There’s no weapon in Minecraft more reliable than the sword. Affordable, accessible, and available through every metal tier, it provides a quick and powerful offense to all of the different baddies you’ll encounter. But if that’s still not enough for you, enchanting it can really push its potential to another level.
Some enchantments will more than double your sword’s damage output, others will keep it in the fight for longer, and some are… well, to be honest, not really worth it.
With that said, Minecraft Bedrock doesn’t do a great job of explaining how each enchantment works. To save you the headache of enchanting the wrong thing on your favorite blade, we’ve broken it down into a list of the best enchantments to get first.
If even after all of that you still want more, then we’ve also picked out some of our favorite sword addons you can install to enhance your Minecraft game beyond the vanilla experience.
Want to pummel your foes with a mace instead? Check out our guide on the best mace enchantments for Minecraft Bedrock.
1. Sharpness
The best kind of damage buff will always be one that is always in effect. Sharpness really takes the cake in that regard. It applies an extra 1.25 damage for each level (rounded down). And with five possible levels, that iron sword of yours will be dealing an extra six damage each swing.
While the damage ratio isn’t as strong as other damage enchantments on this list, like Smite, the ability to use it on literally all attacks makes it so much more versatile. Creepers, cows, the Warden, and even the End dragon – it’s good against them all.
That’s why this is one enchantment you should never really turn down.
2. Looting
If you’re fighting mobs for loot, then the Looting enchantment is an absolute must. For each level (up to III), mobs drop one extra item from the common drops. Rare drops are then given an extra 1% likeliness to drop. That may not sound like much, but for rare drops like wither skulls, that doubles the odds!
The amount of time saved while grinding for materials is not to be overstated as well. Creepers go from dropping one or two gunpowder to four or five. And the less time you have to spend thwacking away at something that explosive, the better.
3. Mending
The undisputed champion of sustainability, the Mending enchantment has a special ability where, while holding that item, any experience orbs you collect are converted into restored durability. No longer will you have to worry about it breaking mid-fight, or about putting too many enchantments on a single sword you know will one day break. And with all mobs dropping experience orbs, the sword practically heals itself.
The best weapons are built over time, stacking enchantment after enchantment. With Mending, you can safely commit all of those resources, knowing it’ll always be available. The only downside is how terribly difficult it is to get a hold of Mending in the first place compared to other options.
4. Unbreaking
While Unbreaking doesn’t have the same longevity as Mending does, it’s still a valuable enchantment for keeping your gear in shape. Each level adds a 25% chance of your sword not taking durability damage. So at max level, your sword is expected to last a whopping four times longer.
This is even better with Mending, though. The less damage it takes, the less experience it needs to heal. That means more experience for you, instead of your sword.
5. Smite
As far as damage buff enchantments go, Smite is the best mob-specific option.
This is because the majority of hostile mobs you will be regularly fighting in the game are undead, like zombies and skeletons. With Smite, you deal an extra 2.5 points of damage for each level. With five levels, that means a maxed out sword can deal over 12 extra damage per swing – enough for even a stone sword to one-shot a zombie with a critical strike.
The real setback is the type limitation, though. A lot of important fights, like the End dragon, the Warden, and pillager raids are all immune to this damage boost. That lack of versatility really holds it back in our eyes.
6. Fire Aspect
The best tool for a farmer rather than a fighter, the Fire Aspect enchantment will light the struck target on fire for a few seconds, dealing extra damage. It’s not a ton of damage, but it’s still free damage.
An on-fire target has a bonus perk, though. If a livestock mob that drops meat, like chickens or cows, dies to fire, they drop a pre-cooked version of their meat. This is a funny but effective way to really save time. Instead of having to use up coal to cook the meat, just strike them down with a Fire Aspect sword. It’s super effective!
7. Knockback
The Knockback enchantment really skirts the line of being helpful but boring. As you can guess, it increases how far mobs are knocked back when struck. In a generalized way, this is helpful for keeping swarms of mobs away from you, especially for risky ones like creepers.
But there are a lot of scenarios where distance isn’t all that helpful. Fighting in the nether can mean the mob you’re hunting is knocked off a ledge, so the loot can get out of reach. Any ranged mob, like pillagers, skeletons, or ghasts, are otherwise unaffected, forcing you to chase them down to kill them.
Overall, it’s not a bad enchantment, but it doesn’t offer enough to really impress us.
8. Bane of Arthropods
Bane of Arthropods is the bane of the enchantment world, really. This is the spider equivalent to Smite, dealing an extra 2.5 damage to spiders, silverfish, and endermites. Sure, it’s strong, but its use-case is so terribly limited.
Regular spiders are a very minor threat, especially if you’ve progressed enough to be capable of enchanting your sword. So, committing resources to enchanting it with Bane of Arthropods is pretty overkill.
And if that wasn’t enough, it’s made even worse by the fact that it’s an exclusive enchantment. That means that having this on your sword will prevent it from ever having Sharpness or Smite instead.
Minecraft Sword Addons to Keep Things Sharp
Extra damage sure is nice. But sometimes, we wish there was a little more going on with swords, and combat in general, in Minecraft Bedrock. Thankfully, the community has developed countless addons we can install to expand the game beyond its original limits.
The addons below, especially, are great for making sword combat a little more interesting.
1. Raiyon’s Java Combat
Swords work differently in Java Edition. Instead of being able to swing wildly, there’s an attack cooldown (indicated by the little sword icon under the crosshair). While that reduces your DPS, it does come with a new ability. Attacking with a full cooldown bar will initiate a sweeping attack, hitting multiple nearby targets at once.
With the “Raiyon’s Java Combat” addon, the same mechanics in Java are now also implemented into your Bedrock game. This turns the sword into a fantastic crowd control weapon, making a big difference during things like village raids.
2. Ultimate Elemental Swords
Want a level of bombastic awesome from your combat? Then check out the “Ultimate Elemental Swords” addon. With it, you can craft a handful of different swords from rare materials, each with a theme and a powerful bonus effect.
Summon massive earthquakes with one, trap enemies in cages of ice with another, or summon a terrifying lightning storm with a third. There’s even a sword that creates a black hole! Crafting these swords won’t be easy, but it’ll definitely be worth it.
We can only imagine the drama and chaos something like this would be for a multiplayer server though, where each friend would have a different elemental sword to fight with and protect from thieves.
3. SWORD EXPANSION (Knight Shadow)
If you want more variety, but wrapped in a more reasonable degree of power, the “Sword Expansion” addon is a great option. It introduces over a dozen new swords, along with sword types, to the game. Craft swords from lava, amethysts, and more, each with different stats and abilities.
Weapons range from Bamboo katana and wind blade, to the soul sword, requiring relevant materials to be crafted. Some weapons, like the Ender Blade, even come with special abilities like speed boosts and night vision.
All in all, this addon is a great way to expand your sword selection without completely throwing the game balance off.
How to Install Minecraft Addons
You can add Bedrock addons automatically from the official Minecraft Marketplace or download and install them manually from CurseForge’s Bedrock addons browser.
If you pick the second option, make sure to open the linked project page of each of the addons above and download its associated “.mcaddon” file. Running the downloaded file should then launch Minecraft and begin the import.
After the import finishes, don’t forget to edit the world and check both "Behavior Packs" → "Available" and "Resource Packs" → "Available". If all went well, activating the packs included with the addon should add its features to that world. If the project lists an experiment under "Requirements", you should enable it as well before loading the world.
For a complete walkthrough, check out our guide on how to install Minecraft Bedrock addons.
Common Issues and Quick Fixes
I can’t find the Sweeping Edge enchantment
This comes from a difference between Bedrock Edition and Java Edition.
In Java Edition, swords have a special ability to “sweep” when you attack, hitting multiple targets. That also means that Java Edition has a Sweeping Edge enchantment that increases the damage of that attack.
Bedrock Edition, however, has no sweep attack. The trade off is that you also don’t have a weapon attack cooldown, so you can spam the attack button as much as you want. But you won’t find the Sweeping Edge enchantment in Bedrock as a result.
I can’t get Mending on my sword from the enchantment table
Mending is a rare exception to the rules. Classified as a “treasure enchantment,” it is not included in the enchantment table’s pool of options.
The only way to get Mending is to loot an enchanted book from loot chests, from fishing, as a raid drop, or by trading with a librarian villager.
Why do mob farms want me to hold a Looting-enchanted sword?
Bedrock Edition has a funny mechanic: when you kill a mob, whatever enchanted weapon you’re holding affects the end result. You can manipulate that to maximize how effective a mob farm can get.
When a mob farm uses a trident grinder (a series of pistons to move around a trident you threw), all mobs killed are considered killed by you. So, if you stand nearby and just hold a sword with Looting on it, that looting item drop bonus will apply to every single mob the trident grinder kills.