Protection

Protection is a common armor enchantment in Minecraft 1.21. Protection is the all-round armor enchantment, cutting almost every kind of incoming damage — melee, fall, fire, explosions and projectiles alike.

Its opening level already delivers a noticeable boost — 4% damage reduction — and it climbs from there to a maximum of level 4 (IV) on your chestplate.

Protection tops out at level 4, shown as IV on the chestplate, and the gap between the levels is where the enchantment's character really lives.

Each of its four levels removes a flat 4% of damage, so a single piece at Protection IV blocks 16%. Worn on all four armor slots it stacks toward roughly 64% mitigation, and the game caps total enchantment protection at 80% so you are never made invulnerable.

Protection can be placed on helmet, chestplate, leggings and boots, giving you a handful of choices for where it does the most good depending on how you play.

Protection cannot share an item with Fire Protection, Blast Protection and Projectile Protection. All of these sit in the same mutually-exclusive group as Protection, so an item can wear only one of them at once and you choose which playstyle to commit to.

Protection can be rolled directly at an enchanting table, where reaching its top level of IV on a chestplate generally wants a fully bookshelf-powered table at roughly level 11. Players who would rather not gamble for Protection can hunt the book down through loot chest and villager trading and apply it at an anvil.

Its selection weight of 10 makes Protection a common roll: it shows up frequently among the options when you enchant a chestplate, so building one rarely takes many tries.