I’ve been playing Minecraft for over a decade, and I still remember how confused I was when crossbows first launched with two seemingly similar combat enchantments: Piercing and Multishot. I wasted almost 30 levels on a bad enchantment combo my first time around, so I’m breaking down everything you need to know to avoid that mistake. Today we’re answering exactly what does piercing do in minecraft, how to use it, and when it’s the right pick for your loadout.
What Does Piercing Do in Minecraft at Each Enchantment Level?
At its core, Piercing is a crossbow-exclusive enchantment that lets your arrows travel through multiple entities in a straight line. Piercing only works with crossbows – you can’t put it on a bow, trident, or any other ranged weapon, no matter how hard you try. Each level of Piercing adds one extra entity your arrow can pass through before it stops or breaks.
For example, Piercing I lets your arrow go through 1 mob, so you can hit 2 total targets with a single shot. Piercing IV, the highest level, lets your arrow pass through 4 mobs, so you can hit 5 separate targets if they’re lined up perfectly. Regular arrows, tipped arrows, and spectral arrows all work with Piercing, so you can stack status effects like poison or weakness across an entire group of mobs with one pull of the trigger.
There’s a small damage dropoff for each entity the arrow passes through, but it’s barely noticeable for most use cases. I once used a Piercing IV crossbow with Power V to take out 4 zombies in a row with one shot, and the last one still took 6 hearts of damage. It’s way more efficient than firing 4 separate arrows, especially if you’re running low on supplies during a long mining trip or raid. If you play casually and just want to cut down on time spent fighting groups, this enchantment is a total game-changer.
Piercing vs. Multishot: Which Enchantment Is Right for You?
One of the most common mistakes new players make is trying to combine these two crossbow enchantments, but that’s impossible. You cannot combine Piercing and Multishot on the same crossbow – the game will block the combo if you try to use an anvil, so don’t waste your levels or enchanted books trying to make it work. That means you’ll have to pick one or the other depending on your playstyle. If you’re still weighing your options and not sure what does piercing do in minecraft for your specific routine, think about what you spend most of your time doing.
Multishot fires 3 arrows at once in a small spread, so it’s great for hitting fast-moving single targets or dealing burst damage to one tough mob like a creeper or enderman. You only get 1 durability damage per shot, and you only consume 1 arrow from your inventory, which is a nice bonus for single-target fights. But it falls apart when you’re fighting groups, because the spread means you’ll rarely hit more than one or two mobs at a time.
Piercing, on the other hand, shines when you’re facing large groups of enemies. It doesn’t have a spread, so all your damage goes exactly where you aim, and you can hit multiple targets in a line with zero waste. Arrows shot with a Piercing crossbow can even go through shields, which makes it an insanely strong pick for PvP fights where opponents are hiding behind wooden or iron shields. If you mostly play survival and spend a lot of time defending your base or fighting raids, Piercing is almost always the better pick.
Best Use Cases for the Piercing Enchantment
You don’t have to use Piercing for every fight, but there are a few scenarios where it’s easily the best enchantment you can have on a ranged weapon. I keep two crossbows in my hotbar at all times: one with Multishot for boss fights, and one with Piercing IV for everything else. Some of the top use cases for Piercing include:
- Fighting large hordes of mobs during raids, zombie sieges, or near spawners. You can line up 3-4 pillagers or zombies and take them all out with one shot, cutting down your fight time by 70% in most cases.
- Farming groups of passive mobs like cows, sheep, or pigs for resources quickly. Just line them up against a fence, fire one shot, and you’ll have enough leather, wool, and pork to last you weeks without wasting dozens of arrows.
- Taking out multiple lined-up opponents in PvP arenas or faction wars. Since Piercing arrows go through shields, you can take out 2-3 enemies at once if they’re grouped up trying to breach your base.
Piercing is the most efficient enchantment for raid defense, by a long shot. I once did a level 5 raid with only a Piercing IV crossbow, a stack of arrows, and a stone sword, and I finished it in under 10 minutes without taking any major damage. It also works great if you’re exploring the Nether and run into a group of piglins or blazes lined up across a bridge. One shot can take out 3-4 at once before they even get close enough to hit you.
Just don’t waste it on single mobs if you have another option. It works fine for single targets, but you’re not getting the full benefit of the enchantment if you’re only hitting one mob per shot. Save your Piercing crossbow for group fights, and use a bow or Multishot crossbow for individual mobs you run into while exploring.
How to Get and Maximize Piercing for Your Crossbow
Getting Piercing for your crossbow is pretty straightforward, and you don’t have to grind for hours to get the max level if you know where to look. The maximum available level for Piercing is 4 (Piercing IV), and you can get it from regular enchantment tables, fishing as a treasure enchantment, looting chests in dungeons or temples, or trading with librarian villagers. Librarians are the most reliable way to get it, since you can reset their trades until they offer Piercing IV for a few emeralds and a book.
Once you have your Piercing book, you’ll want to combine it with other complementary enchantments to make your crossbow as strong as possible. The best enchantments to pair with Piercing are Quick Charge to reduce your reload time, Unbreaking to make your crossbow last longer, and Mending to repair it with XP you earn from fighting mobs. You can also add Power to increase the base damage of every shot, which makes the damage dropoff from Piercing almost non-existent even for the last mob in a line.
There are a few small things to keep in mind to get the most out of your Piercing crossbow. Try to position yourself so mobs are lined up in a straight line before you fire, to hit as many as possible per shot. If you’re using tipped arrows, make sure you pick a status effect that benefits group fights, like poison or slowness, instead of instant harming which is better for single targets. You don’t need to use special arrows for Piercing to work, but tipped arrows let you get even more value out of every shot you fire.
At the end of the day, Piercing is one of the most underrated combat enchantments in Minecraft, especially for players who spend most of their time in survival mode. Now that you know what does piercing do in minecraft, you can stop wasting levels on bad enchantment combos and build a crossbow that makes group fights, raids, and mob farming way easier. Next time you’re gearing up for a big fight, grab a Piercing crossbow and see how much faster you can take out groups of mobs – I promise you won’t go back to a regular bow after you try it.