Minecraft’s Enchanting Table Truly Enchants You!

The crafting table is a staple of Minecraft. One might say its a metaphor for how the game has “crafted” the gaming community with its massive success. But what if there was something even more powerful, even more epic than the most famous table in humankind? An item trumping the power of even Notch himself.

Introducing the enchanting table!

Just kidding, but it certainly is a surprisingly handy yet advanced mechanism in Minecraft. We first saw the enchanting table when Notch posted a photo of a cobblestone-based prototype. This was back in 2011, so we’ve seen lots of iterations and fixes as the game progressed.

It allows players to “spend their experience point levels to enchant tools, books, and armor,” in the words of Gamepedia. Enchanting, unsurprisingly, improves items’ abilities or statistics with a new power or increased strength, durability, etc. Most casual players commonly overlook it. I think it should be made slightly more easy and accessible to players; its power should be shared through the Minecraft multi-verse.

Items have different levels of enchantment that can be achieved with the enchanting table. This level can be increased further by placing it next to a bookshelf. Once you do this, you can start enchanting. You’ll notice a page where you can choose between a variety of different upgrades, so you’ll need to find out which one is good for you.

There’s also a really cool animation for it! Check out Gamepedia for detailed information about the animation for each level of upgrades.

Normally, each upgrade just makes the ability stronger. For example, swords can be enchanted from Sharpness I, Sharpness II, and Sharpness III. It’s recommended that you use a bookshelf around it, as it provides some pretty significant upgrades, as opposed to the lower level ones. Trust me, level four enchanted diamond swords do an insane amount of damage. But, you’ll need to be stacked with XP, because it uses quite a bit of experience to enchant at that level.

You can craft them with the following items:

Clearly, they’re not very easy to find, so I don’t recommend attempting to find them when you’re just starting out. If you really want to find some enchanted items, I would hop onto a server and join some PVP mode. They’ll usually equip you with some enchanted items.

Alternatively, you can also enchant items with an anvil! It can give you some extra benefits and is a lot easier to find than an enchanting table. With the anvil, you can “combine items of the same type and material to merge their durability and enchantments, as well as combine enchanted books, add books to items, and name your items.” That’s why most people suggest using an anvil over an enchanting table.

Nevertheless, the enchanting table still looks great in the middle of a library or centered in a mansion. Also, here’s a great guide to enchanting, which provides a deep analysis of each enchantment and how to do it in the first place. Shoutout to DarkCrimsonFury for making all the time and effort spent on it!