If you’ve ever wandered into a deep Minecraft cave at night only to get taken out by a random creeper before you can swing your sword, you know how important strong gear is. The fastest way to turn basic iron or diamond gear into game-changing equipment is to learn how to enchant in Minecraft, and it’s way less complicated than new players think. I’ve been playing Minecraft on and off for over a decade, and I still get giddy when I roll a perfect enchantment on a new pickaxe or chestplate. This guide breaks down everything you need to know, from setting up your first enchantment table to avoiding common mistakes that waste your hard-earned resources.
How to Enchant in Minecraft: First Steps to Set Up Your Enchanting Station
Before you can start adding perks to your gear, you’ll need to build a functional enchanting setup. First, craft an enchantment table using 4 obsidian blocks, 2 diamonds, and 1 book. Obsidian forms where water hits flowing lava, just make sure you use a diamond pickaxe to mine it, as any lower tier pickaxe won’t drop the block at all.
Once your table is crafted, place it in a clear open space. Enchantment tables only reach their maximum power level (30) when surrounded by 15 bookshelves, with a one-block gap between the table and each shelf. You don’t have to start with 15 shelves right away, but more shelves mean access to stronger, rarer enchantments. Make sure there are no blocks like torches, carpets, or signs in the gap between the table and shelves, as these will block the shelf’s power and lower your available enchant levels.
You’ll also need two core resources for every enchant: lapis lazuli and experience levels. You’ll need 1-3 pieces of lapis lazuli and 1-30 experience levels per enchant, depending on the power of the perk you choose. You can find lapis while mining at lower levels, and earn experience from mining, fighting mobs, farming, or smelting items in furnaces.
Common Enchantment Perks You Should Prioritize First
There are dozens of different enchantments in the game, but some are far more useful for regular play than others. If you’re new to enchanting, focus on these high-impact perks first to get the most value for your XP and lapis:
- Unbreaking III: Extends the lifespan of any gear by 300%, so you won’t have to repair your favorite pickaxe every other mining trip. It works on every type of tool, weapon, and armor piece.
- Efficiency V: Makes mining stone, dirt, and wood almost instant, cutting down your resource gathering time by half. Pair it with Unbreaking for a pickaxe that will last you weeks of regular play.
- Protection IV: Reduces all types of damage by 16% per armor piece, so a full set will cut almost all incoming damage in half. It works against creepers, skeletons, fall damage, and even lava burns.
- Sharpness V: Adds 3 extra attack damage to swords and axes, making most overworld mobs a one-hit kill. It’s the best general combat enchantment for both early and late game play.
- Mending: Uses experience orbs you collect to repair your gear automatically, so you never have to replace it if you keep earning XP. It’s the most valuable enchantment in the game for long-term gear use.
Keep in mind that some enchantments are mutually exclusive, meaning you can’t put them on the same piece of gear. I learned this the hard way early on, when I tried to put Fire Protection on my already enchanted Protection chestplate and wasted 30 levels for nothing. For example, you can’t combine Silk Touch and Fortune on the same pickaxe, or Protection and Projectile Protection on the same armor piece.
Pro Tips to Get the Exact Enchantments You Want
Enchantment table rolls are partially random, but you don’t have to rely on luck to get the perks you need. If you’re trying to figure out how to enchant in Minecraft to get very specific perks for a build or boss fight, enchanted books are your best bet. You can get enchanted books from the enchantment table, loot chests, fishing, or villager trades, then apply them to your gear using an anvil.
Enchantment lists refresh every time you perform any enchant, so you can reroll options without wasting high levels. If none of the three options that pop up when you put your gear in the table look good, grab a cheap disposable item like a wooden shovel, place it in the table, and pick the lowest level enchantment possible. This will refresh the entire list of available enchants for all items, so you can check again for the perk you want without spending a ton of XP.
Villager librarians are the most reliable source for rare enchantments like Mending, so you don’t have to rely on random rolls from the enchantment table. You can reroll a librarian’s trades by breaking and replacing their lectern until they offer the enchantment you want, as long as you haven’t traded with them already. It takes a little time to set up, but it’s worth it to get exactly the enchants you need without grinding for hundreds of XP levels.
When applying multiple enchants to a single piece of gear, always combine all the enchants onto books first, then apply all the books to your final gear at once. This reduces the anvil XP penalty that builds up every time you modify a piece of gear, so you won’t end up with gear that costs 40 levels to repair later.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Enchanting
Even experienced players make silly enchanting mistakes that waste hours of hard work collecting resources and XP. First, don’t waste high level enchants on low tier gear. Gold gear has the highest enchantability in the game, meaning it’s more likely to get multiple strong enchants per roll, but its extremely low durability means you’ll lose your enchanted gear after just a few uses. It’s almost always better to save your high level enchants for diamond or netherite gear, since those have the highest durability and will last you the longest.
Another common mistake is not checking for mutually exclusive enchants before you spend levels on a book or enchantment roll. If you want a pickaxe specifically for mining diamonds and other ores, don’t waste levels on Silk Touch, since you won’t be able to add Fortune later. Decide what you want to use a piece of gear for before you enchant it, to avoid wasting resources on perks you don’t need.
Don’t forget to back up your most valuable enchanted gear too. I once lost a fully enchanted netherite pickaxe with Mending, Fortune V, and Unbreaking III because I fell into lava while mining, and I didn’t have a spare. Keep a copy of your most important enchanted gear in a chest at your base, so you don’t have to start over from scratch if you die and lose your items.
Finally, don’t feel like you have to go straight for level 30 enchants right away. Lower level enchants still give useful perks, and you can always upgrade your gear later once you have more resources and XP. Even a level 10 Efficiency enchant on an iron pickaxe will make your early game mining way faster than using an unenchanted tool.
Learning how to enchant in Minecraft is one of the biggest skill jumps you can make to go from a struggling new player that hides from creepers in a dirt hut to a pro that can take on the Ender Dragon or Warden without breaking a sweat. You don’t need to have a fully stacked base to get started either – even a low-level enchantment table with a handful of bookshelves can give you perks that make surviving your first few months in the world way easier. Take it slow, test out different enchantments that fit your playstyle, and don’t stress if you get a bad roll every now and then – that’s part of the fun of messing around in Minecraft.