UNIVERSAL ENCHANTMENTS
Enchantments that can be applied to almost any item, including durability and repair. 4 enchantments in this category.
Increases item durability by giving a chance to not consume durability on use.
Uses experience orbs to repair the item instead of adding to the player's experience bar.
Causes the item to disappear (be deleted) upon the player's death instead of dropping.
Prevents the item from being removed from an armor slot once equipped (except by dying or breaking).
How the universal enchantments fit together
The four universal enchantments below go on boots, chestplates, elytra, helmets, leggings, axes, bows, crossbows, fishing rods, hoes, maces, pickaxes, shovels, spears, swords and tridents. At full strength they are Unbreaking III, Mending I, Curse of Vanishing I and Curse of Binding I.
Unbreaking fits all 16 item types on this page; Curse of Binding only five of them.
Of these four, only Unbreaking comes out of an enchanting table, so weight never decides between them there. The weights of the others still count when loot rolls a random enchantment, such as a book fished up as treasure.
Nothing here clashes: all four can sit on one item at the same time, provided the item takes them.
An enchanting table never offers Mending, Curse of Vanishing and Curse of Binding: those are treasure and turn up elsewhere. Mending from villager trades, loot chests, fishing and trial chamber vaults; Curse of Vanishing from loot chests, villager trades and fishing; Curse of Binding from loot chests, villager trades and fishing. Curse of Vanishing and Curse of Binding are curses, which a grindstone leaves behind while it strips everything else off.
| Enchantment | Max level | Weight | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unbreaking | III | 5 | 55.6% |
| Mending | I | 2 | 22.2% |
| Curse of Binding | I | 1 | 11.1% |
| Curse of Vanishing | I | 1 | 11.1% |
How Unbreaking, Mending and the curses work
Unbreaking never adds durability. Each time an item would lose a point, it rolls to skip that loss, and the odds depend on what the item is. Tools, weapons, bows, shields, elytra and everything else that is not armor skip it with a chance of the level over the level plus one, which comes to 50%, 67% and 75% for levels I, II and III, so Unbreaking III makes them last about four times as long. Armor gets its own, much weaker roll of 20%, 27% and 30%, and Unbreaking III stretches a piece to only about 1.43 times its durability.
| Item | Durability | With Unbreaking III |
|---|---|---|
| Netherite Pickaxe | 2,031 | about 8,124 |
| Diamond Sword | 1,561 | about 6,244 |
| Iron Pickaxe | 250 | about 1,000 |
| Bow | 384 | about 1,536 |
| Crossbow | 465 | about 1,860 |
| Trident | 250 | about 1,000 |
| Fishing Rod | 64 | about 256 |
| Mace | 500 | about 2,000 |
| Elytra | 432 | about 1,728 |
| Netherite Helmet | 407 | about 581 |
| Netherite Chestplate | 592 | about 846 |
| Diamond Boots | 429 | about 613 |
Mending turns experience into repairs at 2 durability per experience point. Every orb you pick up goes to one damaged Mending item in your hands or armor slots, picked at random, and whatever that repair does not use goes to your experience bar. A netherite pickaxe worn down to its last point needs 1,015 experience to be whole again, a little more than it takes to go from level 0 to level 26.
Neither curse comes off at a grindstone. Curse of Vanishing deletes the item when you die, unless keepInventory is on or the item sits in a shulker box or a bundle, and it fits almost anything that can be enchanted, compasses and carved pumpkins included. Curse of Binding keeps an item in its armor slot until the item breaks, you die or you switch to creative mode. A carved pumpkin or a mob head sheds either curse once you place it and break it again.