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[Weltis]

Since I'm too lazy to build an efficient EXP farm, getting too level 30 is somewhat of a precious thing. (Meaning I can't just repeat the process in 5-10 minutes and do it over if I don't get my desired item).

Before anvils, it was pretty easy. I enchanted lots of picks, lots of swords, and a few bows. Sometimes armor.

Now, with anvils, I'm thinking whether its easier just to use levels to repair things. For example, if my  Prot. 3/4 armor is worn out a bit, I just use levels to repair it. Another example is since I have a Eff 4, Unb 3, Silk Touch 1 Diamond Pick, I may just never enchant another pick and just repair this one.

Thoughts?

[erntcariu_ua12_me]

Well I use my anvils to repair bows, repair tools, and combine my tools to get the best pic I can get, so that consumes quite a bit of XP, but I still enchant my armor and tools because I am yet to get that Unbreaking III, Eff IV, Silk Touch I, and Fortune III pic, but that's just bad luck in my part. But XP is no trouble to me, as I have a skeleton spawner grinder I made, so 20-30 mins = easy level 30.

[bart900]

Well its somewhat worth it and somewhat not.

Its not worth it if you don't have an exp farm and have some really good enchanted stuff e.g. Diamond helmet with Protection 4 and Aqua affinity with respiration it would cost a fair bit to repair it. I have some items that cost over 30 levels to repair them; But if you can afford the exp then be my guest.



Edit: If you find a spawner other than cave spider Keep it! even if its four billion blocks out it'll make your life so much easier to repair your good tools that ask for a lot of exp.

[Darkfyre99]

The beauty of the anvil is that for basic enchantments, it costs far less levels to enchant at level one, and combine the resulting first level enchants into larger ones.  My current game I'm playing without an XP farm, and I really love watching my armor, weapons, and tools improve as I wear them out through use, and combine them into my named item.

The critical thing to remember is to name final item at a low level, and never use it.  Named items aren't subject to the increasing repair cost that non-named items are, and having an undamaged item in the left slot won't increase the cost of the enchant.

[Blorog]

Darkfyre99, on 29 November 2012 - 02:47 AM, said:

The beauty of the anvil is that for basic enchantments, it costs far less levels to enchant at level one, and combine the resulting first level enchants into larger ones.  My current game I'm playing without an XP farm, and I really love watching my armor, weapons, and tools improve as I wear them out through use, and combine them into my named item.

The critical thing to remember is to name final item at a low level, and never use it.  Named items aren't subject to the increasing repair cost that non-named items are, and having an undamaged item in the left slot won't increase the cost of the enchant.

Thanks a ton for that suggestion, I've just been using my end pick and now I know that I should just save it...thanks!

[mattizcool]

Like everyone else, I enchant my stuff with XP.

I only use the anvils for cannonballs mainly because of the Better Than Wolves mod that I play. It renames the vMC anvil into a "Dead Weight" and removes it functions to repair things. The anvil you make in the mod just lets you use a 4x4 crafting grid to craft efficient stuff. So there's my two cents.

[DarkHax]

i use the anvil to make custom password locks with the new red stone features

[Squirrelpiewoosh]

I don't really use my anvil much, only with iron items and pick ax's that have good enchantments, XP consistently goes into getting an INF bow enchantment and to w/e else I've got lying around.  I tend to do a ton of strip mining so I tend to gain levels fast.  P:

</3

[cannibutter]

I use my Anvil to rename my Equipment

such names a "Fortune Finder 5000" would be my pickaxe with max fortune, efficiency, and unbreaking chants

or

"Slap Chop" Would be my Axe with max unbreaking and efficiency chants

[Zuran_Orb]

Darkfyre99, on 29 November 2012 - 02:47 AM, said:

The critical thing to remember is to name final item at a low level, and never use it.  Named items aren't subject to the increasing repair cost that non-named items are, and having an undamaged item in the left slot won't increase the cost of the enchant.

So you don't enchant the item because it would be more expensive, name it before any repairs because it sets the base price at the lowest, and then we should enchant so we get the lowest price for any repairs in an enchanted named item.

Yes?

The price to fully restore (I used it till the damage bar was gone) my Silk Touch/Efficiency IV Pick is level 37 and 4 Diamonds - sounds good enough to me.

[vanityinsanity]

If I have an amazing enchantment on any of my tools, I simply repair them over and over. I also repair the armor.

[stevefox74]

I use my anvil to create traps that kill players who tried to raid my base..

Well other than that, I use my exp mostly on enchanting, and repairing when any items need repairing of course. Simply saying, I just decide my choice depending on the situation.
But I would most likely enchant more than repairing, because who knows, if I get a nice enchantment on a pick, I can merge it with my previous pick to create a far better one. And even better, name it afterwards.

[Darkfyre99]

Zuran_Orb, on 29 November 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

So you don't enchant the item because it would be more expensive, name it before any repairs because it sets the base price at the lowest, and then we should enchant so we get the lowest price for any repairs in an enchanted named item.

Yes?

The price to fully restore (I used it till the damage bar was gone) my Silk Touch/Efficiency IV Pick is level 37 and 4 Diamonds - sounds good enough to me.

Keep in mind that if you haven't named that pick when you repaired it, it'll cost you 39 levels the next time you fix it, and you won't be able to fix it after that. You can partially fix that pick for one diamond, but it'll cost you quite a few levels.

Here's my history in my latest game when enchanting my bows, since I don't care about the flame or infinite arrows ability:

Enchant a bow for 1 level:  Power I - use it until it's almost gone
Enchant a bow for 1 level:  Power I - don't use this one
Combine Second bow with first one and name it "Artemis" for 11 levels:  Result is a named Power II bow.  Stored this one.
Enchant a bow for 1 level:  Power I - use it until it's almost gone
Enchant a bow for 1 level:  don't use this one
Combine the two above bows for 4 levels:  Result is an unnamed Power II bow.  Use this one until it's almost gone
Combine Artemis with the above bow for 7 levels:  Result is a named Power III bow.  Stored this one.

Repeated the above steps to make an unnamed Power III bow, and I'm in the process of using this one up.  Once I have, I'll combine it with Artemis for a named Power IV bow.  IIRC, it will cost 11 levels.

I'm getting impatient though, so when I repeat the above steps again, I'll skip the "wear out" part of the process, and just make an unnamed Power IV bow and get my named Power V bow.  I've found a mineshaft since I started, so silk is no longer scarce.

The beauty of this process is that by naming early, I'm pretty sure that no step will cost me more than 16 levels, which means that I'll lose no XP to the increasing XP cost of levels above 16.  According to my tests, a Power V bow costs less XP than a level 30 enchant.  Even more critically, this process doesn't risk the "dud" enchantments you get from the enchantment table.

The only thing it isn't good for are special enchantments, like flame, punch, silk touch, fortune, and others.  You still have to risk the randomness of the enchantment table, but if you enchant at 16, you don't waste XP in the process.

[asCaio]

Repair my perfect bowsword and pickaxe

[BAW194]

Pickaxe repairs. Other than that, I also use it for renaming items.

[TheCheeseKnees]

Try to get Efficiency IV and ubreaking III on a diamond pickaxe to be used as a replacement for every tool.

[Zuran_Orb]

Darkfyre99, on 29 November 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

Keep in mind that if you haven't named that pick when you repaired it, it'll cost you 39 levels the next time you fix it, and you won't be able to fix it after that. You can partially fix that pick for one diamond, but it'll cost you quite a few levels.

Yep, I renamed it before doing any repairs and it still capped at 37 levels (for a full repair).

But, it actually increased two levels before setting the base price, instead of getting a discount. So the first "repair" was 18, I renamed it and it stepped up to 20 (and now it doesnt go up anymore because of the renaming). Does that increase before setting base price make any sense to you guys?

[Boundegar]

Name a block of wood.  Then put it back in the tree you got it from.  Now you've named the whole tree!  I hope you gave it a good name, like Stanley.  It will be your companion for years.

[LiwenDiamond]

There might actually be a way from me to use the Anvil to save up levels or materials... Not actually sure. Don't actually care. 30 levels is easy to acquire these days. I've got a full Enchancted Diamond armor set, 3 Fortune III Diamond picks and a bunch of other neat stuff. Just doing the routine stuff like breeding, mining, killing them slimes around my swamp, etc I get to level 30 in like an hour without even trying to. It's come to the point that I can't burn my stuff faster than I'm making it. I've also got like 4 villages scouted on my map so technically I could built trade relations with them until I get access to limitless diamond gear, should I ever run out of diamonds to mine so even materials are not a concern.

Really the only current use for my anvil is sitting in the middle of my forge room looking pretty and occasionnally renaming an item for flavor.