The Ultimate Minecraft Enchantment Guide

What Are Enchantments?

Enchanting is essentially a way to make magic, armour, weapons, and tools in Minecraft. To enchant these items you’ll need a certain amount of experience (XP level) to begin with, and the more experience level you have, the more powerful your enchantments can be.

The tricky bit is that you won’t know what the enchantment is until you enchant the item.

Experience points (the green number above the toolbar) are used in exchange for enchantments. There will be enchantments that require a specific level of XP, out of which you’ll have to trade in one / or a few experience points to get the enchantment.

XP Bar showing Level 7

How Does Enchanting Work?

Step 1. Get experience points (XP)

You can obtain XP in various different ways, fighting mobs, mining, smelting and cooking, fishing and farming and sometimes buying it off villagers in the form of XP bottles called Bottle o' Enchanting (quite rare). Collecting XP increases your experience level.

Bottle O' Enchanting bought from the villager

XP Orbs scattered around after throwing the Bottle O' Enchanting on the ground

Step 2. Build an enchanting table.

Enchantment Table

To build an enchantment table, you will need obsidian, 2 diamonds, and a book.

A book? What’s that? I’m just kidding. You can make a book from paper, which is made from sugar cane and leather. Leather is obtainable by killing cows and rabbits.

Step 3. Begin enchanting.

You will need the item you’re enchanting and some Lapis Lazuli, which is the blue ore that you can find deep underground around level 12.

Lapis Lazuli (Blue Ore)

Bring out the interface which should look something like the image below.

Enchantment interface

Place the item into the slot and 3 enchantments will be provided. The column on the right shows the enchantments. The number to the left of the enchantment is the required level and Lapis Lazuli to trade-in to produce it, while the number on the right is the level you will need to be at.

For example, the first enchantment in the image requires you to be at level 2 and you would need to trade-in 1 level and 1 Lapis Lazuli to get the enchantment. While the second enchantment in the column requires you to be at level 3, and 2 levels and Lapis Lazuli to trade-in.

So, as you can see, the slots are based on the number of experience levels and Lapis Lazuli needed to be traded-in. The strange writings on the slots can be decrypted, but it isn’t of much help, you’ll only be able to know what enchantment you’ve got after you’ve performed the enchantment on the item. The higher the levels required to perform the enchantment, the better they will be.

Higher Enchantments

A basic enchantment table is only going to get your enchantment up to level 8, for more powerful enchantments, you’ll have to build yourself bookshelves and place them next to the table.

You'll need bookshelves around the enchantment table for more powerful enchantments of higher levels.

Each bookshelf increases the maximum available enchantments by a level or two, all the way up to 30 levels maximum, which translates to 15 bookshelves in total.

The placement of the bookshelves should be 2 blocks away from the table, on the same level or a level higher and there shouldn’t be anything between the bookshelves and the table.

Other Enchantment Functions

Enchanting A Book

You can enchant a book instead of performing the enchantment then and there, this will allow the enchantment to be saved and used later on other items with the use of an anvil.

This might make sense to do when you have a higher experience level and no item to enchant. Enchanting a book temporarily now would allow you to enchant the proper item when you obtain it later.

Two Enchantments On One Item

Once an item is enchanted you can’t enchant it any further. However, with the use of an anvil and an enchanted book, you can enchant the item with a second enchantment.

Repairing Enchanted Items

The only way you can repair an enchanted item is by using an Anvil.

In-game anvil

The Anvil can be crafted using three blocks of iron and three iron ingot in the following arrangement.

Disenchanting Items

The only way to disenchant an item is to either use the grindstone or repair the item by the crafting grid.

Grindstone (as seen in game)

Using the grindstone removes all enchantments (except Curse of Binding and Curse of Vanishing) and gives experience back based on the level of the enchantment(s) and their value.

Enchantable Items

Enchanted Sword.

• Swords
• Overall Armor
• Helmet
• Turtle Shell
• Chestplate
• Leggings
• Boots
• Sheild
• Bows
• Crossbow
• Trident
• Tools
• Shears
• Fishing Rods
• Flint and Steel
• Axes (Pickaxe as well)
• Shovel
• Hoe
• Thorns
• Carrot On a Stick
• Elytra
• Flint and Steel
• Warped Fungus on a stick

A chest with enchanted items

All Available Enchantments