Best Minecraft Armor Enchantments

Wondering what the best armor enchantments are in Minecraft for your Helmet, Chest, Leggings and Boots? In this guide, we’ll run you through our top picks, so you know which ones to focus your time on trying to get and explain why they’re so handy to have as you explore the treacherous, blocky world.

The Best Enchantments for Every Armor Piece in Minecraft

There are four different armor slots in Minecraft. These are your Helmet, Chest, Leggings and Boots, with Elytra falling under the ‘Chest’ armor slot. Each one has different enchantments that will be particularly handy, but it should be noted that certain enchantments are listed for each armor piece due to them being generally great for all of them.

Below, you’ll find our recommendations, and an explanation as to what each enchantment does and why you’ll want it on that particular armor piece. For the likes of Mending, Protection IV and Unbreaking III, we’ll explain the importance of these under the Helmet section, and leave it there to avoid repetition.

Helmet

• Aqua Affinity
  • Increases underwater mining speed. This is particularly useful for mining those resources that can only be found underwater, as usually mining blocks underwater takes five times as long as mining out of water.
• Mending
  • Repairs the item using experience. This is particularly handy for any Diamond or Netherite armor pieces you have, as you won’t need to use more of these very rare resources repairing them. In fact, we’d go as far to say that Mending is the most important and best Minecraft armor enchantment you can get, hands down.
• Protection IV
  • Protection increases the armor’s damage reduction, with the formula for this being calculated as (4 x armor level)% for each armor piece. This can stack up to a maximum of 80%, and generally just means that you’re going to take far less damage and die less… which is obviously a good thing. It also helps reduce fall damage, which can be particularly handy when navigating cave systems or the Nether.
• Respiration III
  • Respiration extends your underwater breathing time and can only be applied to Helmet armor pieces by 15 seconds for each enchantment level in addition to the default time of 15 seconds. This means you can have a total of 60 seconds underwater breathing time at Respiration III before drowning begins. Combined with Aqua Affinity and Depth Strider, Respiration III makes underwater mining far safer, not to mention plenty of protection from any accidental cave flooding when mining.
• Unbreaking III
  • Unbreaking gives an armor piece (or item) the chance of avoiding durability reduction, essentially increasing its durability. That means your armor pieces will take more damage and last longer before needing to be repaired. Combining this with Mending essentially means that your armor pieces will remain in near-pristine condition at all times.

Chest

• Mending
• Protection IV
• Thorns III
  • Thorns is a great protective enchantment that deals damage to any attacker that causes damage to you. The amount of damage you deal will range between half a heart and two hearts depending on the number of items with Thorn III worn. By having this enchantment on both your Chest and Leggings, you have just under 30% chance of dealing max damage to an enemy that attacks you, with an average of one heart of damage dealt.
• Unbreaking III

Leggings

• Mending
• Protection IV
• Thorns III
• Unbreaking III

Boots

• Depth Strider – Increases underwater movement speed. This is generally handy to have if you find yourself mining underwater a lot, or just don’t have (or want to build) a boat to get across large bodies of water. It also combines nicely with Aqua Affinity on your helmet.
• Feather Falling IV
  • Reduces fall damage, but does not affect falling speed. Each level of Feather Falling reduces fall damage by 12%, up to a maximum of 48% damage at level IV. Fallen to your death one too many times when exploring cave systems or in the Nether? Feather Falling can help prevent that. It’s not a guarantee, but if combined with Protection (which we recommend you do as noted in this post), it’ll stack to a maximum of 80% reduction in fall damage.
• Mending
• Protection IV
• Soul Speed
  • Increases movement speed on soul soil and soul sand. Given that this stuff is found all over the Nether, it’s well worth getting Soul Speed on your boots to help you get around faster. You never know when a Ghast will float up next to you and send you to an untimely (and frustrating) death.
• Unbreaking III

There you have our picks for the best Minecraft armor enchantments for your blocky adventures. For more tips and tricks on the game, be sure to search for Twinfinite or see more of our coverage below.