Best armor enchantments in Minecraft: Mending, Protection, more

Aakrit Sharma
Diamond armor and enchantment table in Minecraft

Enchantments are some of the most effective ways to strengthen your gear in Minecraft. Here are the best armor enchantments that you can use on your set in Minecraft.

Armor is the best way to defend oneself against the many dangers in the Minecraft world. However, before you can hope to gain the benefits of a full set of armor, you’ll have to craft one.

There are four pieces that make up an armor set in Minecraft: a helmet, chest plate, leggings, and boots. Once you have these, you’ll need to invest quite some time and resources to make an enchantment table that allows you to enchant items.

Minecraft has a wide variety of enchantments, which is great as they can all be used to give players unique abilities that can help them progress through the game. However, the sheer number of possibilities and combinations that comes with enchantments can be confusing for newer players.

Check out our guide on the best enchantments for armor in Minecraft.

Minecraft official artworking featuring the green Overworld.
Minecraft has several effective enchantments.

Best armor enchantments in Minecraft

Armor sets in Minecraft have four components and this guide will separately list the best enchantments for helmets, chest plates, leggings, and boots.

Best helmet enchantments in Minecraft

The best enchantments for Minecraft helmets are:

  • Protection IV – Increases damage reduction. Reduces the damage taken from all mobs.
  • Aqua Affinity – Increases the mining speed underwater and makes it equal to the character’s mining speed on the ground.
  • Respiration III – Adds 15 seconds of breathing time per level.
  • Unbreaking III – Provides the enchanted item with a chance to avoid damage reduction upon usage. Significantly increases the durability.
  • Mending – Restores the durability of an item when it is used. The restoring ability is based on the experience gained by the player.

You can use an anvil to combine enchantment books in Minecraft and we recommend doing the same with your helmet enchantments.

Open the anvil’s GUI and combine Respiration with Mending. Thereafter, put Protection IV and Aqua Affinity together. You’ll get two new books with this process, and the next step is to put them together and craft a book that has Respiration, Mending, Protection, and Aqua Affinity.

Now, apply Unbreaking III to the desired helmet, and lastly, put this helmet with the enchanted book you just created. With this, you’ll be able to obtain the strongest helmet in Minecraft.

In case you don’t have an anvil, you can make one easily by placing three iron blocks on the top row of the crafting grid, one iron ingot in the central slot, and three iron ingots in the bottom row.

The crafting recipe for an anvil has been showcased in this image:

Crafting recipe to make anvil in Minecraft
Iron armor is quite convenient to craft.

Best chest plate enchantments in Minecraft

These are the best chest plate enchantments in Minecraft:

  • Protection IV
  • Unbreaking III
  • Mending

Use an anvil to combine Protection IV with Mending. Then, equip the chest plate with Unbreaking, and lastly, combine that chest plate with the book that contains Protection and Mending.

Minecraft characters wearing Gold, Diamond, and iron armors
Minecraft has many types of armor sets.

Best leggings enchantments in Minecraft

The best enchantments for leggings in Minecraft are:

  • Protection IV
  • Unbreaking III
  • Mending

To make the strongest leggings with enchantments, follow the same procedure that you used for helmets. Combine Protection and Mending and put the book on leggings that already have the Unbreaking III enchantment.

Best boots enchantments in Minecraft

The best enchantments for boots in Minecraft are:

  • Feather Falling IV – Reduces fall damage with every level and lets you avoid death during exploration.
  • Soul Speed III – Increases walking speed on Soul Sand and Soul Soil. Very useful in the Nether.
  • Depth Strider III – Increases swimming speed.
  • Protection IV
  • Unbreaking III
  • Mending

After obtaining these enchantments, use an anvil to make the best possible combinations.

To get the most robust boots in Minecraft, follow these steps:

  1. Interact with the anvil to open its GUI. Add boots and equip them with Mending.
  2. Combine Depth Strider III and Protection IV to get a new enchanted book. Add this book to the boots that already have Mending.
  3. Combine Soul Speed III with Unbreaking III to get a new book. Now, combine this new book with Feather Falling IV.
  4. Lastly, equip the boots with the book that has all the aforementioned enchantments.

Do note that using the anvil will require you to farm XP. Combining books takes up XP and for making an entire armor with this method, you’ll need 110 levels.

Soul Sand in Minecraft's Nether.
Soul sand can slow players down, which can result in skeleton and ghast attacks.

Best Elytra & shield enchantments in Minecraft

Minecraft armor can also include Elytra and shields. Elytra is one of the rarest items in the game that you can obtain from End ships and it helps you fly. Shields are craftable and here’s a detailed guide on how to make shields.

Both Elytra and shields can make the most of these enchantments in Minecraft:

  • Unbreaking III
  • Mending

Put Elytra/shield in the anvil with Unbreaking III or Mending. Then, add the enchanted item and the remaining enchantment to get the final piece of your armor. The entire process should cost you 12 XP ( 6 XP for each Elytra and 6 XP for the shield).

Minecraft character wearing Elytra and Mending enchantment
The Elytra and Mending enchantment are two of the rarest aspects of Minecraft.

With this guide, you should be able to create the strongest enchanted armor in Minecraft that you can also display on an armor stand. For similar guides, check out our guides below:

Best Minecraft modpacks | How to change your skin in Minecraft | How to switch teams in Minecraft Legends | How to use enchanted books in Minecraft | How to breed frogs in Minecraft | How to cure a Zombie villager in Minecraft | How to find Lapis in Minecraft Legends | How to get more Allays in Minecraft Legends | How to make a fermented Spider Eye in Minecraft

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About The Author

Aakrit is a games writer with over 2000 published articles for EssentiallySports, Sportskeeda, FortniteINTEL, and CharlieINTEL. Currently, he writes guides on Minecraft, Roblox, Pokemon games, Genshin Impact, and Brawlhalla. Aakrit loves playing shooter games and in his free time, you can find him queued up in Valorant, Fortnite, Apex Legends, or Halo Infinite. You can contact Aakrit at [email protected].