It’s no secret that Minecraft is one of the most popular survival sandbox RPGs out there. With elements of building, combat and survival all condensed into one game, there’s something for every gamer in this much-loved world of blocks and pixels. The best part is that Minecraft doesn’t hold anyone’s hand, and things have to be figured out independently.
A central gameplay feature of Minecraft is enchanting. Tools and pieces of armor can all be strengthened powerful enchantments. However, not all of these boosters are as good as one would imagine. In fact, some of them are less than desirable. Here are the worst enchantments in the game.
Updated December 15, 2020 by Anastasia Maillot: Every major update of Minecraft, including the latest 1.16 Nether update, has brought a couple new combat mechanics. With that, new enchantments have also been introduced over time, some of which have been amazing and others which to this day remain extremely niche or downright useless. Even some of the game’s base enchantments continue to differ in utility as more new mobs are introduced to the game. Due to this, there’s a few other enchantments in the game that have questionable utility. When you next find yourself enchanting, try to avoid these five additional effects that simply aren’t worth it.
15 Channeling
Channeling is an enchantment that was introduced with the 1.13 Aquatic update. A brand-new weapon, the trident, became available for players who were lucky enough to see it drop when slaying a trident-wielding drowned zombie. With the weapon itself, a whole array of cool enchantments were introduced.
Channeling on a trident is among the worst enchantments. It’s very niche, since it only works during a thunderstorm and requires you to have line of sight of a target. Essentially, it commands a lightning to strike a target hit by the trident. However, even then it’s limited. Targets in water and lava, cobweb, soul sand and on a honey block, are unaffected by it.
14 Blast Protection
Blast Protection is an enchantment that has been around in Minecraft for a very long time. It’s one of the core protection enchantments in the game, along with Fire Protection and the generic Protection effect.
Blast Protection is probably the most niche out of all three. As the name implies, it dampens any explosion damage that comes the player’s way. The most common danger would be creepers, but since shields are such a cheap tool to make and basically nullify explosion damage, Blast Protection is definitely a waste of experience points.
13 Knockback
Knockback is another base enchantment that has been around for quite some time. While it can make new players feel powerful when being overwhelmed or approached by a group of enemies, in the long run its effects are quite counterproductive.
Since mobs drop and experience points from killing them are important, unique items at death, it’s important to be able to collect them. Knockback, however, pushes the mob away from you and could even potentially sling them off a cliff into lava or a location you won’t be able to reach to collect your loot. That’s why Knockback should be a hard pass for most players.
12 Thorns
Thorns is a slightly newer invention compared to some of the base enchantments of the game. This armor enchantment is a cool idea, but its execution makes it more disadvantageous than anything else.
Thorns deals damage to any mob that comes into contact with you, essentially pricking them. The damage isn’t significant, and varies between one to four points, so a maximum of two hearts. Moreover, it increases the pace at which your armor wears out, so putting it on a powerful diamond chest plate you want to keep around for as long as possible is a terrible idea, unless Mending is involved.
11 Punch
Just as Knockback is horrible on swords due to how it pushes enemies further away from you, so is Punch terrible on the bow. The effect of Punch is basically identical to that of Knockback, with the exception of it being a bow-only enchantment.
With bows, however, a knockback effect is even worse. That’s because when using a bow, you’re usually already at a significant distance from your target. Pushing them even further away makes getting that experience and loot more difficult and tedious. And of course, there’s the danger of sending a mob over the edge of a cliff into lava or into a pit, from which collecting loot or experience is close to impossible.
10 Smite
Smite is an enchantment that can be acquired for swords. With Smite, the player can dish out a bit of extra damage against undead mobs like zombies and skeletons. With each level, Smite gets more and more powerful.
The reason why this enchantment is bad is because it has a very narrow scope. Ideally, the player wants to prioritize enchantments that are good against all kinds of enemies. Instead of going for Smite, it’s much better to opt for Sharpness or even Sweeping Edge.
9 Bane Of Arthropods
When enchanting a sword, something called Bane of Arthropods might pop up in the enchanting table window. This enchantment allows the player to get an extra edge against spiders, and it goes up in damage with each consecutive rank.
Similar to Smite, Bane of Arthropods is too narrow to really see any serious use. Unless the player has a vendetta against spiders, there’s no point going for extra damage against such a trivial enemy.
8 Respiration
Respiration is an enchantment that will only be available for helmets. Essentially, each level of Respiration allows the player to breathe much longer underwater. The bubbles that show the player’s oxygen level will therefore deplete much slower than usual.
This is a very niche enchantment, hence why it’s not among the best. Unless the player wants to build underwater or explore underwater ruins, it’s nothing special. Moreover, with the 1.13 update, simply grinding for a Conduit is a better option for the player who just wants to have an aquatic base.
7 Aqua Affinity
In Minecraft, when the player is underwater, the rate at which they can break blocks is significantly reduced. This makes sense, since one moves much slower underwater in general. Aqua Affinity, however, makes it so that breaking blocks underwater is as fast as it normally is.
Again, this is another very niche enchantment. It’s great only if the player is looking to spend some time underwater, especially if they plan on building something in an ocean or explore ruins and ocean monuments. Otherwise, it’s a hard pass.
6 Depth Strider
Walking in water in Minecraft is extremely difficult, as it is in real life. The player is significantly slowed down, which is why swimming or jumping is more efficient. However, with Depth Strider and its consecutive levels, moving underwater becomes much faster.
With so many better enchantments available for boots, like Feather Falling and Protection, it’s a waste to go for something as narrow as Depth Strider. Unless walking in water at a slow pace really bothers the player, there’s no point in getting it.
5 Fire Aspect
Fire Aspect is an enchantment that can be put on swords. With each level, it does a bit more fire damage to the mob in question and also sets them on fire. It’s a nice added damage bonus, but it doesn’t really do much in the long term, especially when better enchantments are available.
The only cool use for Fire Aspect is when killing passive mobs like cows, chickens and pigs for food. When Fire Aspect is in use, the mobs will automatically drop cooked versions of their meat, which saves the player any cooking time. Kind of cool, but also, a bit useless.
4 Impaling
With the 1.13 aquatic update, Minecraft introduced tridents as a brand new weapon. While they look cool, they’re not super useful and without the right enchantments, they’re easy to lose and unreliable as weapons. There are many enchantments to choose from when it comes to a trident, but Impaling in particular is not worth a player’s time.
Impaling essentially increases the amount of damage the trident will do against enemies that are aquatic. In the Bedrock version, any enemies in water or under the rain will also be dealt extra damage. This is a very specific form of enchantment, and a better option for a trident would definitely be Loyalty or Channeling.
3 Frost Walker
Most enchantments in Minecraft are meant to provide some type of utility, but that’s not always the case. Frost Walker, for instance, seems to have no clear utility at all. Available for boots, this enchantment will turn water into ice under the user’s feet, allowing them to walk on water.
There are some strange uses one could imagine for this, such as crossing an ocean quickly. But then, isn’t it better to just build a boat? Frost Walker is above all a troll enchantment, something to put on one’s boots before walking all over a friend’s crop water system to freeze it over.
2 Curse of Binding
Not all enchantments are necessarily positive things or boosters. Some items can actually be cursed, meaning they have a negative effect on the carrier or on the item itself. The Curse of Binding in particular is annoying because it makes a piece of armor impossible to remove from the player’s body.
The only way to get rid of the piece of gear is to die, which is why this makes for a great prank enchantment. Next time, just enchant a carved pumpkin and trick a friend to wear it on their head. They’ll probably never want to play Minecraft again after that.
1 Curse of Vanishing
The second curse found in Minecraft is the Curse of Vanishing. This is most commonly found in tools, and if the player is truly unlucky, it will be on a tool that has otherwise really good enchantments.
If an item has this curse, they will break almost immediately upon use. There’s no way to really fix it, so the best way to preserve an item with this curse is to simply place it in an item frame and admire it from afar.
