Flame

What Flame does

Book cost is the anvil cost of putting that book on a fresh item. However, already-used items add their prior work penalty: work it out in the calculator.

How Flame works

Every arrow from a Flame bow leaves on fire. A mob or player it hits catches fire and burns for a few seconds, taking damage over time. Burning animals drop cooked meat, the same as with Fire Aspect.

Flaming arrows also light TNT from a distance. They light campfires and candles too, so Flame doubles as a lighting tool for builds.

They do not set the ground or wooden blocks on fire. So you can shoot Flame arrows near a wooden base without burning it down.

What it does not burn

Fire-immune mobs ignore it: blazes, magma cubes, ghasts, striders, wither skeletons, zombified piglins and the wither. An arrow that passes through water also goes out. So Flame is weak in the Nether and strong in the Overworld.

A free Flame trick

Arrows that fly through lava or fire catch fire on their own. So a bow without Flame can still shoot burning arrows if you fire them through a lava curtain or a campfire flame. Flame just does it every time.

In a build

Flame conflicts with nothing. It sits next to Power V, Punch, Unbreaking III and Infinity or Mending. It is a single-level ×2 book, so it adds 2 levels. The best bow enchantments page shows both bow builds.

Flame does not go on crossbows. For fire damage with a crossbow, firework rockets are the usual choice.

When to skip it

• Near friends and pets in PvE, since burning can kill a wolf you hit by accident.
• On a bow you use against fire-immune Nether mobs.
• When you want raw meat for a smoker or campfire setup.

Is Flame worth it?

On most bows, yes. It costs only 2 levels, conflicts with nothing and adds damage over time to every hit. The extra burn damage matters most against mobs with a lot of health, such as ravagers and endermen, and in PvP against players without Fire Resistance.

Flame in the End

The ender dragon is immune to fire, so Flame adds nothing in that fight. It does no harm either, so a Flame bow with Power V is still a fine dragon bow. The fire bonus just pays off in the Overworld instead.

Flame on the anvil

Flame has a ×4 multiplier from an item and ×2 from a book. So it is one of the pricier bow books, next to Infinity. Add it early in the order, then finish with Power and Unbreaking, which are cheap.

Flame and mob farms

Flame arrows set mobs on fire, and burning mobs drop cooked meat. That makes a Flame bow handy for an animal farm. However, burning mobs often die from the fire rather than your arrow, so the drops may come without the bonus from your other enchantments.

Which items take Flame

Flame goes on 1 kind of gear in the calculator: bow. An enchanting table can roll it on the bow.

Nothing conflicts with Flame, so it fits next to every other enchantment its items can take.

Flame from the enchanting table

The level you can roll depends on the item's enchantability. A material with a higher value reaches higher levels from the same level 30 enchant. This table shows the best Flame each bow can get from a level 30 enchant with 15 bookshelves.

Anything higher has to come from a book instead. Then the enchanting table calculator shows the exact chance for every level.

Anvil cost of Flame

Flame has an anvil multiplier of 4 from another item and 2 from a book. So the book costs 2 levels on a fresh item. That is a middling cost, so the order still matters once you combine several books.

Java charges the full resulting level every time, even when the item already has a lower level of it. Every step also adds the prior work penalty of both items. The enchantment calculator finds the cheapest order for your whole set of books.

Builds, questions and guides

Flame is part of the max build for 1 item: best bow enchantments. To put it on in the cheapest order, see the bow enchant order.

More reading: Getting books from librarians, How to enchant in Minecraft, Every max enchantment level. You can make a Flame book with the command generator. The librarian price list shows what villagers charge for it.

How to get Flame

• Enchanting table It can appear when you enchant a supported item at an enchanting table. However, higher levels need more bookshelves and a level 30 enchant.
• Librarian villagers Librarians can sell it as an enchanted book. Level I costs 5–19 emeralds plus a book.
• Random enchanted books It is also in the pool for the random enchanted books and gear in many chests and in fishing loot.

Flame is a rare roll at the enchanting table, and it only appears on bows. Librarians sell it, and it is a cheap single-level book.

Tips

• Burning mobs drop cooked meat, like with Fire Aspect.
• Useless against fire-immune mobs such as blazes and the Nether's magma cubes.

Commands

Give yourself a Flame book or enchant the item in your hand. These work in Java 26.3 once cheats are on.

Versions

Flame is in every Java version from 1.21 (when enchantments became data files) up to 26.3.

Its costs, levels and items have not changed in that time.

Also see the update log for every change, and how this data is checked. Bedrock player? See Flame on Bedrock.

Goes well with

• Curse of Vanishing
• Infinity
• Mending
• Power
• Punch
• Unbreaking