Any gear enchanted with Mending will repair durability points for every experience orb collected. This is one of the most powerful enchantments in the game and makes items last longer.
The Mending enchantment is one you will see repeatedly recommended on our website – mostly because of how useful it is.
Read the rest of this guide for a more detailed breakdown of how this enchantment works!
What Does Mending Do in Minecraft?
In short, the Mending enchantment automatically repairs any enchanted items whenever you collect experience orbs. This means that any item enchanted with Mending will slowly repair itself. This is a powerful buff as it extends the life of useful items.
At higher levels, it can even make certain items last forever. Without Mending, repairing items can be a tedious process, and requires you to sacrifice an item of the same type in an anvil. If you have the Mending enchantment on items, you can rest assured they won’t break while you’re out adventuring – so long as you’re collecting XP.
The actual mechanics for Mending are slightly more complicated than this basic explanation, so check out later sections of this guide for the full details.
How to Find the Mending Enchantment in Minecraft
Unlike other enchantments, Mending is a treasure enchantment. This means you need to find a Mending book to unlock the enchantment (in survival game modes anyway).
These can be found in raid drops, dungeons, from fishing, in ancient city loot chests, a jungle temple, or a stronghold.
Raids are only available in the Bedrock edition of Minecraft, so Java Edition players will have to look elsewhere.
You can also get this enchantment from trading with a librarian villager.
Making a Librarian Villager
If you don’t have a librarian villager in your village, you can make one by giving a lectern to a standard villager.
To do this:
First, you need to trap a villager in a house or room.
Then, place the lectern down, and wait until the villager connects to it.
The villager will now become a librarian.
You will be able to trade with it to obtain enchanted books.
If you don’t get the desired enchantment (in this case, a Mending book) from trading with the villager, you can break and replace its lectern to reset it.
Enchanted books can be pretty hard to come by from raiding and treasure hunting, so we recommend Minecraft players try the librarian villager method first.
Fishing rod method
You can also find the Mending books with a fishing rod. All you need to do is find a body of water at least 5 blocks wide and there will be a chance of finding one of these books.
Enchanting your rod with Luck of the Sea III will give you a higher chance of finding rare items like these enchanted books.
How to enchant items with Mending
Once you’ve obtained a Mending enchanted book, you need an anvil to enchant your gear. Simply place the tool you want to enchant in the anvil interface’s first box and the book in the second box. You will then get an option to create the enchanted item.
Because Mending is a treasure enchantment, it means you can’t simply use an enchanting table to buff your weapons, armor, or tools with Mending. You need to find a book.
Good luck finding and trying to find mending enchantment books – because they can be pretty rare. But when you find that enchanted book it will be worth it because this is one of the best enchantments in the game!
In summary, this is how you get Mending in Minecraft:
Find a Mending enchanted book.
Build an anvil.
Insert your desired item and the Mending book into the anvil.
Apply the enchantment!
Enchantment incompatibilities
The only enchantment that is mutually exclusive with Mending is Infinity. This means that you can only buff an item with one of these enchantments in survival mode.
Luckily the Infinity enchantment is only used on bows, so realistically you will be able to use Mending on any enchanted item.
What are the Best Items to Give the Mending Enchantment To?
Because of how difficult it can be to find a Mending enchanted book, you might want to think carefully about what items you use the enchantment on.
We recommend you use your Mending enchantment books on the following items:
Weapons – powering up your favorite weapon with Mending should be your priority. This means that your sword will repair itself whenever you are killing mobs – letting you essentially keep it forever
Armor – Putting mending on items that go in your armor slots is also a good idea. Because damage you take from mobs degrades your armor, it’s useful to have it self-repair whenever you slay them.
Pickaxes – If you have a diamond pickaxe with Mending, you’re in for a treat. Mining ores also provide experience, so having a Mending enchanted pickaxe means your tool shouldn’t become damaged as you dig around.
Other Tools – There is a chance of gaining XP whenever you gather raw materials – so powering any of your own tools with Mending can be useful. Pretty much any other items you can equip can also take this enchantment, but we recommend prioritizing the above tools first.
How Does Mending Work in Minecraft: Detailed Statistics
We’ve explained the rough concept, but the full mechanic for how Mending works is deeper than just – collecting XP = repairing gear.
The first thing to note is that for every two durability points repaired, one experience is deducted from the amount that would otherwise be gained. However, if only one durability point is repaired, no XP will be used up.
If an item is already at maximum durability, it won’t be repaired and won’t use any experience orbs.
If you have more than one piece of gear with the Mending enchantment in Minecraft, when you gain XP – one item is randomly selected to be repaired. The Mending algorithm won’t prioritize any particular piece of gear – it simply selects one at random (that isn’t fully repaired already).
It also doesn’t matter how degraded an item is – if you have one item on the brink of death, and another weapon with a minimal amount of damage, Mending will still randomly choose one to repair.
Conclusion – Good Luck on Your Hunt for a Mending Book!
Good luck finding the enchanted books that you need to power up your gear with the Mending enchantment. This buff is one of the strongest in the game and will enhance any given item with the ability to self-repair.
FAQs
Is Mending better than Unbreaking?
Ultimately, Mending is better than Unbreaking. While Unbreaking can provide a huge increase to the total durability of an item, Mending lets items last forever as they are self-repairing. Prioritise enchanting your items with Mending before you go for Unrbeaking.
If items have Mending, you don’t really need the boosted durability offered by Unbreaking, because these items will last forever anyway.
How rare is the mending enchantment?
Mending enchantment books are actually extremely rare. If you are looking to find these in strongholds or ancient city chests, you can expect a looting rate of around 0.8%. That means it could take over 100 drops to find Mending enchantment books.
Does Mending take away XP?
Yes, Mending does actually deduct XP points that otherwise would be gained by the player – whenever it repairs an item. Any time an item is repaired by two points of durability, it uses up 1 XP point that would otherwise be given to the player.
It’s also worth noting that it only repairs one item at a time. So if you have a bunch of gear with this enchantment you don’t need to worry about your XP growth becoming completely limited.
Dane started off gaming at the tender age of 3 with the first Atari console. His favorite video game genres are turn-based RPGs (can I get a shout out for Tactics Ogre?) and fighting games. Read more...
