5 Best Crossbow Enchantments in Minecraft

In a Nutshell

There is no “best” crossbow enchantment in Minecraft because each enchantment is suitable for a particular situation. However, the most useful crossbow enchantments are Quick Charge, Multishot, Mending, Piercing, and Unbreaking.

Monsters are a common occurrence in the world of Minecraft. To defend yourself against hostile mobs, you will have to carry an arsenal of weapons. There are many options to choose from, such as swords, axes, bows, tridents, and crossbows.

Compared to other weapons, crossbows are pretty unpopular in Minecraft. There are valid reasons for this, as crossbows need to be reloaded while having a long reloading animation.

With the help of enchantments, players can improve their crossbows and even make them better than bows.

Enchantments are used to increase the versatility and usability of items. Like other weapons, crossbows also have several enchantments in Minecraft. In this article, you can learn about five of the best enchantments available for crossbows in Minecraft.

Table of Contents

How to Get a Crossbow in Minecraft

Before thinking about crossbow enchantments, you should first obtain a crossbow. Unlike bows, crossbows are not simple to craft. To make one crossbow in Minecraft, you will need three sticks, two strings, one iron ingot, and one tripwire hook. Place them on a crafting table in the following pattern to get a crossbow:

Other than crafting, you can also get crossbows from defeating pillagers and piglins. Often, crossbows also generate inside loot chests found in bastion remnants and pillager outposts.

Best Enchantments for Crossbows in Minecraft

1. Quick Charge

One of the main reasons players do not use a crossbow in Minecraft is its slow loading speed. In the case of bows, players can quickly pull an arrow and fire it at the enemy.

When using crossbows, players will have first to load an arrow and then fire it. By default, crossbows take 1.25 seconds to load.

To avoid the long loading time, players can apply Quick Charge enchantment to their crossbows. Quick Charge enchantments significantly lower the arrow charge time in crossbows. It has a maximum level of three.

At Quick Charge level 1, a crossbow will take 1 second to load an arrow.
At Quick Charge level 2, a crossbow will take 0.75 seconds to load an arrow
At Quick Charge level 3, a crossbow will take 0.5 seconds to load an arrow

At max level, players will get over 50% fast loading speed. This is a lot faster than normal bows in Minecraft. Players worried about the loading speed of crossbows should use Quick Charge enchantment.

2. Piercing

Piercing is an offensive enchantment exclusively available for crossbows in Minecraft. This enchantment makes crossbows an insanely powerful weapon against hordes of mobs, and piercing enchantment allows a single arrow to hit multiple entities.

Players can get a maximum of four levels of Piercing on their crossbows. With each level, the arrow will hit an extra entity. By default, an arrow shot from a crossbow will only hit one enemy.

However, the Piercing enchantment causes an arrow to pass through a mob and hit the mob behind it. If mobs are aligned in a row:

At Piercing level 1, an arrow will hit two mobs.
At Piercing level 2, an arrow will hit three mobs.
At Piercing level 3, an arrow will hit four mobs.
At Piercing level 4, an arrow will hit five mobs.

Other than its limitation, there is another downside to using Piercing enchantment. It is mutually exclusive with Multishot enchantment, which means a crossbow cannot have both of these enchantments.

3. Multishot

Multishot is one of the most fun to use enchantments in Minecraft. It causes the crossbow to fire three arrows at once instead of the usual single arrow. It has only one level and is exclusive to crossbows.

As mentioned earlier, Multishot is incompatible with Piercing. Otherwise, it would have been a powerful combination.

Even though the crossbow fires three arrows, it will only use one arrow. That’s why players should not worry about wasting arrows when using Multishot enchanted crossbow.

Crossbows with Multishot enchantment also lose their durability quickly as they lose three times more durability than a regular crossbow.

4. Unbreaking

Whether it’s a tool, weapon, or armor, Unbreaking enchantment is recommended. It is a must-have enchantment in Minecraft and is applicable on all usable items, including crossbows.

Unbreaking enchantment lowers the chances of durability reduction when an item is used. Because of this effect, things last much longer than they usually do. It has a maximum level of three.

5. Mending

Much like Unbreaking, Mending is also a must-have enchantment in Minecraft. This enchantment allows players to repair the durability of an item by consuming experience orbs. With Mending, players will never have to repair their crossbows on an anvil. By killing mobs and collecting XP, players will be able to repair their crossbow.

Minecraft Crossbow Enchantments list

Here is a list of all the enchantments available for crossbows in Minecraft.

Quick Charge
Multishot
Piercing
Unbreaking
Mending
Curse of Vanishing

Other than Curse of Vanishing, players are free to use all the other enchantments. Curse of Vanishing is a cursed enchantment that causes the item to disappear after its owner’s death. Before trying Curse of Vanishing, players should know that cursed enchantments are not removable once applied to an item.

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