utilizing Smite. This enchantment also only works on a select group of mobs, which are those of the undead variety and are as follows:
- Skeletons
- Zombies
- Drowned
- Zombie villagers
- Withers
- Wither skeletons
- Zombified piglins
- Skeleton horses
- Strays
- Husks
- Phantoms
- Zombie horses
- Zoglins
Smite also conflicts with the Sharpness enchantment and players will thus be far better off enchanting their swords with Sharpness.
3) Curse of Vanishing (I)
This silly enchantment simply causes any item that it is equipped on to vanish when the player dies, which makes it pretty useless. It can actually be harmful to players hoping to run back and find where they died because their loot won’t be waiting for them and instead will have vanished from existence entirely.
The singular instance in which this could be useful is in a battle against other players where the wielder of a sword would rather have their weapon vanish from existence entirely they witness it fall into the hands of another player.
Ultimately, this enchantment really isn’t worth utilizing as players could simply persuade others to return their weapon instead of making it disappear forever.
