If you’ve ever rummaged through enchantment table results or found a random enchanted book in a dungeon chest, you’ve probably asked what is Smite in Minecraft at least once. This melee weapon enchantment is one of the most underrated picks for players who spend a lot of time fighting hostile mobs, especially in survival mode where undead enemies pop up around every corner. I’ve been playing Minecraft for over 10 years, and I still keep a Smite-enchanted sword in my hotbar for every deep cave dive or Nether expedition. It saves me so much durability on my main Sharpness sword, and cuts through hordes of zombies and skeletons in seconds.
What is Smite in Minecraft, and Which Mobs Does It Affect?
Smite is a combat-only enchantment that adds extra damage to attacks against undead mobs, with no effect on living mobs, passive mobs, or other players. Each level of Smite adds 2.5 extra hearts of damage, so the boost stacks dramatically as you level up the enchantment. This is exactly why Smite in Minecraft is such a popular pick for Nether explorers and players farming undead mob drops.
Not sure which mobs count as undead? All mobs affected by Smite are listed below:
- Zombies, zombie villagers, drowned, husks, and zoglins
- Skeletons, strays, wither skeletons, and skeleton horses
- Phantoms, ghasts, zombie piglins, and the Wither boss
You can apply Smite to swords, axes, and tridents in both Java and Bedrock editions of the game. Smite caps at level 5 in vanilla Minecraft, so you won’t find higher levels unless you use custom mods or admin commands. Even at level 5, the damage boost is so high that most common undead mobs die in one hit from a Smite V sword.
How to Get Smite in Minecraft
There are a few reliable ways to get Smite, no matter what stage of survival play you’re in. The most accessible method is using an enchantment table, though you’ll need at least 15 experience levels to have a decent chance of rolling Smite III or higher. Higher level enchantment tables (with 15 bookshelves around them) give you the best odds of getting Smite IV or V directly on a weapon.
If you don’t want to grind for experience, you can get Smite enchanted books from librarian villagers. Place a lectern next to an unemployed villager to turn them into a librarian, and reset their trades by breaking and replacing the lectern until they offer a Smite book. You can often get Smite V books for just a few emeralds and one experience point if you get lucky with trades.
You can also find pre-enchanted Smite weapons or books in loot chests across the game, including desert temples, jungle temples, Nether fortresses, and End cities. You can combine lower-level Smite books on an anvil to get higher levels – for example, two Smite IV books make one Smite V book, so you don’t have to wait for a max level drop from an enchantment table or villager.
Smite vs Sharpness: Which Enchantment Should You Use?
One of the most common questions new players ask is whether Smite is better than Sharpness, and the answer depends entirely on what you’re using the weapon for. Sharpness adds 1 extra heart of damage per level to all mobs and players, so it’s a far more versatile pick for general use. Smite only works on undead mobs, but its 2.5 heart per level boost makes it 2.5x more powerful than Sharpness for those specific targets.
You can’t have both Smite and Sharpness on the same weapon in vanilla Minecraft, so you’ll have to pick one for each tool you enchant. Most long-time players keep both enchanted weapons on hand: a Sharpness V sword for general exploration and PvP, and a Smite V weapon for undead-heavy areas like the Nether or dungeon mob farms.
Smite is the better pick for Wither fights, as it cuts the boss's health down in half the time Sharpness would, even with max level Sharpness. I once tried to fight the Wither with a Sharpness V sword, and it took me almost 10 minutes to beat it. When I switched to a Smite V axe for my next attempt, I finished the fight in under 4 minutes, no exaggeration. The difference is that noticeable when you’re fighting a high-health undead boss.
Pro Tips for Using Smite Effectively
To get the most out of your Smite enchantment, there are a few small tricks that will make it far more useful. First, put Smite on an axe if you play Java Edition, since axes have higher base damage than swords, so the Smite damage boost adds even more total damage per hit. If you play Bedrock Edition, stick to swords for Smite, since they have faster attack speed that works better for crowd control.
Smite works on tridents too, so you can use it for long-range undead fights – perfect for taking out phantoms from the ground or ghasts in the Nether without getting close to their explosive attacks. This is one of the most underused applications of Smite, and it makes exploring the Nether so much less stressful if you hate dealing with random ghast fireballs.
Don’t waste Smite on a weapon you only use for building or mining, since it offers no benefit outside of combat. If you mostly play creative mode, you can skip this enchantment entirely, as it won’t help you with building or mob testing for most builds. You can add Unbreaking and Mending to your Smite weapon to make it last forever – I have a Smite V Unbreaking III Mending axe I’ve been using for 2 years of survival play, and it’s still in perfect condition.
One final note: if you play on a multiplayer server with PvP enabled, never bring a Smite weapon to a player fight. It does no extra damage to other players, so you’ll be at a huge disadvantage compared to someone using a Sharpness V weapon. Save your Smite tool for PvE content only, and keep a separate Sharpness weapon for any PvP situations you might run into.
At the end of the day, knowing what is Smite in Minecraft can completely change how you approach undead fights and boss battles. It's not the most versatile enchantment out there, but it punches way above its weight when you use it for its intended purpose. You don't have to prioritize it over Sharpness when you're first starting out, but it's worth grabbing a Smite V book from a librarian as soon as you can, especially if you plan to fight the Wither or build an undead mob farm. Give it a try on your next cave dive, and you'll be shocked how much faster you clear out zombie hordes.