The best bow and crossbow enchantments in Minecraft

The bow and the crossbow share Unbreaking and Mending, but every other enchantment belongs to only one of them. Here are the max sets for Java Edition 26.3, what each enchantment really changes, and how to stack them at the anvil.

Enchantment	Max level	Effect
Power	V	Arrow base damage goes from 2 to 5 (+150%)
Punch	II	Knockback goes from about 2 blocks to about 8.8
Flame	I	Arrows set the target on fire for 5 seconds
Infinity	I	Normal arrows are not used up (excludes Mending)
Unbreaking	III	75% chance that a shot costs no durability
Mending	I	Each experience point repairs 2 durability

Power does most of the work. It adds to the arrow's base damage of 2: +1 at level I, then +0.5 per extra level, so Power V brings it to 5. At full charge, an arrow deals three times that base: 6 damage without Power, 15 with Power V, and up to 25 on a critical shot.

Punch keeps creepers and players away, but it also pushes mobs out of reach. Leave it off a bow you use at a farm. Flame also ignites TNT and campfires; flaming arrows go out if they fly through water or rain.

Enchantment	Max level	Effect
Multishot	I	Shoots 3 arrows or rockets for the cost of 1 (excludes Piercing)
Piercing	IV	An arrow passes through 4 mobs and ignores shields
Quick Charge	III	Loading time drops from 1.25 to 0.5 seconds
Unbreaking	III	75% chance that a shot costs no durability
Mending	I	Each experience point repairs 2 durability

Multishot and Piercing are mutually exclusive. Multishot shoots a center projectile plus two more at 10 degrees on each side, for a single arrow. Only the center arrow can be picked up, and each shot costs 3 durability. Piercing lets an arrow pass through one mob per level: Piercing IV hits up to 5 mobs in a line, goes through a raised Shield, and the arrows can still be picked up. Quick Charge removes 0.25 seconds of loading time per level.

Choose Multishot for raids and crowds, especially with Firework Rockets. Choose Piercing for lines of mobs in a corridor and for enemies that hide behind a shield.

A bow cannot have both. Infinity needs one normal Arrow in your inventory and then never uses it up; Tipped Arrows and Spectral Arrows are still consumed. Mending repairs the bow with the experience you collect, but you keep spending arrows.

• Take Mending on the bow you plan to keep. Hold it while you collect experience at a mob farm and it repairs itself. Arrows are cheap: one Flint, one Stick and one Feather craft 4 of them, and skeletons drop more.
• Take Infinity early in the game or on a second bow. Without Mending, it will break one day: a bow has 384 durability, so even with Unbreaking III it lasts about 1,500 shots on average.

The bow wins on damage per arrow, because no crossbow enchantment raises it. The crossbow wins on handling: you load it in advance, fire the moment a target appears, and Multishot with rockets hits whole groups. Many players carry both. For thrown and melee weapons, read the best trident and mace enchantments.

• Enchanting Table: every bow and crossbow enchantment except Mending can appear, at random. Use the level 30 slot with 15 bookshelves: how to get level 30 enchantments. The table never offers Quick Charge III, so combine two Quick Charge II books.
• Librarian villagers sell an Enchanted Book for emeralds and a Book, including Mending. See villager trading to reroll their offers.
• Fishing with a Fishing Rod: treasure catches include enchanted books and enchanted bows, and both can carry Mending.
• Trial chambers: vaults can eject enchanted bows and crossbows, and ominous vaults sometimes give a Punch or Multishot book.

Put the weapon in the left slot of an Anvil and a book in the right slot. Each use raises the weapon's prior work penalty, which roughly doubles every time, and any step above 39 levels shows "Too Expensive!" in survival. Merge books in pairs first, then add the costly ones while the penalty is still low. The sword enchantment guide explains the same method step by step.

Pick your books in the planner to get the cheapest order and the cost of each step:

The crossbow planner starts with Multishot; swap it for Piercing if that is your choice.

Got Infinity on the bow you wanted to give Mending? A Grindstone removes every enchantment except curses, so you can start again: how to remove enchantments with a grindstone.