Luck of the Sea

What Luck of the Sea 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 fishing loot works

Every catch is one of three kinds: fish, junk or treasure. Fish is by far the most common. Junk covers things like boots, sticks, bowls and string. Treasure is the good stuff: enchanted books, enchanted bows and fishing rods, name tags, saddles and nautilus shells.

Luck of the Sea shifts the odds toward treasure and away from junk. In Java, level III more than doubles your treasure chance. The fish share barely changes, so you still catch plenty of food.

Open water matters

In Java you only catch treasure in open water. The bobber needs a pocket of water about five blocks wide and four deep around it, with nothing but water, air or lily pads. In a small pond or a tight farm you get only fish and junk, no matter how high your Luck of the Sea is.

Fishing for enchanted books

Treasure books come with random enchantments, and they can carry treasure enchantments like Mending and Frost Walker. So a good fishing setup is a slow but steady source of books that the enchanting table never gives.

In practice, pair Luck of the Sea III with Lure III. Lure gets more bites per minute, and Luck of the Sea makes each bite more likely to be treasure.

The max fishing rod

The standard rod is Luck of the Sea III, Lure III, Unbreaking III and Mending. Fishing gives experience on every catch, so Mending keeps the rod repaired as you fish. See the best fishing rod enchantments and Mending on a fishing rod.

Luck of the Sea by level

Each level shifts the catch further toward treasure. Level I helps a little, and level III is the one that makes fishing worth it for books. Since the book is only ×2 per level, go straight to level III.

What to do with the treasure

• Enchanted books are the main prize. Combine them on an anvil or keep them for later builds.
• Name tags let you name mobs so they never despawn.
• Saddles are hard to find elsewhere and let you ride horses, pigs and striders.
• Enchanted bows and fishing rods often carry good books' worth of enchantments. A grindstone turns unwanted ones into XP.

Building a fishing spot

Choose a wide, open lake or a patch of ocean, so the line always lands in open water. Then build a small roof-free dock to stand on. While you fish, the XP from every catch repairs a Mending rod. So a good spot gives you treasure, food and XP at the same time.

Fishing in the rain

Rain makes fish bite sooner, so it pairs well with Lure. Since rain does not change the treasure odds, Luck of the Sea still matters as much as ever.

Which items take Luck of the Sea

Luck of the Sea goes on 1 kind of gear in the calculator: fishing rod. An enchanting table can roll it on the fishing rod.

Nothing conflicts with Luck of the Sea, so it fits next to every other enchantment its items can take.

Luck of the Sea 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 Luck of the Sea each fishing rod 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 Luck of the Sea

Luck of the Sea has an anvil multiplier of 4 from another item and 2 from a book. So a Luck of the Sea III book costs 6 levels on a fresh item, and each lower level costs 2 less. Two fresh Luck of the Sea II books merge into Luck of the Sea III for 6 levels. Building it from scratch takes 4 level I books and 3 merges, 16 levels in all. 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

Luck of the Sea is part of the max build for 1 item: best fishing rod enchantments. To put it on in the cheapest order, see the fishing rod enchant order.

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

How to get Luck of the Sea

• 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.

Luck of the Sea is a rare roll at the enchanting table on fishing rods, and books from the table can carry it too. Librarians sell it. It is a ×2 book, so level III costs 6 levels on a fresh rod.

Enchanting power and librarian prices

The power column is the hidden enchanting value each level needs. A level 30 enchant on a fishing rod reaches power 36 at most. That already includes the enchantability bonus and the random spread. The price column shows what a librarian can ask for each book. Curing a zombie villager or the Hero of the Village effect lowers it.

Tips

• Combine with Lure III for the fastest treasure fishing.
• Fishing is one of the ways to get Mending books.

Commands

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

Versions

Luck of the Sea 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 Luck of the Sea on Bedrock.

Goes well with

• Curse of Vanishing
• Lure
• Mending
• Unbreaking