7 Best Bow Enchantments In Minecraft [Detailed Comparison]

Minecraft offers great weapons like swords, bows, and crossbows with Enchantments. New upgrades keep coming out and offering brand-new things for you to do. With these upgrades, you get to see new Enchantments Books for all the weapons, armor, and tools in Minecraft. Today’s guide will look at all the Enchantments available for the Bow as of update 1.19 and rank them according to their usefulness.

Before I begin, let’s have a quick look at all of the Bow Enchantments in the game:

Best Bow Enchantments In Minecraft

There are a total of 7 Enchantments for the Bow in Minecraft. The list below ranks them from best to worst. The top 4 are the absolute best Bow Enchantments In Minecraft.

1. Power V – This Enchantment simply increases the amount of damage caused by the Bow.
2. Unbreaking III – The Enchantment here Increases the Durability of your Bow.
3. Flame – As the name suggests, Flame grants your arrows a burning effect and flame damage.
4. Punch – When used with the Bow, it knocks enemies further when you shoot them.
5. Mending – It increases your Bow’s durability through the XP gained.
6. Infinity – The Infinity Enchantment grants you an infinite amount of arrows. 
7. Curse Of The Vanishing – The worst Enchantment that simply makes your Bow vanish after you die, so others can’t pick it up.

Now, let’s go through all the Enchantments for the Bow in detail.

Power V

When Power V is used with a Bow, it tremendously increases the damage done to enemies. With each level, it increases the Bow damage by 25%. The exact rate of increase for Power V is 150%, which is a lot. With a full-charge hit, you are going to get 7.5 Hearts of the enemy. If compared to the normal hit (which is just 3), it is a significant improvement.

On top of that, after update 1.8, you no longer need the Anvil to get this Enchantment on the Bow. All in all, I recommend having this enchantment on your bow. No doubt, it is the best Bow enchantment you can get your hands on. It is simple and straightforward and doesn’t require you to put in any extra effort. All you do is use your Bow normally.

Pros

• Power V enchantment is one of the strongest enchantments for a bow in Minecraft 
• it significantly increases your damage dealt to enemies, dealing over 25 dmg at most.

Cons

• Once you apply a high-level enhancement to your bow, you can’t add other enchantments like Mending.

Unbreaking III

Unbreaking III works in a weird way to increase the Item’s durability. In Minecraft, when an item is used, it costs durability. What Unbreaking does is it reduces the chances for the item to use durability. On average, a Bow in Minecraft has 384 durability points, but when Unbreaking III is used on it, it takes that all the way to 1536. So from that number, you can get an idea of how useful the Unbreaking Enchantment is in Minecraft for Bow. 

Pros

• Greatly increases the durability of the bow, making it last longer
• This enhancement  is a great alternative to apply instead of mending 
• You can apply other enhancements, such as Power and Punch.

Cons

• Even though it makes your bow last longer, it is still not good as mending 
• The bow will break eventually after a lot of usages.

Flame

Flame is a self-explanatory Enchantment for the Bow in Minecraft. It sets mobs and other players on fire and causes them damage over time. The overtime damage lasts for 5 seconds, and the enemy loses 2.5 hearts every second. It’s worth noting that if you increase the level of Flame through commands, it is not going to affect damage or the time it lasts. Mobs that are killed by flame only will not drop any XP points. Unless you damage them between the five seconds, Flame lasts.

Flame can only burn players, mobs, TNT, and candles. It will not have any effect on other blocks, such as trees, and you can not use it as a source of light. Also, the Flame obviously doesn’t work in Rain or Ocean.

Pros:

• Effective for dealing damage over time to enemies.
• Sets enemies on fire with each shot, useful for hunting animals that provide cooked food.

Cons:

• Ineffective against Nether mobs, as they are damaged with normal arrows instead of fiery arrow.

Punch

Punch is a very situational or rather playstyle-based Bow Enchantment in Minecraft. It knows the enemy back by three additional blocks with each level. The enchantment has a total of two levels. It’s a very useful tool to have in your arsenal against Mobs that move around a lot. But it can also backfire with mobs that are steady; in that case, you will be moving them away yourself. It’s worth noting that Punch doesn’t increase your damage in any way at all

Pros

• This adds a knockback effect to the arrows.
• Every time you shoot an enemy, they will be knockback, giving you an upper hand in combat.

Cons

• This will not increase your overall damage
• This effect won’t apply to bigger enemies such as Ender Dragon.

Mending

Mending is one of the best Enchantments for any type of weapon or armor in Minecraft, including Bow. It takes the experience orbs gained by the player and uses them to repair anything with Mending. The exact rate at which it increases the durability is for each point of experience orb, and you gain two durability points. It’s pretty sweet, but it does have its flaws.

Pros

• This enchantment makes it so that your bow never breaks
• It uses the collected exp levels as a source of repairing the bow. 
• If you have a bow that has good enhancements, this enhancement will keep the bow alive.

Cons

• You will find it hard to collect exp levels as every time you collect exp, it will go straight into mending the bow until the bow isn’t completely fixed,

Infinity

As the name suggests, this Enchantment grants you an infinite number of arrows for the Bow in Minecraft. In almost all the situations you will face at the beginning of the game, this is a fantastic upgrade for the Bow. But later on in the game, you will have a good amount of arrows to spare. On top of that, you will be using special arrows when you are advanced In the game.

Pros

• If you struggle with having the resources for making arrows, this enhancement is best to have for reserving
• You will only need one arrow that will last you forever until the bow breaks.

Cons

• This effect will not apply to arrows with potion effects 
• infinity arrows are only applicable to normal arrows.

Curse Of The Vanishing

In Minecraft, most players play online, and once you are dead, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Well, the Curse of The Vanishing is an Enchantment that is for when you’re dead. It’s pretty stupid of the game to include such an Enchantment. This Enchantment, or rather a curse, vanishes any weapon it was on once the player dies. It is a very useful Enchantment for the Bow but for trolls and not players.

Pros

• This effect will make your bow disappear instead of dropping 
• which makes it so that other players won’t be able to have your bow, and neither you, as the bow will completely be gone.

Cons

• This effect is useless in single-player mode and is only useful in multiplayer modes such as servers and realms.

What Are Enchantments In Minecraft? 

Enchantments enhance weapon, armor, and tool efficiency in Minecraft Dungeons and Bedrock 1.16. Use Enchantment Tables or Anvils with Enchanted Books. Enchanted gear has a visible purple effect. Obtain enchanted books through trading, fishing, or in-game locations.

How To Enchant Bows In Minecraft

Enchanting weapons like bows in Minecraft Bedrock and Dungeons involves using an Enchantment Table, experience points, and Lapis Lazuli (post-1.19 update). For higher enchantment levels, arrange about 15 bookshelves around the Enchantment Table, leaving a block of air on each side. Avoid any barriers like carpets or torches between the table and bookshelves. Once set up, small white symbols will float toward the Enchantment Table. This process offers three enchanting options for your bows.

Final Verdict

Minecraft allows for vast customization on almost all the things that it offers. Unfortunately, it’s not the case with Bow, Crossbow, and Fishing Rod items. All these items have a minimal amount of customization to them. This is no different when it comes to Enchantments for the Bow, and you only get 7 Enchantments. I listed all the seven available Enchantments and ranked them how I saw them fit. But if you disagree with my ranking, make sure to let me know below.

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