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[cecilhowe]

I got infinity and silk touch from the same dungeon, in my world....seems pretty cool to me.

[Drakkart]

Suho1004, on 27 December 2012 - 01:58 AM, said:

I think he was trying to make the argument that people who want to participate in a discussion should be informed, but he used a rather weird (not to mention incorrect--slave ownership was not a requirement of citizenship in Ancient Greece, it was a product of the rigid class/status system) and complicated example to do so. I think he would have been better off going with Thomas Jefferson ("An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will") rather than Ancient Greece.

Thank you for helping me out here
we could discuss about slavery in all it's forms even the most modern one called monetary system but that is not what i wanted to point out. The noteworthy point was, that only informed citizens are able to discuss things to figure out the best solution.
For here i just dislike pure fanboyism. sure there were a lot of positive things added even possibilities in the enchantment system but enchanting over 100 books to get a single silktouch enchant is imho not minecraft like. fanboys praise it unquestioned, what made me wish for more informed participants. sure all are allowed an opinion but as mentioned opinion should be based on thought or experience.

cecilhowe, on 27 December 2012 - 04:52 AM, said:

I got infinity and silk touch from the same dungeon, in my world....seems pretty cool to me.

that is cool indeed... but enchanting books is not ...

[Runick]

Enchanting books are fine.

[Chocobo1233]

The cheap recipe compensates for the low good enchant rates, if you wanna get better rates i'd suggest just enchant the tool straight away. You can enchant 50 books and may get 1 silk touch. But enchant 20 picks and maybe get 2-8 silk touch.

[craveracer]

Enchanting BOOKS are not DISAPPOINTING!
I even got my stick with FIRE ASPECT and blah... blah... blah...

[Talons7331]

Okay...
STEP ONE. Enchant a bunch of books
STEP TWO. Apply enchantments. Removes the lottery that you normally get for enchanting items. Also lets you add more than 1 enchant to your diamond tool without wasting x amount of diamonds and, unluckily, getting the wrong enchantment. Enchanting and books is fine as is.

[iMaartennn]

I enchanted a stack of books and got every enchant except silk touch
I think it's pretty balanced

[TourianTourist]

Okay, with the Enchanted Books you want three things the most:

- Silk Touch I for Swords and Shears
- Unbreaking III for valuable Armor and Weapons
- lots of Protection III or IV and Sharpness III or IV in general

The latter is not a big issue. You'll get lots of those and now you can avoid spoiling you diamond gear with Bane of Anthropods or Fire Protection, which is nice.

Everything else can be a pain, though. I enchanted about 240 books and I had quite some trouble getting certain enchantments. I got:

2x Silk Touch I
1x Thorns II
1x Thorns I
5x Aqua Affinity I
2x Respiration II
1x Fortune II
2x Looting II
3x Looting I
1x Blast Protection IV
1x Fire Aspect II
4x Flame I
8x Unreaking III
9x Feather Falling IV
2x Feather Falling III
7x Infinity I

Tons of Efficiency, Protection, Fire Protecion, Projectile Protection, Sharpness, Power, Smite, Bane of Anthropods, Punch and Knockback.

It's weird that Unbreaking seems to as rare as Infinity or Feather Falling. At least for me. Well, I'm really happy with all the Feather Falling boots I can now make. But Unbreaking is so common on tools, I thought I would get it much more often. After all it's probably one of the most useful Enchanted Books, because it's the only way to apply Unreaking to everything else.

Real trouble with Thorns, Respiration and Fire Aspect for some reason. I thought I would see those a little more often. But probably the weirdest thing is Blast Protection, for me it was even rarer than Silk Touch.   This might have been lucky on my part though.

-------------------------------------

I guess, if you aim for a good tool, enchanting the tool directly is still the best choice. You will most likely get Unbreaking III and Efficiency IV, and the chance to get Fortune or Silk Touch is a lot higher. So, using Enchanted Books for tools is a waste. You can't do wrong with enchanting a tool.

Same with a bow.

For armor and swords the Enchanted Books are pretty useful, because you can now avoid getting enchantments, that you don't want. Have all the Sharpness and Protection you want. It's especially helpful, if you have access to a fast XP farm (like an Ender ender), but trouble with the diamonds.

Enchanted Books are also helpful to improve your previous gear. Combining powerful items on the Anvil is usually "too expensive". But with the Enchanted Books you can now turn your favorite sword into a Sharpness V without any trouble. And with Unbreaking III you can now make your favorite armor pieces and weapons last longer. How nice!

So, overall I'd say Enchanted Books are a good addition. It needs some tweaking though, I'd like to see Unbreaking III and some of the special enchantments like Thorns or Respiration more often.

[Rofang]

TourianTourist, on 28 December 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

Everything else can be a pain, though. I enchanted about 240 books and I had quite some trouble getting certain enchantments. I got:

Thanks for the info! Could you tell us what levels you enchanted the books at?

[Suho1004]

Drakkart, on 27 December 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

Thank you for helping me out here
we could discuss about slavery in all it's forms even the most modern one called monetary system but that is not what i wanted to point out. The noteworthy point was, that only informed citizens are able to discuss things to figure out the best solution.

Indeed. I would hope that most people would agree with that.

Quote

For here i just dislike pure fanboyism. sure there were a lot of positive things added even possibilities in the enchantment system but enchanting over 100 books to get a single silktouch enchant is imho not minecraft like. fanboys praise it unquestioned, what made me wish for more informed participants. sure all are allowed an opinion but as mentioned opinion should be based on thought or experience.

If I've read the thread correctly, your main criticism is that books can take any possible enchantment, so it take longer for a silk touch enchantment to show up than if you had been enchanting diamond pickaxes, correct? This is a valid point, I think, but the issue seems to me to be a trade off: more time spent enchanting (and thus more XP needed) versus more resources spent enchanting. That is, if you enchant books, it may require more XP and time, but books are easily renewable, so you won't be wasting resources. On the other hand, if you directly enchant diamond pickaxes, you may get a silk touch enchantment with fewer XP, but you're also going to burn through a lot more diamonds this way.

It just seems to me that enchanting books offers players a choice of which "resource" they want to spend. For someone like myself, who doesn't really do a whole lot of mining but spends more time building, exploring, fighting mobs, etc., it would make more sense to go the book enchanting route, as I don't have that many diamonds on hand. Others, who are more efficient diamond minors, may want to just stick to the traditional system.

[Bob Fizzle]

TourianTourist, on 28 December 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

Okay, with the Enchanted Books you want three things the most:

- Silk Touch I for Swords and Shears
- Unbreaking III for valuable Armor and Weapons
- lots of Protection III or IV and Sharpness III or IV in general

The latter is not a big issue. You'll get lots of those and now you can avoid spoiling you diamond gear with Bane of Anthropods or Fire Protection, which is nice.

Everything else can be a pain, though. I enchanted about 240 books and I had quite some trouble getting certain enchantments. I got:

2x Silk Touch I
1x Thorns II
1x Thorns I
5x Aqua Affinity I
2x Respiration II
1x Fortune II
2x Looting II
3x Looting I
1x Blast Protection IV
1x Fire Aspect II
4x Flame I
8x Unreaking III
9x Feather Falling IV
2x Feather Falling III
7x Infinity I

Tons of Efficiency, Protection, Fire Protecion, Projectile Protection, Sharpness, Power, Smite, Bane of Anthropods, Punch and Knockback.

It's weird that Unbreaking seems to as rare as Infinity or Feather Falling. At least for me. Well, I'm really happy with all the Feather Falling boots I can now make. But Unbreaking is so common on tools, I thought I would get it much more often. After all it's probably one of the most useful Enchanted Books, because it's the only way to apply Unreaking to everything else.

Real trouble with Thorns, Respiration and Fire Aspect for some reason. I thought I would see those a little more often. But probably the weirdest thing is Blast Protection, for me it was even rarer than Silk Touch.   This might have been lucky on my part though.

I just enchanted 432 books (in creative mode ) all at level 30, and the results are interesting:

38 Protection III, but only 3 Protection IV
24 Fire Protection III, but only 1 Fire Protection IV
27 Feather Falling IV
1 Blast Protection III, 2 Blast Protection IV
20 Projectile Protection IV
3 Respiration II, 9 Respiration III
13 Aqua Affinity I
1 Thorns I, 3 Thorns II
32 Sharpness III, but only 7 Sharpness IV
1 Smite III, 22 Smite IV
14 Bane of Arthropods IV
23 Knockback II
2 Fire Aspect I, 5 Fire Aspect II
8 Looting II, 4 Looting III
19 Efficiency III, 33 Efficiency IV
9 Silk Touch I
22 Unbreaking III
7 Fortune II, 1 Fortune III
22 Power III, 37 Power V
5 Punch I, 3 Punch II
7 Flame I
4 Infinity I

I would have done more, but I grew too bored of it So I guess there's some meaning in these, but I would have needed to do at least 1000 books for any significant meaning. These results are still too scattered, I think.

Also, I find it interesting that you got "tons" of punch enchants, whereas I only got a few. Also, it is indeed strange that blast protection is among the rarest of all enchantments....

[TourianTourist]

Why is Blast Protection so rare and Feather Falling so common? Seems funny though and probably a bug. Maybe Blast Protection and Feather Falling were mixed up in the probabilities?

So, better enchant lots of books before the next update! Never run out of Feather Falling boots! xD

Rofang, on 29 December 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

Thanks for the info! Could you tell us what levels you enchanted the books at?

Usually at level 30. I also made some at lower levels, but this should only include Looting I and Feather Falling III in my list. I also forgot that I had a Librarian who sells Infinity... and I'm not sure how many I bought from him, probably around 3... But my statistics for Infinity are flawed, sorry.

A Librarian who sells Silk Touch would be so awesome... gotta have to look into village breeding.

[Luca_Scorpion]

I do agree with you, but it's either 1-3 random enchantments, or 1 enchantment which you can add to a tool/armour you like, or save for later. Also, if you have an xp farm it's really not that big of a problem to enchant books.

Also: I heard Docm77 (youtube) talked to Dinnerbone, and there will be an update (1.5?) in which bookshelves will be added where you can store books! So you can make a library of enchanted books
(I think we can call that one confirmed)

[Drakkart]

i just want to thank the recent posters for doing all the enchantment work and also running into those "wired" chances for some enchantments... which was exactly why i was opening this thread

[AbstractThought]

Bob Fizzle, on 29 December 2012 - 05:44 AM, said:

I just enchanted 432 books (in creative mode ) all at level 30, and the results are interesting:
38 Protection III, but only 3 Protection IV
24 Fire Protection III, but only 1 Fire Protection IV
27 Feather Falling IV
1 Blast Protection III, 2 Blast Protection IV
20 Projectile Protection IV
3 Respiration II, 9 Respiration III
13 Aqua Affinity I
1 Thorns I, 3 Thorns II
32 Sharpness III, but only 7 Sharpness IV
1 Smite III, 22 Smite IV
14 Bane of Arthropods IV
23 Knockback II
2 Fire Aspect I, 5 Fire Aspect II
8 Looting II, 4 Looting III
19 Efficiency III, 33 Efficiency IV
9 Silk Touch I
22 Unbreaking III
7 Fortune II, 1 Fortune III
22 Power III, 37 Power V
5 Punch I, 3 Punch II
7 Flame I
4 Infinity I

I did the same thing, but with a lower level enchantment. I did mine on level 18. I made 542 enchants in all.

Spoiler:

Protection II: 80
Fire protection I: 3
Fire protection II: 32
Feather falling II: 1
Feather falling III: 25
Blast protection II: 10
Projectile protection III: 33
Projectile protection IV: 3
Resperation I: 10
Resperation II: 4
Aqua afinity: 14
Thorns I: 1 (this one may have been a misclick on an enchantment higher than 18 /: )
Sharpness II: 62
Smite II: 30
Smite III: 1
Bane of arthropods II: 21
Bane of arthropods III: 9
Knockback I: 29
Fire aspect I: 8
Looting I: 8
Efficency II: 41
Efficency III: 7
Silk touch: 8
Unbreaking II: 19
Unbreaking III: 3
Fortune I: 17
Power II: 52
Power III: 5
Infinity: 3
Flame: 3

I'd say that if you were just going for silk touch then you might want to stick to a lower level since it takes less XP to make each book, but if you are short on leather/paper or if you plan on using enchanted books for more than just getting silk touch then you're better off doing level 30 enchants.

[-Freshmeat]

I have a skeleton spawner I turned into an xp grinder in a survival world, and I find the system quite balanced in terms of enchanting books or enchanting items directly. Both processes require a significant amount of time, and I use both methods. Silk Touch is, as it always have been, the holy grail, and I am going to burn through a lot of resources to get it either way. The data presented here will be combined with a timing of digging and xp/min at the spawner to figure out how to get Silk Touch most efficiently.

[DaNorthKai]

Here's the thing you are all misunderstanding. If you combine two Protection I Books in an anvil you get a Protection II Book. Two II's is one IV. Was that so hard? Wand V when you only have I's and II's combine them in the anvil. I mean if you look above you see that you get more lessers instead of the greaters. Maybe if you try combining the books to get a higher book then apply it you can get your Protection IV Chestplate.

[Sceadugengan]

You can't combine two enchanted books on the anvil.

[Mining_y7]

Yay, other people think that books are useless too!

I said this without even testing it myself on release. Just by the description and the likely rate of getting certain things it's unbearably useless.

The ONLY, one and only, reason why you should ever use books is to save limited resources (they're somewhat limited). Sure - XP can be farmed easily, be it with an ultra-efficient mob trap or just going around at night killing things, it will never go away permanently. Even then, you're better off loading a new 2000x2000 block radius and mining all the diamonds, enchanting every item you can with those diamonds, and holding onto the best you get because you'd likely save more time unless there's some mob traps out there that are more speedy than I know of or you plan on afking all those levels somehow and don't care at all about not playing the game correctly. You still have to find the diamonds to enchant anything.

What they should do is make it so you can choose a quality for the books or make it so that the books are better affected by the level of enchant/change the way levels of enchanting on the table affect what you get for an enchantment.

Luca_Scorpion, on 29 December 2012 - 08:21 PM, said:

I do agree with you, but it's either 1-3 random enchantments, or 1 enchantment which you can add to a tool/armour you like, or save for later. Also, if you have an xp farm it's really not that big of a problem to enchant books.

Also: I heard Docm77 (youtube) talked to Dinnerbone, and there will be an update (1.5?) in which bookshelves will be added where you can store books! So you can make a library of enchanted books
(I think we can call that one confirmed)

I think that was an assumed update by a lot of people. Either way, that doesn't change the usefulness of books at all. If you only need the good ones, then why store an asston of bad ones?

[murphmaster01]

I dont get why everyone thinks there are so many useless enchantments.