It might just be impossible to argue that Mending isn’t the single best enchantment in Minecraft. This enchantment makes it so players’ tools and weapons are almost indestructible, as when equipped, the items will recover two durabilities for every one experience point earned. As experience can be earned from farming, mining, killing mobs, trading, earning advancements, and pretty much everything else in the game, players will surely repair their tools faster than they can break them.
Mending is a special kind of enchantment known as a treasure enchantment, meaning it can not be gotten through traditional enchanting. It requires an enchanted book to perform, and the book can be applied to any tool or weapon in the game, from netherite swords to pairs of shears. The only restriction on Mending is that it can not be applied to a bow that already has the Infinity enchantment.
How To Get The Mending Enchantment In Minecraft
Chest Loot
In order to get a tool or weapon enchanted with Mending, players will need to locate a Mending enchanted book in the wild. These books can only generate in particular natural structures’ chests, but it is still possible to get them in other ways. Mending books can be found in chests inside all of the following structures:
- Dungeons
- Mineshafts
- Ancient Cities
- Desert Temples
- Woodland Mansions
- Underwater Ruins
- Pillage Outposts
Any chest within any one of these structures has a >10% chance of having an enchanted book, however, it may not necessarily be Mending. This means that even though players may find loads of enchanted books in their travels, Mending is still quite rare. Underwater Ruins and Desert Temples both have higher odds than average of containing books, and Desert Temples are guaranteed to have four chests, making these two great options to look for.
The best structures, however, have to be the Ancient Cities. These underground cities are loaded with chests, and each one has a 35.9% chance of containing a book; the best odds of any structure. Ancient Cities are very hard to find, forming deep underground in deep dark caves, and they are incredibly dangerous. Players should be well-stocked on wool when they enter, so as to avoid accidentally summoning a Warden.
Villager Trading
Luckily, random chest loot is not the only option when it comes to obtaining the Mending enchantment, meaning players who have exhausted all nearby structures are not out of luck. Mending books can also be obtained through villager trading. Librarians can offer trades for enchanted books at any level, and it is completely random what kind of enchanted book they will offer, meaning it is still extremely rare for one to offer Mending.
When a villager does offer Mending, it will cost between 10 and 38 emeralds, plus a book. This trade can be made up to 12 times before it stops being offered. It is possible for the villager to reoffer the trade at a higher level, though players will have to make additional trades in order to increase its level to see. Players can also receive discounts on trades if the villager is a recently-cured zombie villager, or if the villager was recently saved from a raid.
Thankfully, villagers can be bred infinitely, meaning players can continue to produce new villagers. By using a villager farm to produce baby villagers, these villagers can be forced into becoming librarians quite easily. Villagers start off as unemployed when they mature and will begin to look for jobs. When they do this, they will try to find an unclaimed “job site block” within a 48-block radius. They must be able to path-find to the block for it to work.
By locking villagers in a small area with a lectern (the librarian’s job site block), they will eventually accept their role as a librarian. This will also work with villagers who already have jobs, as they will give up on their old jobs if they can not reach their job site blocks. Each lectern can only be claimed by one villager at a time, so players will have to slay villagers that offer the wrong trades (or just make more lecterns).
Players should be weary of nitwits, however. Nitwits are green-robed villagers who refuse to work. As such, players should not bother locking them up with lecterns, as they will never convert to librarians.
Fishing
If players don’t want to slaughter villagers until luck is on their side, they can opt for the much more calming option of fishing. When fishing, players have rare chances of catching non-fish treasure, and enchanted books are a possibility. There are three different categories of catchable items when fishing: fish, treasure, and junk. Treasure is the rarest, having a 5% chance of occurring on any given catch.
When treasure does get caught, there is a 1/6 chance that that treasure will be an enchanted book. When that book is fished, it can be any enchantment, except for Swift Sneak or Soul Speed, meaning there is a very small, but not impossible chance that it is Mending. Overall, there is a 0.8% chance of getting an enchanted book, period. This can be increased if players enchant their fishing rods with Luck of the Sea, which increases the rates to:
- 1.2% for Luck of the Sea I
- 1.5% for Luck of the Sea II
- 1.9% for Luck of the Sea III
Overall, it will still be an incredibly rare find, but considering how powerful the enchantment is, that seems only fair.
Raid Drops
Finally, Mending can be obtained from rare drops in villager raids, but only for players playing on Bedrock Edition. Much like all of the aforementioned methods, almost any book type can be dropped, thus Mending is not only not guaranteed, but extremely rare. The two mobs that have chances of dropping them are vindicators and pillagers.
Both of these mobs have a 2/39 chance of dropping an enchanted book, and this is only during raids. Killing them at their outposts, or in Woodland Mansions will not do players any good. This method yields some of the worst odds for getting Mending books, however, it can be done in conjunction with villager trading, as defeating raids will give players discounts, and players will need to wait around while villagers breed anyway.
To trigger a raid, players must enter a village with the Bad Omen effect active. These can be naturally spawned villages, or player-created ones, meaning they can be set up near Pillager Outposts for convenience. To create a village, players must ensure that there is at least one villager and one bed, and those villagers should be made safe from outside attacks. Then, to trigger a raid, players need to kill an Illager Captain, which spawns in a Pillage Outpost.
Illager Captains are identified by the ominous banners they fly over their heads. After killing one, the player will immediately be hit with Bad Omen, and should quickly rush to a village to start a raid. Players will lose their Bad Omen effect if they die or drink milk, or if they allow an hour and 40 minutes to pass.
The number of waves in a raid will depend on the player’s difficulty, so if players are trying to maximize the number of pillagers and vindicators, they should play on Hard for at least the duration of the raid. Hard raids will consist of seven waves that include a total of 33 pillagers and vindicators, meaning there are fairly good odds of receiving an enchanted book each raid.
Pillagers will spawn indefinitely within Pillager Outposts, provided the block they spawn on is light level eight or lower. Similar to dungeons, they may even spawn when players are inside the outpost. This means that players can, in theory, trigger infinitely many raids with just a single Pillager Outpost, allowing them to grind for books.
How To Use The Enchanted Book
Once players finally get their hands on a Mending enchanted book, they can apply it to any tool or weapon of their choosing by using an anvil. Simply place the item in the anvil alongside the book, and the player will need to pay an experience fee to add the enchantment to the item. The cost of the fee will depend on the enchantments that the item already has.
Minecraft has a maximum fee that it can impose before it becomes “too expensive”, and the game will not allow players to carry it out. That fee is 39 levels, which may occur if a player attempts to attach a Mending book to an item that is already decked out with loads of enchantments. This shouldn’t be an issue under normal circumstances. For example, an Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, Fortune III diamond pickaxe costs just nine levels to add Mending, but in extreme cases, over-enchanted items may not be allowed to have the enchantment.
