What does efficiency do in Minecraft?

Image via Mojang
Image via Mojang

Efficiency is an enchantment in Minecraft that is meant for the players' tools. As the name suggests, efficiency is meant to make a tool more efficient at its designated job. This enchantment can be applied to axes, shovels, hoes, pickaxes, and shears. There are five levels to this enchantment that increase its effects per level.

Getting the efficiency enchantment can be done in a few ways. Players can make this enchantment using an enchantment table. Villagers have a chance at selling items with it. Some chests with enchanted items can be found in naturally generated areas.


What does efficiency do in Minecraft?

Image via Mojang
Image via Mojang

Efficiency enchantment in Minecraft has a specific benefit when added to a tool. This effect will only apply if the tool is used properly. Axes enchanted with efficiency are not going to have any changes in picking up dirt.

An ax that has been enchanted with efficiency has a higher chance at stunning shield-wielding entities. The higher the enchanted tools level, the higher chance it has of stunning them.

Efficiency, when applied to a tool, cuts down mining time for their respective blocks. A shovel will dig up dirt faster. The pickaxe will mine through stone and ore faster. This effect continues for each tool that the enchantment is applied to.

A player can obtain this enchantment in a few different ways. Tools that are already enchanted with efficiency can be bought off of villagers. Either a toolsmith or a weaponsmith has a chance at selling enchanted tools to players for emeralds. A book of enchantment along with enchanted tools can be found as loot in naturally generated structures.

Players can also get this enchantment using an enchantment table. An enchantment table in Minecraft can attach efficiency to either a book or a tool at the cost of lapis lazuli and XP. A book with this enchantment can later be combined with a tool using an anvil in Minecraft.

The anvil can also be used to increase the level of efficiency. Players can do this by using two tools with the same level of efficiency and combining them. For example, a pickaxe with efficiency level five can be made out of two pickaxes with efficiency level four in Minecraft.