What Does Mending Do in Minecraft? Explained

If you’ve ever had your trusty Netherite pickaxe get close to breaking, you might have probably wondered: what does Mending do in Minecraft, and why is everyone calling it the best enchantment?

You should know that battling through the Nether dimension and finding Ancient Debris is a lot less fun when you constantly need to make more tools when they get worn out. So, to remove all your worries, we will explain what Mending does in Minecraft and how it can help keep your gear intact for a long time.

What is the Mending Enchantment in Minecraft?

Mending is one of the best treasure enchantments in Minecraft that repairs an item’s durability when you collect the experience (XP) orbs. Why call it a treasure enchantment? This is because, unlike the others, you cannot obtain Mending from a standard enchanting table in Minecraft. Instead, you need to find it through special loot or villager trading.

Almost any item with durability can receive the Mending enchantment, including pickaxe, axe, sword, shovel, hoe, fishing rod, shear, trident, crossbow, Elytra, and many more. It completely minimizes the need to find more base materials required to craft an item. Simply apply it to your favorite tools and keep collecting XP points to repair them.

What Does Mending Do in Minecraft?

If you’re wondering about the common question asked in the community: what does Mending do in Minecraft, then the answer is quite simple – it converts experience orbs into durability and repairs the held weapon or tool.

Well, the question arises: how do you get a ton of XP in a short time? There are some of the best farms to gain XP in Minecraft, such as the Enderman farm and Guardian Farm that you can refer to from our list.

Naturally, after you carry a damaged tool with the Mending enchantment, none of the XP orbs are going to your experience bar, but to the tool instead. However, if all the tools with Mending are repaired and have full durability, only then will the additional XP collected witll go to your experience bar.

You can think of this feature as the single drawback of Mending, but this is the only reason why many players acquire Mending at a later stage in the game. Other than that, you can check the best Minecraft enchantments you should look forward to first in the game. That being said, here’s how Mending works in Minecraft:

Mending Repairs Items Using Experience

For every 1 experience point, Mending restores 2 durability points to the enchanted item. So, performing in-game tasks like defeating zombies in the Overworld or in a Minecraft mob farm, mining valuable ores, trading with villagers, smelting large batches of items, or more can help your tool repair itself.

Which Items Can Get Repaired by Mending?

There is one mechanic that confuses players wondering what the Mending enchantment does in Minecraft. It is how the game chooses which item to repair. Only these equipped items are eligible:

• The armor you’re wearing
• Items in your main hand
• Items in your off-hand

If you’ve equipped multiple items with the Mending enchantment, Minecraft randomly chooses one of the damaged items to repair. So, remember that the fully repaired items will get ignored and the additional XP will get transferred to your experience bar.

Mending is Incompatible with Infinity

There is just a single restriction to using the Mending enchantment that is Infinity. While applying the bow enchantments in Minecraft, you can either use Mending or Infinity on it.

While Mending can automatically repair the bow, Infinity lets you fire arrows without consuming them. So, you can keep just one arrow in your inventory, and you’re good to go as long as the bow is intact. We also have a complete guide on Mending vs Infinity in Minecraft, if you’re looking for a detailed comparison of their pros and cons.

How to Get Mending in Minecraft?

Since Mending is a treasure enchantment, it requires a little bit extra effort to get it. So, if you’re looking for how to get the Mending enchantment in Minecraft, fortunately, there are a few ways, and they’re as follows:

• Trading with Librarian Villagers: Librarian is the best villager job in Minecraft, because any level of this profession can get you the Mending enchanted book.
• Finding Mending Enchanted Books in Loot Chests: You can discover Mending books inside the loot chests of Ancient Cities, Strongholds, Desert Pyramids, Jungle Temples, Abandoned Mineshafts, and more.
• Fishing: Since fishing has a very small chance of rewarding treasure items like the Mending enchanted book, you can make an AFK fish farm in Minecraft to speed up the process.
• Raid Rewards: In the Minecraft Bedrock edition, Mending books can occasionally appear as pillager raid rewards.

And that is all about what Mending does in Minecraft. So, what other enchantments are you looking forward to getting for your tools in the game? Let us know in the comments below.