Best Armor Enchantments

The core: what goes on every piece

Every armor piece wants the same three books: Protection IV, Unbreaking III and Mending. Protection does the real work. Each level gives one protection point per piece, and every point removes 4% of the damage that gets past your armor.

Unbreaking III and Mending keep the set alive. Armor loses durability on almost every hit, so a full set without Mending needs constant repairs. With Mending, each experience orb you pick up repairs a random damaged Mending piece.

After that, each piece gets its own extras: Respiration and Aqua Affinity on the helmet, Thorns on the chestplate, Swift Sneak on the leggings, and Feather Falling, Depth Strider and Soul Speed on the boots.

Piece by piece

Helmet: 45 levels

The max helmet adds Respiration III, Aqua Affinity and Thorns III to the core three. Its cheapest order takes 6 anvil steps, and the dearest step costs 14 levels. It is the ocean piece, and the only one that helps you breathe and mine underwater. See the best helmet enchantments or the helmet enchant order.

Chestplate: 28 levels

The max chestplate adds Thorns III to the core three. Its cheapest order takes 4 anvil steps, and the dearest step costs 12 levels. It gives the most armor, 8 points in diamond or netherite, and has the simplest build. See the best chestplate enchantments or the chestplate enchant order.

Leggings: 44 levels

The max leggings adds Swift Sneak III and Thorns III to the core three. Its cheapest order takes 5 anvil steps, and the dearest step costs 16 levels. Swift Sneak only comes from ancient city chests, so this piece often waits for a deep dark trip. See the best leggings enchantments or the leggings enchant order.

Boots: 66 levels

The max boots adds Feather Falling IV, Soul Speed III, Depth Strider III and Thorns III to the core three. Its cheapest order takes 7 anvil steps, and the dearest step costs 16 levels. It is the most expensive piece to max, because boots take seven useful books. See the best boots enchantments or the boots enchant order.

In total the set needs 22 books and 183 levels. Doing each step as soon as you have its levels costs about 3215 experience points across all four pieces.

How much the set protects

Netherite armor gives 20 armor points and 12 toughness. Protection IV on all four pieces adds 16 protection points, which removes 64% of the damage that gets through the armor. Feather Falling IV on the boots adds 12 more points against falls, reaching the 80% cap.

Which material to enchant

Netherite is the end goal: the most armor, the most toughness and the most durability, and the pieces survive lava. Diamond comes first, though, because you can enchant diamond and upgrade it at a smithing table later. The enchantments stay on, so no book is wasted.

Iron and copper are fine for a first enchant. They are cheap, so you can roll them at the table while you level up. Still, don't put treasure books such as Mending on them, because you will replace them soon.

Gold rolls the best table enchantments, but it breaks fast. Its one real job is keeping piglins calm, so wear one gold piece in the Nether and keep the rest of the set strong.

Special protection sets

Nether set

Swap one or two pieces to Fire Protection IV, and wear at least one piece of gold so piglins leave you alone. Soul Speed on the boots makes soul sand valleys fast. Still, a Fire Resistance potion beats any enchantment for lava. Compare the two in Protection vs Fire Protection.

Wither and creeper set

Blast Protection IV on one or two pieces cuts explosion damage and knockback. Keep Protection IV on the rest, so you still resist arrows and melee.

Raid and skeleton set

Projectile Protection IV on one piece helps against pillager crossbows and skeleton arrows. Ravagers and vindicators hit in melee, so don't swap more than one.

Ender Dragon set

Feather Falling IV on the boots matters most, because the dragon throws you into the air. Projectile Protection on one piece also helps against its fireballs.

Mining and caving set

Protection IV everywhere, Feather Falling IV on the boots and Respiration on the helmet for flooded caves. Caves mean falls, arrows and the odd creeper, and Protection covers them all.

PvP set

Protection IV on all four pieces, plus Thorns III on the chestplate and leggings. In explosive PvP, many players swap in one Blast Protection piece.

Repairs, Unbreaking and Mending

Unbreaking III on armor only skips about 30% of durability loss, much less than on tools. It is still worth the book, because every point it saves is a point Mending doesn't have to repair.

Mending repairs 2 durability for each experience point you pick up, and it picks a random damaged Mending item you wear or hold. So a full set with Mending stays topped up from normal play: mining ores, fighting mobs, smelting and trading all give XP. An XP farm fixes a worn set in a few minutes.

Without Mending, you repair armor on an anvil with its material or a second piece. Each repair raises the prior work penalty, so a well-used piece hits Too Expensive in the end. That is the strongest reason to get Mending early.

Thorns: worth it or not

Thorns gives each piece a 15% chance per level to hurt an attacker for 1 to 5 damage. At Thorns III that is a 45% chance per piece, and every piece with Thorns rolls on its own. So a full Thorns set hurts most things that hit you in melee.

The cost is durability: each trigger takes extra wear off that piece. With Mending and Unbreaking that cost is small, so Thorns belongs in a max set. Without Mending, leave it off.

In what order to build the set

Start with an iron or diamond set and roll Protection at the enchanting table. Fifteen bookshelves around the table unlock level 30 offers, the best it can give. Unbreaking III often comes along with it. The table setup tool shows where the shelves go.

Next, find a librarian who sells Mending and buy one book per piece. It is the most important book after Protection, because it ends repairs for good. The trading hall guide shows how to set one up.

Add the extras last: Respiration and Aqua Affinity before ocean trips, Feather Falling before elytra flights, and Swift Sneak and Soul Speed when you find them. Upgrade each piece to netherite whenever you have the ingots; the enchantments stay on.

Mistakes to avoid

• Mixing protection types without a plan. One Blast Protection piece helps against the wither; four of them leave you weak against everything else.
• Putting Thorns on armor without Mending. It wears your set down much faster.
• Adding books to each piece one at a time. Merge them in pairs first, or the penalty climbs to Too Expensive.
• Enchanting gold armor for real fights. Gold gets the best table rolls but has very little durability.
• Putting on enchanted loot without checking it. Curse of Binding means you can't take that piece off again.

Full set commands

Bedrock 26.60, cheats on. Paste one at a time, or build a custom set with the god armor generator: