How to Enchant in Minecraft

Using Enchantment Table

The first step in enchanting is to make an enchantment table. This requires a book, 2 diamonds, and 4 obsidian blocks. In order to mine and gather obsidian, you will need to make a diamond pickaxe. So before you consider enchanting, you will need to obtain a total of 5 diamonds. Diamonds can be a source of frustration while playing Minecraft, due to their rarity. Just remember to dig below “Y” level 16 and remain patient. You will find the diamonds eventually.

Once you have located your diamonds, be very careful mining them out. Dig around them to ensure there is no lava nearby that can burn through your precious diamonds. Head back to a crafting table to make a diamond pickaxe.

Now you will need to dig up some obsidian. Obsidian is formed in Minecraft when a lava source block comes into contact with water. You can easily find it without much work in deep underground caves, or you can force this interaction yourself with a bucket of lava and a water bucket.

Regardless of your method, dig up some obsidian with your diamond pickaxe. Be careful while doing this, lava will typically have more lava underneath and caves can be full of hostile mobs. Do whatever it takes to prevent yourself from burning to a crisp and losing your hard-earned diamond pickaxe.

All that remains is to get a book. Kill a few cows for a piece of leather and get 3 pieces of paper from 3 sugarcane. Cows will spawn on any grassy plains, and sugarcane will generate on a dirt or sand block adjacent to water. Odds are, at this stage of the game, you will have easy access to both these items. Craft a book by placing 3 pieces of paper and 1 leather in your crafting menu.

All that is left is to craft your enchantment table. Place an obsidian block in the middle-most slot, a row of obsidian below it, diamonds on either side of the middle obsidian block, and a book in the top middle row to craft your enchantment table.

While it would be convenient if that were all it took, you will need 15 bookshelves in order to power your enchantment table fully. To craft a bookshelf, you will need 3 books and 6 wooden planks for each bookshelf. Totaling 45 books and 90 wooden planks. You can craft them yourself, or you can consider taking some bookshelves from villages. This will only drop books, but it can save you a lot of materials.

Once you have your bookshelves made, you can arrange a spot for your enchantment table. Your enchantment table needs 15 bookshelves placed 1 block away from the enchantment table itself to unlock level 30 enchantments. There are many different configurations you can use to satisfy this condition.

In order to enchant, you will also need lapis lazuli as an additional currency for enchanting. If you have found diamonds, you have likely already found lapis lazuli underground, make sure to collect some if you intend to enchant your items. One lapis is used for level 1 enchanting, two for level 2 enchanting, and three for level 3 enchanting. Level 1 enchantments will cost 1 level, and require anywhere from level 1-10 to unlock. Level 2 enchantments will cost 2 levels and requires anywhere from levels 11-20. Level 3 enchantments will cost 3 levels and requires level 30 with a fully powered enchantment table.

The enchantment table will show you one guaranteed enchantment, there can be more, but sometimes you will only get the enchantment the table shows you. This has to do with an item’s specific enchant ability. Gold items will typically get the best enchantments, and books will have worse enchantments.

If you would like to change the enchantments you see in the enchantment table you can do so by enchanting any item. By enchanting an item with a cheap level cost enchantment, the enchantment table will offer different enchantments for your items.

Rerolling enchantments is a complete display of luck, but sometimes guaranteeing an enchantment is better than wasting 3 levels on something you do not want.

Nevertheless, you can now pick and choose which tools, weapons, or armor you want to enchant and what enchantments you would like to have on your items.

Using Anvil

Chances are you would like to optimize your enchantments and get your enchantments to the highest tiers. There are a few quirks combining enchanted items at an anvil. Any work you do to a specific item will increase the item’s cost in levels the next time you use the same item.

This pickaxe only cost 1 level to put efficiency I earlier. Placing another enchantment on this item will cost more with any additional anvil work, regardless of the level of enchantment.

However, you can also combine certain enchantments together that you cannot obtain through an enchantment table. For example, mending is never offered in an enchantment table, but you can use a mending enchanted tool with a tool of the same material to confer the bonus onto the item.

The pickaxe in the leftmost slot has fortune II and unbreaking III, the pickaxe in the middle slot provides efficiency II and mending I. Combining into the pickaxe you see above. You can even combine similar enchantments together to upgrade the enchantment itself.

In this case, the pickaxe above in the leftmost slot has fortune II and unbreaking III. The pickaxe in the middle has fortune II. Combining these two pickaxes will upgrade the fortune enchantment into fortune III. Pay attention to the level costs of your anvil enchanting. Sometimes swapping the order will cost more or less.

While it is difficult to showcase through screenshots, the first arrangement of pickaxes costs 4 levels, while swapping the order costs 10 levels. Remember to check both options to ensure you are not paying more than you have to.

Finally, be sure that you are aware of the conflicting enchantments. In the screenshot below, the leftmost pickaxe has the fortune enchantment, while the pickaxe in the middle has a silk touch. The final result of this arrangement is that the silk touch enchantment gets overridden. If you swap the order, the anvil will not allow the combination in the first place.

There are a lot of quirks to remember with enchanting items. Pay attention to the little things to save yourself a lot of time.

Enchanting through Commands

Finally, we come to the last way to enchant items in Minecraft. You can enchant items through in-game commands if you have cheats enabled when you generated your world. For recent versions of the Bedrock and Java edition of Minecraft, you can use the syntax /enchant <targets> <enchantment> <level>. For example, /enchant @p blast_protection 4 to enchant the item the nearest player is holding with blast protection IV.

Try to be aware of what items you are holding. You cannot enchant tools with armor enchantments for example. Obviously, you can change the enchantment you are looking for with the correct syntax.

That is every way to enchant items in Minecraft.

Does Enchantment order matter in Minecraft?

The order in your enchantments are listed on your tool does not matter. If you are using commands to place incompatible enchantments onto the same item, there is a predetermined outcome for this scenario. The only time enchantment order matters is when you are enchanting items in an anvil, as the order of the items you are enchanting can cost different amounts of levels. Just swap the items around to see if it costs more or less.

What is the best way to Enchant Items in Minecraft?

When you are first starting to enchant items, you will most likely just want to enchant through an enchantment table. Try to guarantee the enchantment you want by seeing the enchantment itself being offered with the enchantment you are going for. Once you have a good baseline of enchantments, fill in the rest of the enchantments you need by using an anvil and enchanted books or other items of a similar type. You can easily get the optimal, perfect enchanted item with enough patience and determination.

Congratulations, you now know how to enchant your items in Minecraft with every available option. While rolling the dice in the enchantment table can be frustrating, remember that there are ways to mitigate the luck required. Consider trading with villagers for enchanted books, combining enchantments at an anvil, and even rerolling in an enchantment table can give you the enchantments you are looking for. A full set of perfectly enchanted gear is not meant to be easy to obtain. Keep trying to get exactly what you are looking for.