Is Minecraft mace weapon overpowered or balanced?

The mace is the newest Minecraft 1.21 feature to be revealed to the public and is the first weapon added to the game since crossbows in the 1.14 Village and Pillage update. They are an interesting reward for visiting the upcoming Minecraft trial chamber and allow players to convert gravity into extreme damage and other utilities.

The weapon is so good that it can one-shot every mob in the game, given enough of a fall. Much of the community has begun asking if the weapon might be too strong in its current state, with the answer being that, yeah, it probably is too powerful as is. There is no shortage of reasons why it's so strong, either.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer's opinions.

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Minecraft's new mace is probably too strong

Absurd damage

With the new Mace, you can setup a wither farm (2 items / min). Needs further refinement, but the concept works! byu/Aegon95 inMinecraft

To start off the examination of why maces are more than likely too strong, the weapon's base damage is equivalent to that of a diamond sword. This already puts it among the best melee weapons in the game, which isn't a bad start. This is only the start, though.

The entire gimmick of the weapon, as mentioned previously, is the ability to convert fall damage into regular weapon damage. This is done at a rate of 5 damage, or 2.5 hearts, for every block fallen past the first. This is a very generous conversion and allows players to quickly start one-shotting each other, putting maces up there with Minecraft's deadliest instakills.

This means that it only takes a 100-block fall to get into one-shotting the warden territory. While this seems like a lot, one of the most important of Minecraft's many updates increased world height by 64 blocks, already halfway to the goal on its own. The world is tall enough to make this possible, though it would require a lot of setup.

Minecraft's breeze has been made even more similar to blaze due to now dropping breeze rods, which are either used to craft the mace or converted into wind charges to make the mace much deadlier.

Wind charges are an almost free way to get a lot of vertical height from flat ground. Another cheap option that's not quite as useful, though, would be scaffolding.

Mace+Elytra+Wind Charge byu/ghost_of_abyss inMinecraft

Players could even add an elytra into the mix, meaning that if a player is fast enough, missing a swing might not even be guaranteed to result in death. Or, a really talented PvP player might even be able to divebomb someone and strike without landing. This might also work with riptide tridents and waterbuckets.

All in all, this immense damage potential, especially since it can become life-threatening so quickly and cheaply, will probably need to be reworked, if only slightly. It needs to be more challenging to get into the instakill range, or some kind of cap limiting the amount of damage it can deal.

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Amazing utility

This AOE knockback is unlike anything else in the game (Image via Mojang)

The mace is not just a simple damage dealer, but it also has very useful utility. The weapon converts fall damage into regular entity damage, so naturally, the mace can cancel all fall damage. This means players might be able to justify leaving water buckets off of their hotbar since fall-canceling can now be done with a weapon equipped.

Additionally, any mobs in close proximity to a mob hit by a downward slam will also be knocked back as if they were hit. This deals no damage but is one of the only sources of crowd control in the entire game, outside of Minecraft TNT cannons and piercing arrows, that is.

These incredibly strong and unique effects are another point toward the weapon being too strong in its current state. It offers too much value in both damage and utility to justify avoiding it, even if there's a potential for damage or even death.

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"Balanced" by enchanting

Maces cannot currently be enchanted (Image via Mojang)

Enchanting is the one area where the mace has a negative balancing factor. It cannot currently be enchanted at a table or by using an anvil, making it one of the only unenchantable craftable tools. This means Minecraft's best enchantments, such as mending and unbreaking, won't be usable on it.

This does make some sense, however, as the incredible damage potential and powerful unique utility features are on par, if not superior, to the unique enchantments found on the game's other weapon types. Tridents come close with channeling, which is useful for farming Minecraft's many mob heads and riptide for flight, but crossbow enchantments are, unfortunately, quite weak in comparison.