The best trident and mace enchantments in Minecraft

The trident and the mace cannot be crafted from common materials, and each has enchantments that exclude each other. Here are the sets worth building in Java Edition 26.3, and where every rare piece comes from.

A trident deals 9 damage in melee and 8 when thrown. Its enchantments decide what kind of weapon it becomes.

Loyalty or Riptide

Riptide cannot be combined with Loyalty or Channeling. A Riptide trident never leaves your hand: it carries you with it, but only while you stand in water or under rain. It covers 6 blocks per level plus 3, so 21 blocks at level III, and 15 blocks when you are fully underwater. Loyalty brings the trident back as soon as it hits a mob, or 0.25 seconds after it hits a block. Never throw it into the void in Java Edition: with nothing to hit, it does not come back.

Most players keep two tridents: Loyalty and Channeling for fighting, Riptide for travel, with Impaling, Unbreaking and Mending on both.

Channeling needs a thunderstorm

Channeling calls a lightning bolt on the mob a thrown trident hits, but only during a thunderstorm and only if there is nothing but sky above the target. It also works when the trident hits a Lightning Rod. Use it to turn a Creeper into a charged creeper, a Pig into a Zombified Piglin, a Villager into a Witch, or a red Mooshroom into a brown one.

Impaling only hits aquatic mobs

Impaling adds 2.5 damage per level, 12.5 at level V, but in Java Edition only against aquatic mobs: guardians, elder guardians, dolphins, squid, glow squid, fish, turtles, axolotls, tadpoles and nautiluses, zombie ones included. Drowned are undead, not aquatic, so Impaling does nothing to them. It is still worth it for raiding an ocean monument. In Bedrock Edition, Impaling hurts any mob that is in water or rain.

A Trident cannot be crafted. In Java Edition, 6.25% of naturally spawned Drowned carry one, and a Drowned with a trident drops it 8.5% of the time when you kill it, plus 1% per level of Looting. Drowned that used to be zombies never get a trident, so hunt the ones that spawn in oceans and rivers. Tridents are also a rare reward from regular vaults in trial chambers. In Bedrock Edition, the drop chance is 25%.

The Mace deals 6 damage on a normal hit. What makes it special is the smash attack: hit a mob after falling at least 1.5 blocks and it adds 4 damage per block for the first 3 blocks, 2 per block for the next 5, then 1 per block. A successful smash also cancels your fall damage. Fire Aspect II can be added as an option.

Density or Breach

Density, Breach, Smite and Bane of Arthropods share one exclusive group, so a mace gets only one of them. Density adds 0.5 damage per block fallen per level: after a 10-block fall, Density V adds 25 damage. Breach makes the target's armor 15% less effective per level, 60% at Breach IV; Protection enchantments and the Resistance effect still apply. According to the Minecraft Wiki, killing a player in full Protection IV netherite armor with one critical smash takes a 30-block fall with a plain mace, 19 blocks with Breach IV and only 10 with Density V.

Take Density for big falls and Wind Burst combos. Take Breach for short hops and normal hits against diamond or netherite armor. Smite V adds 12.5 damage against undead mobs whatever the height, so it only suits a mace you use on the ground.

Wind Burst chains the smashes

Wind Burst launches you back up after each smash attack: about 8 blocks at level I, 16 at level II and 24 at level III. You fall, smash again and keep hitting without touching the ground. It does not cancel fall damage on its own: if you miss the target on the way down, you take the full fall.

Place one Heavy Core above one Breeze Rod in any crafting grid. Breezes drop 1 or 2 Breeze Rods when you kill them in trial chambers. The Heavy Core is the hard part: it only comes from ominous vaults, with a 7.5% chance per vault. To open one, enter a trial chamber with Bad Omen: its Trial Spawners turn ominous and can drop Ominous Trial Keys. The Trial Chambers page covers the whole run.

Wind Burst is a treasure enchantment: no enchanting table, librarian or fishing catch gives it. Ominous vaults eject a Wind Burst I Enchanted Book about 5.5% of the time. Two Wind Burst I books make Wind Burst II, and two Wind Burst II books make Wind Burst III, so you need four in total. The same vaults also give Density or Breach books.

Everything else comes the usual ways. Density and Breach appear when you enchant a mace at the Enchanting Table: set it up for level 30 first. A trident gets weak, random results at the table, so books are the better route for it. Librarians sell every trident and mace enchantment except Wind Burst, Mending included: see villager trading. Fishing also brings up enchanted books.

Merge books in pairs first, add the costly ones early, and keep each step under 40 levels to avoid "Too Expensive!". The planners give the cheapest order. Loyalty and Channeling are preselected for the trident; swap them for Riptide on a travel trident.

The mace planner starts with Density and Wind Burst; swap Density for Breach if you mostly fight armored players.

Wrong enchantment on a fresh weapon? Clear it at a Grindstone before adding your books: how to remove enchantments. For ranged weapons, see the best bow and crossbow enchantments.