Breach is one of the most powerful enchantments in Minecraft. It's only available on one of the most powerful weapons, too. With that in mind, it's no wonder that it's as hard to get as it is. But what does it even do to deserve such rarity?
This damage-boosting enchantment can skip past an enemy's armor, making it capable of dealing the most damage in a single attack, depending on the target. Read on to learn the full details on the Breach enchantment, how to place it on a mace, and how to get your hands on a mace in the first place.
How the Breach Enchantment Works
Breach is an enchantment exclusively made for the mace – a rare and hard-to-craft weapon. With up to four levels, each level of Breach will reduce how effective the enemy's armor is by 15 percent.
This can be hard to visualize, so here's a short breakdown of what would happen if you deal damage with a mace to a player wearing full iron armor:
- The armor will reduce the damage of an unenchanted mace by 48 percent, dealing 3.1 damage.
- A mace with Breach I will only be reduced by 33 percent, dealing 4.02 damage.
- A mace with Breach IV will completely overtake the damage reduction down to zero, dealing the full 6 points of damage.
Important: the damage reduction from armor is a dynamic and hard-to-predict number, depending on armor points, armor toughness, and how hard of an attack it's reducing. You might experience different numbers in your own playthrough.
Since this is a scaling system, the better the armor, the more effective Breach is at reducing it. A Breach IV enchanted mace will make a full set of Netherite armor about as effective at protecting the target as a set of Leather armor would. Combine this with the Smash Attack mechanics of the mace, and this becomes one of the most powerful PvP weapons in Minecraft.
What Breach is Good For In Singleplayer
As powerful as Breach is against another armored player, this is rarely a concern for anyone playing singleplayer. The only mobs that wear armor are Horses, Nautilus, Piglins, Zombies, and Skeletons. Shulkers are armored as well and are just as vulnerable to the Breach effect.
But is it worth it? Let’s take a look.
- Horses and Nautilus are passive mobs, so there's not much need to be maximizing damage against them.
- Zombies and Skeletons rarely wear armor, with the exception of Trial Chambers. But due to being undead, the Smite enchantment has, overall, better damage scaling against them.
- Piglins only wear Gold Armor. This does make Breach effective against them, but only to a small degree to a point that it might not be worthwhile.
- Shulkers are the best target for Breach attacks, since they often stay closed and armored and their levitation attack can be used to your advantage to perform powerful Smash attacks.
If you don't plan to play PvP, and want a more versatile weapon, the Breach enchantment won't be the ideal pick. Instead, we recommend striving for Density of Smite enchantments instead.
How to Get the Breach Enchantment on Your mace
Like most enchantments, Breach can be acquired through an Enchanting Table, from an Enchanted Book, through Villager trading, or by Fishing. Each method has its pros and cons.
- Enchanting Tables require expensive resources like Obsidian and Diamond to craft, along with Experience and Lapis Lazuli for the enchanting process and many books for the bookshelves. Even so, this is our recommended method since it has the highest chance of appearing.
- Enchanted Books can hold any enchantment in the game, so the odds of getting one with Breach are significantly smaller than enchanting the mace yourself.
- Village trading can provide a constant supply of Breach enchanted books, but the odds of finding a Librarian villager that offers one is exceedingly rare.
- At less than 1% chance, fishing up an enchanted book with Breach is even less likely than the other options.
If directly enchanting your mace isn't an option, your next best option is to run through Ominous Trials. The Ominous Vault rewards have a chance of rewarding you with an Enchanted Book that has Breach specifically on it, making this the second most likely way to get it.
How to get a mace
Speaking of Ominous Vaults… You'll likely be spending some time opening them anyway. They're a required step in the process of crafting a mace. You can craft a mace by combining a Breeze Rod with a Heavy Core.
- Breeze Rods drop by Breezes, a floating mob found in Trial Chambers.
- Heavy Cores are only found as rewards in Ominous Vaults.
If you're new to the Trial Chamber system: these are secret underground battle chambers made of copper blocks. Inside are Trial Spawners and Trial Vaults. Defeating all the mobs that spawn from a spawner will result in a Trial Key, which are used to open the vaults for rare loot.
Ominous Vaults are like Trial Vaults, but they have three skulls on them and require an Ominous Trial Key to open. You can get Ominous TrialKeys by drinking an Ominous Potion before entering a Trail Chamber.
Once inside, the spawners will convert to higher difficulty spawners, sending stronger, modified mobs after you. Defeating them has a chance for the spawner to drop an Ominous Trial Key.
With a less-than eight percent chance of an Ominous Vault dropping a Heavy Core, you may have to go through multiple different Trial Chambers before you get one.
Minecraft Mods that Make maces More Manageable
The mace is a rather unique weapon in Minecraft. And with all the effort it takes to get a hold of one, it'd make sense if you wanted to expand on them in a way that vanilla Minecraft might not offer. If mods are something you're interested in, these community-made mods do a great job of giving the mace just a bit more oomph to it.
Immersive Damage Indicators
This mod doesn't change maces or the Breach enchantment directly, but it's one of the best ways to know just how effective your enchantments are. As the name implies, this mod lets you know exactly how much damage you deal.
This is done through a new UI element where the damage you inflict on mobs will appear as floating numbers. This is especially helpful for things like the hard-to-predict impact of things like the Breach enchantment.
Awesome 3D mace
Weapons in Minecraft are all 2D, represented in the hand as a one voxel-wide model. But shouldn't a mace be big, bulky, and cool, not flat?
This straightforward mod replaces the mace texture with a 3D model while equipped. It stays true to the vanilla Minecraft art style while giving it the visual punch fitting for a weapon of such acclaim.
Elemental maces
The Elemental maces mod is more than just an expansion on enchantments. By using a different kind of rod during the crafting process, you can make one of four unique mace weapons: Smouldering mace, Ender mace, Withering mace, and Resonating mace.
Each elemental mace has unique combat effects, from levitating mobs to emitting sonic wave attacks. The worst part about this mod is that you'll want to hunt down four more Heavy Cores so you can try them all!
How to Install Minecraft Mods
You can install the above mods automatically using the CurseForge app or manually by placing the mod files within your game’s mods folder. Both methods allow you to easily add custom features and enhancements into your vanilla Minecraft experience.If you want to learn more, you can read our detailed guide on how to install Minecraft mods.
Common Issues and Quick Fixes
I can't get the Ominous Vault to unlock
There are a lot of similarities between Ominous and standard Trial objects. Ensure you have an Ominous Key and are using it on an Ominous Vault. Keys will be blue with three grey skulls on top. Ominous Vaults will have three skull faces on the front instead of one.
If an Ominous Vault still won't activate, it may be because you've already opened that vault once before (each vault can only be activated once per player). To solve this, either find a new vault or have a friend use your key on the vault for you.
My Breach-enchanted mace isn't dealing the expected damage
While the damage reduction effect of Breach does apply to armor, it doesn't apply to other damage-reducing effects, like from Protection enchantments or potions.
Otherwise, be sure that you're letting your attack bar fully recharge before attacking again to ensure you're dealing maximum damage.
Breach won't apply to my enchanted mace
Like with most weapons, Breach is not compatible with certain other enchantments on a mace. This includes Smite, Bane of Arthropods, and Density. If your mace already has one of those on it, it won’t accept Breach being added later on.