Minecraft is a game full of useful tools and equipment that you can craft and customize to your liking, and one of the most important early tools for players is the axe. Used for chopping down trees, clearing out forests, and fighting off mobs, the axe is a versatile and powerful tool that can be made even better with various enchantments in Minecraft.
We’ll take a look at the best axe enchantments in Minecraft, ranked by their usefulness, and go over how they can benefit players in their adventures. Whether you’re a seasoned cave diver or new to the game and all its blocky wonder, these enchantments will help you get the most out of your axe and improve your Minecraft experience.
Best Axe Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked Worst to Best
Let’s get started on making your axe the most useful and deadliest tool to exist in Minecraft.
Smite
This enchantment increases the damage dealt to undead mobs, including skeletons, zombies, withers, and zombie pigmen. Out of all of the combat enchantments that you can apply to your axe, Smite is among the least useful.
You’re unlikely to even be carrying an axe in the most dangerous undead-filled situations you can encounter in the game. For example, while wither skeletons inside the nether fortress are incredibly dangerous, there’s virtually no scenario where you would be using an axe over a sword. Especially due to the axe’s slower swing speed and the complete lack of trees in the nether.
Although several utility enchantments can be added to your axe alongside the Smite enchantment, it cannot coexist with any other damage-related enchantments, such as Bane of Arthropods and Sharpness. If possible, it is advisable to steer clear of Smite and replace it with Sharpness at your earliest convenience.
Bane of Arthropods
Similar to Smite, this enchantment increases the damage dealt to arthropod mobs, such as spiders, cave spiders, silverfish, and endermites. This can be a useful enchantment for an axe, since you are likely to encounter lots of spiders out in the woods where it can be useful.
You’ll also likely want to take an axe down with you into the kind of zones that contain cave spiders, so you can dismantle the wooden mine structure more effectively and traverse the area more easily.
Similar to Smite, this enchantment also cannot be stacked with other combat enchantments that can be added to your axe, which limits its utility. Moreover, since spiders do not spawn in some high-level areas, its usefulness can be further diminished.
Additionally, a single swing of an axe is often enough to slay enemies like silverfish, rendering this enchantment somewhat redundant and superfluous. As with Smite, it is advisable to steer clear of this enchantment or replace it with Sharpness whenever feasible.
Silk Touch
This enchantment allows the player to mine and collect blocks in their original form, rather than breaking them into their usual drops. It’s especially useful for players who want to collect delicate or hard-to-find blocks, such as grass blocks, ice, or bookshelves.
Putting Silk Touch on an axe can let you quickly dismantle bookshelves without having to reconstruct them from piles of books later on. Consequently, this makes it a great enchantment to take with you into the Woodland Mansion structures that can spawn deep inside dark forests.
This enchantment is mutually exclusive with Fortune, likely because it doesn’t destroy leaf blocks that the Fortune enchantment would trigger on with the axe. Instead, you can use it to pick up leaf blocks just like a pair of shears would work, allowing you to use those as a series of wonderful hedges.
Fortune
This enchantment increases the chances of receiving extra drops when mining certain blocks, such as coal, diamonds, or redstone. It’s a great enchantment for players who want to maximize their resource collection and save time while mining.
On an Axe, it increases how often you’ll get drops like sticks and saplings from trees. It also increases the chances of receiving valuable apples that you can turn into incredibly useful Golden Apples.
Although Fortune may be more fitting for a pickaxe than a standard axe, it can still be a great option for players who are determined to gather apples or cultivate a large forest for their needs.
This enchantment is relatively simple to acquire at the enchanting table, so it’s advisable to apply it to any axe that will be utilized for tree-felling in the diverse forests of Minecraft. Don’t forget to try it out in the new Mangrove Swamp biome, where you’ll have a better chance of obtaining Mangrove seeds!
Unbreaking
There are three levels of the Unbreaking enchantment: Unbreaking I, II, and III. As the level of the enchantment increases, the durability of the axe improves accordingly. Unbreaking III, for example, will make your valuable tool last three times longer than an unenchanted axe.
When a tool or weapon imbued with Unbreaking is employed, there is a probability that it will not suffer any durability loss. The chance of this happening is dependent on the enchantment’s level, with higher levels granting a higher chance of durability preservation. With Unbreaking III, the axe has a 75% chance of not losing any durability during use.
The Unbreaking enchantment is especially useful for players who frequently use their axe. It can help minimize the need for frequent repairs or replacements, saving you time and resources. This means that you won’t need to create as many anvils to maintain an enchanted axe. It is highly recommended to apply this enchantment to any diamond or netherite axes you create.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Unbreaking enchantment does not prevent an axe from eventually breaking. The axe will still lose durability over time and eventually become unusable. However, the Unbreaking enchantment can significantly prolong the lifespan of an axe and make it a more dependable tool for players. Additionally, it is extremely common at the enchanting table, making it easy to obtain.
Sharpness
Sharpness has five levels, namely Sharpness I, II, III, IV, and V. Each level boosts the damage dealt by the axe. With Sharpness V, a diamond or netherite axe becomes the most potent single-shot weapon in the game.
PvP players in Minecraft will particularly appreciate a sharpened axe because it can knock shields out of other players’ hands, leaving them vulnerable to ranged arrow fire from your teammates.
Sharpness is easy to get ahold of, with even high levels of enchantment often being available at the enchanting table. If you’re looking to get some of the more common utility enchantments on your Sharpness axe, we suggest trading with a weaponsmith or toolsmith villager.
Either type can sell you axes with enchantments already applied to them, which can then be forged together at an anvil to upgrade the enchantments gradually. Players with a huge stash of emeralds can use this to rapidly acquire some of the best gear in the game.
Mending
The Mending enchantment works by directly consuming experience points directly and restoring some of the enchanted item’s durability, rather than adding it to the player’s experience level. As such, every time you collect experience orbs, your Mending axe will repair itself.
This is incredibly convenient, as you can largely ignore the hassle of repairing or replacing your tools frequently. Something that you’ll appreciate if you heavily use your axe frequently for chopping trees or combat.
However, Mending is the rarest enchantment in Minecraft, only obtainable through fishing or getting incredibly lucky when applying a different top-level enchant to an item.
To use the Mending enchantment effectively, players need to collect as much experience as possible while holding the item with Mending. One way to do this is by hunting hostile mobs at night and farming the experience orbs they drop. Another way is by trading with villagers, who can offer enchanted items or books in exchange for emeralds, along with granting you a decent amount of experience with every trade.
Join the High Ground!
With this list of enchantments for your axe, you’ll be cut down any foe and gather more wood than you know what to do with in Minecraft. Think an enchantment should be ranked higher or lower? Let us know in the comments below!
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Happy gaming!
Minecraft Navigation
- Best Shield Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked
- 7 Best Axe Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked (2024)
- 5 Best Pickaxe Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked
- 5 Best Leggings Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked
- Best Fishing Rod Enchantments in Minecraft
- 6 Best Chestplate Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked (2024)
- The Best Shovel Enchantments in Minecraft (2024)
- 10 Best Weapon Enchantments in Minecraft, Ranked
- The 9 Best Arrow Types in Minecraft, Ranked
- 6 Best Bow Enchantments in Minecraft (2024)
- 7 Best Boot Enchantments in Minecraft
- 9 Best Helmet Enchantments In Minecraft
- The 6 Best Crossbow Enchantments in Minecraft
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