Best Bow Enchantments in Minecraft (May 2022)
The bow enchantments listed below work perfectly on both Minecraft Java and Bedrock editions of the game. We have tested each of these enchantments on the latest Minecraft 1.18 update as well. So, you can rest assured about the compatibility.
1. Punch
Almost every in-game attack causes a small push to the receiver, and this push is called knockback. And our first bow enchantment, punch increases the dealt knockback by an additional 3 blocks. Since you can upgrade it once, you can use Punch II to push an in-game entity to a maximum of 6 additional blocks with a single arrow.
Though, increased knockback doesn’t mean increased damage. It’s still a great way to escape tricky situations or to push mobs into certain areas. It’s similar to a sword-based enchantment called knockback. But because of already maintained distance, the knockback effect is way more effective with a bow as you get additional time to escape, hide, and even craft items.
2. Power
Power is one of the most common Minecraft bow enchantments, and as the name suggests, it increases damage dealt by arrows. This enchantment has a maximum of 5 levels. If you fire an arrow with no charge, it will still cause damage worth 1.5 hearts at level V. And if you use an arrow at the maximum charge, it can cause a deadly 12.5 hearts worth of damage. It makes bows useful in 1 vs 1combat in Minecraft multiplayer mode.
3. Flame
As the name suggests, flame sets entities on fire. The fire lasts for 5 seconds and causes around 2.5 hearts worths of damage. You can use it to light TNT, campfires, and candles too. But unlike fire charge or flint and steel, you can’t light put other blocks on fire. If you kill food-based mobs with flame, they drop cooked meat instead of regular meat.
And as it’s with many fire-based attacks, the flame enchantment doesn’t affect most mobs from a nether dimension. They get regular arrow damage. Similarly, the flame effect also doesn’t work on mobs when shot through rain or water.
4. Unbreaking
In Minecraft, some items like tools and weapons have predefined durability and get destroyed after a certain amount of usage. Applying the unbreaking enchantment makes a bow last longer. Technically, it reduces the chances of durability’s reduction while using a bow. With 3 levels of upgrades, you can ensure that your bow will last long enough, even during tiresome and long battles. Among the long list of best bow enchantments in Minecraft, this one is probably the easiest to find.
5. Mending
Similar to unbreaking, mending also helps your bow to last longer. But instead of increasing the durability, it allows you to repair or restore the reduced durability of your bow. The repair costs experience orbs which you can easily collect by killing mobs. So, you can keep killing mobs, and your bow will keep restoring itself. Combined with mending, this enchantment can make your bow or other items almost close to indestructible.
Do keep in mind that you cannot collect experience to increase your level, not at least until you have repaired the bow completely. And in case you have multiple objects with mending applied, the game will randomly select and repair one. So, at times, the game picks the item that doesn’t need immediate repairing.
6. Infinity
Infinity is not only one of the best bow enchantments in Minecraft but also the most popular one. In simple terms, it gives you infinite arrows to use with the bow. Technically, it stops the bow from consuming any arrows. However, keep in mind that you still need at least one arrow in your inventory for this enchantment to function.
To keep things fair in-game, you can’t pick arrows that are fired with infinity as they were never in your inventory, to begin with. Similarly, this enchantment doesn’t work with tipped or spectral arrows. Infinity is also incompatible with mending. You can only apply one of these nifty enchantments with your bow.
7. Curse of Vanishing
After all the best bow enchantments in Minecraft, there’s also a negative enchantment which you shouldn’t wish for. Curse of vanishing is one of the most well-known enchantments, and it causes the bow to disappear on your death instead of dropping as an item. That means enemies can’t steal your bow, and you can’t get it back after respawning. You have to recreate the bow from scratch and reapply the enchantments once it disappears.
The only situation this can be helpful in is to avoid other players from stealing your items in multiplayer mode. You can place your bow in a chest or drop it manually to prevent it from despawning. This enchantment applies to most-game items, and there is no way to remove it. If you are using any other enchantment, learn how to remove enchantments in Minecraft using our detailed guide linked here.
Bonus: Best Crossbow Enchantments
By chance, if you have an iron ingot and a tripwire hook, you can craft a crossbow instead of a bow for an upgrade. As you might expect, a crossbow is more powerful than a regular bow. Thus, it also has some exciting enchantments. Here are some of the unique ones:
1. Quick Charge
Crossbows have a reload time similar to rifles in FPS games. That’s why players can’t use it to spam mobs with arrows. However, if you apply the quick charge enchantment on the crossbow, it reduces the reload time by up to .75 seconds.
In fact, at level three of quick charge, the crossbow becomes faster than regular bows making it the ultimate ranged weapon. If you are on the Java edition, you can take it to level six with the help of commands. Once that happens, the reload time basically gets removed from the enchanted crossbow.
2. Multishot
Multishot is one of the most popular crossbow enchantments in Minecraft. It allows players to fire three projectiles at the same time. But doing so only consumes one item from your inventory. So, you can fire three arrows at the cost of one arrow.
But before you start spamming your arrows and firework rockets, do keep in mind that doing so consumes durability. If you use multishot with arrows, it costs 3 durability points, while using fireworks costs 9 points. So, you should get the mending enchantment first unless you can craft another crossbow.
3. Piercing
For the last crossbow enchantment in Minecraft, we have the piercing enchantment. It allows the shot arrows to pierce through entities and continue moving until they hit another target. It’s a great way to kill multiple enemies at once while saving ammunition.
Try Bow and Crossbow Enchantments in Minecraft
You can now become the master of distant combat using these best bow enchantments in Minecraft. They are going to be extra handy in the huge caves and tall mountains in these best Minecraft 1.18 seeds. Are you worried about protection during combat? You can apply the best armor enchantments to help you become close to impenetrable. Then, you just need to throw in a little bit of aim practice, and you will be almost as powerful as Lord of the Rings’ Legolas, but in Minecraft. Once you are ready, brew some of the best Minecraft potions to upgrade your character and continue exploring your world. As for the bow enchantments, share your other favorite enchantments in the comments section. Until then, happy exploring!
