10 Best Minecraft Sword Enchantments (Ranked)

Irrespective of when you started playing Minecraft, you will likely agree that the sword is the most famous weapon in this game. But even with such popularity, at times, the sword doesn’t feel strong enough. Fortunately, the best Minecraft sword enchantments can solve that easily.

Many of these enchantments can be easily discovered by making an Enchanting Table, while others rely on enchanted books in Minecraft. In this guide, we have listed the best sword enchantments in Minecraft, along with their usage and other details.

Best Minecraft Sword Enchantments

We have tested each of these sword enchantments in Minecraft, so you can rest assured about their compatibility. Also, most of these enchantments work on both Minecraft Java and Bedrock editions. With that said, our list ranks the enchantments in descending order, with the best ones featured at the bottom of this list.

10. Curse of Vanishing

The Curse of Vanishing is an enchantment that you can apply exclusively using enchanted books. As the name tells, it is a negative effect enchantment that makes your sword disappear when you die. In regular Minecraft, items stay at the same location after you die so you can get back to collect them. Now, don’t get confused with its name here, as vanishing means despawning of the sword.

Fortunately, keeping your sword in a chest saves it from despawning. The only positive result of this curse is that other players can’t steal your sword in multiplayer mode. And in case you’re wondering, no, there is no way to remove this enchantment.

9. Bane of Arthropods

Scientifically speaking, Arthropods are animals with exoskeletons. They have particularly jointed limbs, which allow them to move in a distinguished style. So, this enchantment increases the damage a sword causes to arthropod mobs in the game, including:

• Spiders
• Cave Spiders
• Bees
• Silverfishes
• Endermites

8. Sweeping Edge

This is a Minecraft Java-exclusive enchantment for the sword. If you are on Bedrock edition, maybe you should skip reading how awesome it is. The Sweeping Edge enchantment doesn’t add a special feature to the sword but works on improving a basic aspect of it.

With the sweeping edge enchantment applied, the sword’s sweep attack causes more damage than a regular hit. This enchantment is most useful in the Nether, where fighting multiple mobs at once is a common occurrence.

Similar to games like Devil May Cry, you can swing your sword to deal damage to any mob that comes in the way, even if they are not your original target. Sweeping Edge has three levels, dealing 50%, 67%, and 75% damage, respectively, of the main attack’s damage numbers. But to keep it from being overpowered, Minecraft doesn’t allow many other enchantments to work with it.

7. Smite

Smite is one of the best Minecraft sword enchantments to increase attack damage. However, keep in mind that Smite’s increased damage only works on undead mobs. The undead mobs include the following:

• Skeletons
• Zombies
• Zombie Villagers
• Wither
• Wither Skeletons
• Zombified Piglins
• Skeleton Horses
• Zombie Horses
• Strays
• Husks
• Phantoms
• Drowned
• Zoglins

You might consider keeping an extra sword in your hotbar with the Smite enchantment just to deal with hostile undead creatures, especially when you’re in hardcore mode and dealing with hordes of zombies.

Since it’s mutually exclusive to most other enchantments like Sharpness, Bane of Arthropods, and more, it’s only useful when dealing with zombie or wither boss farms.

6. Looting

The next entry for best Minecraft sword enchantments focuses beyond a sword’s combat abilities. If you kill a mob with this enchantment, it drops more items than usual. You can also get rarer items using this enchantment.

There are 3 levels to this enchantment, and each increases the amount of dropped items. So, you can imagine getting rare loot items like the Trident from the Drowned or Ender pearls from Enderman. To top it off, this enchantment also works with the Java-exclusive sweeping edge enchantment.

5. Unbreaking

Unbreaking is a popular enchantment that you can apply to all in-game items that have durability. This enchantment increases the durability of the sword. Technically, it only reduces the chance or probability of a decrease in durability.

But in the end, your weapons, including your sword, last longer if you use this enchantment. It has two levels, and it’s also one of the first enchantments you can find on the enchanting table.

4. Knockback

Knockback is the effect that sees mobs being pushed back when attacked in Minecraft. This enchantment increases that knockback effect to a maximum of 190%. That means you can knock back an entity up to 6 blocks with just a single hit. On the Java edition, players can even knockback armor stands with this enchantment.

3. Mending

For the players who find damaged swords, or if it’s too late for them to apply unbreaking, there’s always the option of mending. This simple enchantment restores any reduced durability of your sword. It works by using experience orbs as the fuel. With mending applied, you can keep killing mobs while the sword heals itself automatically.

Some players consider this to be even more powerful than unbreaking, even though it only has one level. Not to forget, this is one of the best sword enchantments in Minecraft that you can only apply using enchanted books.

2. Fire Aspect

Among all the best sword enchantments in Minecraft, the fire aspect is the simplest and one of the most powerful ones. Hitting an enemy with a Fire Aspect sword sets the enemy on fire. It has two levels, and each adds 4 seconds of fire to the sword. As for the damage, the level 1 fire causes 1.5 hearts and the level 2 fire causes 3.5 hearts worth of damage.

But it is worth mentioning that not every mob immediately dies due to fire, so pairing this attack with a Potion of Fire Resistance is a smart choice. Keep in mind that this enchantment is ineffective against all mobs exclusive to the Nether, except piglins and hoglins.

Though if you are on Bedrock edition, you can use it to light candles, campfires, and activate TNT as well. Killing food-based mobs on both editions makes them drop cooked meat when killed with this enchantment.

1. Sharpness

As you can probably tell by its name, this enchantment increases the sharpness of your sword in Minecraft. But as sharpness doesn’t affect the game, this enchantment increases the damage your sword deals with each hit.

This enchantment supports 5 levels of sharpness. And you can only apply level 5 to a gold sword using an enchanting table. However, you can use an enchanted book to apply all levels of sharpness to all types of swords.

How to Craft a Sword in Minecraft

Making a sword in Minecraft is easy, and you will simply need a crafting table, a single stick, and two materials of the respective sword type. For instance, wooden planks for a wooden sword, iron ingots for an iron sword, and so on. Now, follow the steps below to craft a sword in Minecraft:

• Place the crafting table on the ground and right-click to open its UI.
• Put the stick in the center cell of the third row at the bottom.
• Then, place two respective materials in the center cells of the first and second row.
• Drag and drop the sword from the right side to move it to your inventory.

How to Craft a Netherite Sword in Minecraft

Now that you know how to make a simple sword in Minecraft, it’s time for the Netherite sword that you’d need in the late game. To make this sword, you’ll require a Diamond sword, a Smithing table, a Netherite Smithing template, and a Netherite ingot. Follow these steps to make a Netherite sword:

• Place the Smithing table on the ground and right-click to open its UI.
• Place the smithing template in the leftmost cell, the diamond sword in the center cell, and the netherite ingot in the right cell.
• The Netherite sword will be available in the right-most cell, which you can drag and move it to your inventory.

How to Enchant Swords in Minecraft

When you have crafted a sword in Minecraft, it’s time to enchant it with powerful abilities. You can enchant your swords in two ways: either by using enchanted books and an anvil, or by using an enchanted table. Below, we have described the ways to enchant your sword in the game:

1. Enchanted Books

Enchanted books allow you to apply a specific enchantment you want on your sword. All you need is a sword, an enchanted book, and an anvil. Follow the steps below:

• Place the anvil on the ground and right-click to access its UI.
• Place the sword and the enchanted book to the left and right of the plus sign, respectively.
• On the right of the arrow, you will find your enchanted sword.
• Simply drag it in your inventory and you can use it in the game.

2. Enchanting Table

You can use an Enchanting Table to enchant your swords. However, you will get any 3 random enchantments, you can apply by spending the given experience points. Now, follow the steps to enchant your sword using the enchanting table:

• Place the enchanting table on the ground and right-click on it.
• Place the sword in the left slot and a lapis lazuli in the right slot.
• Now, three random enchantments will be displayed on the right.
• Select the enchantment you want to apply to the sword in Minecraft.
• You can now left-click on your sword and move it to your inventory.

With the power of these Minecraft sword enchantments, you can go on exploring the best of your Minecraft world with utmost ease. As for the enchantments, which is your favorite one among all of the above? Let us know in the comments below. Until then, happy exploring!