1.3 opens up a lot of opportunities for enchanting, especially for people who have never really bothered with it before. What used to potentially take hours now takes just a few minutes. This write-up is meant to do two things: I'd like to introduce some high-end enchanting knowledge to people who may not be familiar with the mechanics, as well as consider if adjustable enchanting rooms are viable any more. For people who aren't familiar, adjustable enchanting rooms use levers and pistons to move bookshelves, altering which levels are available for enchantment. Prior to 1.3 these used to be important to get lower level enchantments, either because you didn't feel like grinding all the way up to level 50 or because some enchantments were more likely to show up under level 50. Let's take a look at each enchantment group. Remember that this guide is only considering diamond equipment. You can get a Fortune III pick much more easily and quickly than before, so you should be getting a surplus of diamonds soon anyways.
Tools
Silk Touch is considered the "best" tool enchant by the game, so unfortunately 30 is the best level to enchant for that and you still only have a little under 17% chance. You'll get 1 Silk Touch item for about every 6 tools you enchant. This is an average, so of course your experience may vary.
Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III, and Fortune III also show up the most at level 30 too, so... not much reason to adjust bookshelves here. All tools should be enchanted at level 30 for the best possible enchantments.
Weapons
Like tools, all of the best enchantments show up at level 30. Whether you want Sharpness IV, Power IV, Looting III, Infinity... max enchant your swords and bows, no question about it. Lower level enchantments will only give you weaker versions of the enchantments you want already (and less enchants on a single item). No getting around Bane of Arthropods, unfortunately.
Armor
In most cases, Protection is really the only enchantment you want on armor. Protection includes Fire, Blast, and Projectile Protection. You can also cap out your damage reduction on just 3 pieces of armor with one Protection IV and two Protection III enchantments. Because of this, the game weights Protection above anything else which means that once again, level 30 is the optimum level to enchant armor at.
But what about Feather Falling? Feather Falling "counts double" for falling damage, but caps at the same point that Protection does. This means that with one Protection IV and two Protection III enchantments, Feather Falling won't even make a difference in your falling damage. You're already at the maximum amount of damage reduction from any source of damage in the game! Therefore, you want to be wearing one of the following configurations of diamond armor at all times:
Piece 1: Protection IV
Piece 2: Protection III-IV
Piece 3: Protection III-IV
Piece 4: Any enchantment or no enchantment, it doesn't really matter.
-or-
Piece 1: Protection III
Piece 2: Protection III
Piece 3: Protection III
Piece 4: Protection III
Anything else will not give you the maximum amount of damage reduction.
Let's say you're not a perfectionist like me and don't care about maximum damage reduction. You just want some Feather Falling IV boots to build something tall with. Since the game weights Protection the heaviest, Feather Falling IV actually does not show up the most at level 30. It actually has the highest chance at level 26 for diamond. This is a case where you may want to add a lever to adjust your enchanting room. It takes 13 book shelves to get level 26 enchantments, so that lever should lower 2 book shelves. Every 2 out of 3 boots in this configuration will give you Feather Falling IV.
The only other armor enchantments to consider are the helmet enchantments, Respiration III and Aqua Affinity. These also show up the most at level 30, about half the time. And you'll most likely want them together. This happens about 23% of the time. You're slightly more likely to get these paired with a non-Protection enchantment (such as Fire Protection or Projectile Protection). This means that you should aim for Respiration III and Aqua Affinity on your helmet, and then Protection III-IV on your other 3 pieces of armor (with at least one Protection IV enchantment). This will give you the most utility from all of your armor. This also means that you should also enchant your helmet before any other piece of armor, in case you do get Protection III or IV paired with Respiration III and Aqua Affinity. This means that you can get all the armor enchantment effects in the game on only three pieces of armor, saving you 30 levels to put elsewhere!
With the helmet enchantments considered, here are the best possible armor enchantment configurations:
Best:
Helmet: Respiration III, Aqua Affinity I, Protection III-IV*
Piece 2: Protection III-IV*
Piece 3: Protection III-IV*
Piece 4: Nothing
* At least one Protection IV
-or-
Close Enough:
Helmet: Respiration III, Aqua Affinity I, non-Protection or no third enchantment
Piece 2: Protection IV
Piece 3: Protection III-IV
Piece 4: Protection III-IV
Conclusion
Adjustable enchanting rooms are out. They just don't serve a purpose anymore. The only possible use is to move 2 book shelves down to enchant diamond boots at level 26 for Feather Falling IV, but this is not optimal (you want Protection III or IV). The best enchantments for everything in the game all occur at level 30. And unlike prior to 1.3, it's now very quick and easy to reach the max level. There is just really no reason not to enchant everything at 30 now, which also means there really is no reason to build an adjustable enchanting room!
The only exception is aesthetics. Having 15 book shelves magically pop out of the ground when you enter the room is still cool!
Happy 1.3 enchanting! Hopefully you have as much luck as I did with your first 1.3 enchantment.
Silk touch is way more common than it was in 1.2.5. I was doing some testing in creative mode and I tested with 5 diamond pickaxes. 3 of them got silk touch at level 30
Silk touch is way more common than it was in 1.2.5. I was doing some testing in creative mode and I tested with 5 diamond pickaxes. 3 of them got silk touch at level 30
This is slightly true, but you definitely got lucky a bit.
But 14% is for level 50 and 16.1% is for level 13, and exp given is different too so there is no way to compare the old method with the new one.
Anyway yeah it was luck, I tried and got 1 from 10 with silk touch, but got a lot of them with 3 enchants, including several Eff VI, unb III fortune II wich is really good xD
Some of this is pretty biased. Silk touch is pretty useless for be but fortune is preferred for me. Right now the most useful for a pick would be unbreaking for me because I'm clearing an area.
I also think it's mistaken for you to say 'only enchant weapons with lvl30 enchant'. Right from the getgo you can kill everything easily with a stone sword, so what I tend to do is upgrade to diamond and toss lvl1 enchant on it simply because it takes forever to get leather and that mobs(hence stone sword) are incredibly easy to kill. I also toss lvl1 enchants on everything else until I bother farming cows.
Protection may be useful, but I also like projectile and blast protection, you never know when it will be more helpful.
I'm sorry but I don't think I agree with the OP at all.
Offcourse the chance of any max level enchant is higher at max level... that’s common sense. That does not mean that lower level enchants don't have uses.
Mining
Lets look at strip mining (or any kind of non spelunking based diamond mining). Many people choose not to use diamond tools in their endeavour to find diamonds because it is costing you diamonds to obtain diamonds. Many people use iron tools and many people use cobble tools for these purposes. The choice of which largely comes down to how heavily they are using iron for other purposes (Armor, rails, etc). And with the low number of uses provided by even an iron tool it would be wasteful and even unsustainable to keep your iron tools enchanted with max level enchants.
I enchant all cobble tools with low level enchants (most often level 1 enchants). Even efficiency I makes a huge difference to mining speed with a cobble or iron tool. The highest level enchant I would recommend for a cobble/iron pick for strip mining is equal to the amount of experienced gained by mining the average amount of coal obtained during the lifetime of the tool.
Yes eventually once you have a full suit of diamond armor, a diamond sword and multiple diamond tools you may phase out mining with iron or cobble, but that is a huge undertaking. It also required you to choose not to use diamond blocks at all for aesthetics or to display your wealth.
I try to obtain a fortune pick and keep it in my bags for use on diamond, and use level 1 enchanted cobble picks for everything else.
Armor
It is also not necessarily always good to use max level enchants on armor. Weapons and tools should be a higher priority for max level enchants than armor. Because of this it can be come time before you are able to invest in high level enchants on your armor. When you are in a less developed world (eg you chose to develop other areas of your world like developing farming infrastructure, or focusing on any other elements of the game over diamond farming) diamond armor may not yet be readily available, And considering that Iron armor has less than half the durability of diamond armor, it may not be worth the cost.
Even on hard difficulty a full suit of unenchanted armor offers massive amounts of survivability. As long as you don't do anything stupid low level enchants on a suit of iron armor are more than enough to stay alive and allow you to bank the levels for use on more suitable items.
Iron Armor Suit Provides 62.5% damage reduction.
Iron Armor Suit with Protection I in all slots provides 71.5-80.5% damage reduction. (Average 76% damage reduction).
An unenchanted Suit of Diamond armor provides 80% damage reduction.
4xProtection I on Iron is more than a 20% increase in damage reduction.
The average protection of this suit is only 4% lower than unenchanted diamond.
I know that you will not always get Protection I from a level 1 enchant. You are more likely to end up with the other less powerful protections, but the point remains. Iron armor with level 1 enchants is a LOT of increase in survivability.
These are just a few of my random thoughts on the subject. I have to admit that I only perform either level 1-10 enchants OR level 30 enchants and nothing in between. But I have done very little research into when higher level enchants have a chance to appear for each slot. I am sure that by using the concepts that I do when choosing what level enchants to use based on more than just the 'best in slot' mentality with a bit more research into the enchanting tables could result in more efficient use of the entire system. But I am more than convinced that it is inefficient to always use max level enchants, and to never use low level enchants.
What is the best way to level up? Is it from mining or killing mobs?
Killing mobs is alot more dangerous than mining, but i can imagine it giving you more EXP of you take high risks.
Mining may be slower, but now that you gain EXP from mining AND smelting, it should be good when you're lacking the gear to fight mobs.
All the OP says is that higher levels give you better enchantments. If you want the most powerful enchantment, then using a maximum enchantment is the obvious choice. I would just like to point out that certain play styles or scenarios may make working up to level 30 a bit of a waste. For example, a lv30 enchantment on an iron tool or weapon is a waste because of their short lifetime. And power 1 on a bow will still change the number of shots to kill a monster from three to two, so I just do low-level enchantments on my bows.
i enchanted a full set of armour (120 levels) at level 30. I got projectile protection IV on all of them :SLevel 30 and 4 pieces of armour gave me projectile protection IV on all of them :S
And to answer sikcool i still find mob grinders more efficient. My enderman grinder gets me max level within 3 minutes.
Mining is more of a "bonus exp" if you will, if you just need resources you get a bit of both
Once I have my fortune 3 pick, I don't really need another amazing top-level enchant. If I'm just mining without doing much else, I'll be around the mid-20's when my pick breaks, so I'll just go ahead and enchant the next at that level. I could sit at my grinder to get up to 30, but most of the time it's just not worth it to me. I should eventually make an adjustable room, but using torches is just so much easier.
You are only accounting for best percentages to get favorable enchantmentd. You should also account for minimizing unfavorable enchantments.
Swords: Unless you are specifically going for Looting III or Fire Aspect II the best sword enchanting level is 26 which minimizes the chances for Bane of Arthropods IV taking the Sharpness slot. It also reduces the Knockback II only chance to 12.5% and still gives you the best shot for Looting II and a decent shot for either of the Fire Aspects.
Vest and Pants: Best level to enchant is 26 which gives you a 45% chance of getting Protection III while minimizing getting a specific protection.
I do agree with you on the rest of your post though.
Tools
Silk Touch is considered the "best" tool enchant by the game, so unfortunately 30 is the best level to enchant for that and you still only have a little under 17% chance. You'll get 1 Silk Touch item for about every 6 tools you enchant. This is an average, so of course your experience may vary.
Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III, and Fortune III also show up the most at level 30 too, so... not much reason to adjust bookshelves here. All tools should be enchanted at level 30 for the best possible enchantments.
Weapons
Like tools, all of the best enchantments show up at level 30. Whether you want Sharpness IV, Power IV, Looting III, Infinity... max enchant your swords and bows, no question about it. Lower level enchantments will only give you weaker versions of the enchantments you want already (and less enchants on a single item). No getting around Bane of Arthropods, unfortunately.
Armor
In most cases, Protection is really the only enchantment you want on armor. Protection includes Fire, Blast, and Projectile Protection. You can also cap out your damage reduction on just 3 pieces of armor with one Protection IV and two Protection III enchantments. Because of this, the game weights Protection above anything else which means that once again, level 30 is the optimum level to enchant armor at.
But what about Feather Falling? Feather Falling "counts double" for falling damage, but caps at the same point that Protection does. This means that with one Protection IV and two Protection III enchantments, Feather Falling won't even make a difference in your falling damage. You're already at the maximum amount of damage reduction from any source of damage in the game! Therefore, you want to be wearing one of the following configurations of diamond armor at all times:
Piece 1: Protection IV
Piece 2: Protection III-IV
Piece 3: Protection III-IV
Piece 4: Any enchantment or no enchantment, it doesn't really matter.
-or-
Piece 1: Protection III
Piece 2: Protection III
Piece 3: Protection III
Piece 4: Protection III
Anything else will not give you the maximum amount of damage reduction.
Let's say you're not a perfectionist like me and don't care about maximum damage reduction. You just want some Feather Falling IV boots to build something tall with. Since the game weights Protection the heaviest, Feather Falling IV actually does not show up the most at level 30. It actually has the highest chance at level 26 for diamond. This is a case where you may want to add a lever to adjust your enchanting room. It takes 13 book shelves to get level 26 enchantments, so that lever should lower 2 book shelves. Every 2 out of 3 boots in this configuration will give you Feather Falling IV.
The only other armor enchantments to consider are the helmet enchantments, Respiration III and Aqua Affinity. These also show up the most at level 30, about half the time. And you'll most likely want them together. This happens about 23% of the time. You're slightly more likely to get these paired with a non-Protection enchantment (such as Fire Protection or Projectile Protection). This means that you should aim for Respiration III and Aqua Affinity on your helmet, and then Protection III-IV on your other 3 pieces of armor (with at least one Protection IV enchantment). This will give you the most utility from all of your armor. This also means that you should also enchant your helmet before any other piece of armor, in case you do get Protection III or IV paired with Respiration III and Aqua Affinity. This means that you can get all the armor enchantment effects in the game on only three pieces of armor, saving you 30 levels to put elsewhere!
With the helmet enchantments considered, here are the best possible armor enchantment configurations:
Best:
Helmet: Respiration III, Aqua Affinity I, Protection III-IV*
Piece 2: Protection III-IV*
Piece 3: Protection III-IV*
Piece 4: Nothing
* At least one Protection IV
-or-
Close Enough:
Helmet: Respiration III, Aqua Affinity I, non-Protection or no third enchantment
Piece 2: Protection IV
Piece 3: Protection III-IV
Piece 4: Protection III-IV
Conclusion
Adjustable enchanting rooms are out. They just don't serve a purpose anymore. The only possible use is to move 2 book shelves down to enchant diamond boots at level 26 for Feather Falling IV, but this is not optimal (you want Protection III or IV). The best enchantments for everything in the game all occur at level 30. And unlike prior to 1.3, it's now very quick and easy to reach the max level. There is just really no reason not to enchant everything at 30 now, which also means there really is no reason to build an adjustable enchanting room!
The only exception is aesthetics. Having 15 book shelves magically pop out of the ground when you enter the room is still cool!
Happy 1.3 enchanting! Hopefully you have as much luck as I did with your first 1.3 enchantment.
^ Discontinued - new series coming soon.
I am ninja'd far too often.
This is slightly true, but you definitely got lucky a bit.
1.2.5, diamond tool, level 50: 14.0%
1.3.1, diamond tool, level 30: 16.1%
^ Discontinued - new series coming soon.
But 14% is for level 50 and 16.1% is for level 13, and exp given is different too so there is no way to compare the old method with the new one.
Anyway yeah it was luck, I tried and got 1 from 10 with silk touch, but got a lot of them with 3 enchants, including several Eff VI, unb III fortune II wich is really good xD
I also think it's mistaken for you to say 'only enchant weapons with lvl30 enchant'. Right from the getgo you can kill everything easily with a stone sword, so what I tend to do is upgrade to diamond and toss lvl1 enchant on it simply because it takes forever to get leather and that mobs(hence stone sword) are incredibly easy to kill. I also toss lvl1 enchants on everything else until I bother farming cows.
Protection may be useful, but I also like projectile and blast protection, you never know when it will be more helpful.
Offcourse the chance of any max level enchant is higher at max level... that’s common sense. That does not mean that lower level enchants don't have uses.
Mining
Lets look at strip mining (or any kind of non spelunking based diamond mining). Many people choose not to use diamond tools in their endeavour to find diamonds because it is costing you diamonds to obtain diamonds. Many people use iron tools and many people use cobble tools for these purposes. The choice of which largely comes down to how heavily they are using iron for other purposes (Armor, rails, etc). And with the low number of uses provided by even an iron tool it would be wasteful and even unsustainable to keep your iron tools enchanted with max level enchants.
I enchant all cobble tools with low level enchants (most often level 1 enchants). Even efficiency I makes a huge difference to mining speed with a cobble or iron tool. The highest level enchant I would recommend for a cobble/iron pick for strip mining is equal to the amount of experienced gained by mining the average amount of coal obtained during the lifetime of the tool.
Yes eventually once you have a full suit of diamond armor, a diamond sword and multiple diamond tools you may phase out mining with iron or cobble, but that is a huge undertaking. It also required you to choose not to use diamond blocks at all for aesthetics or to display your wealth.
I try to obtain a fortune pick and keep it in my bags for use on diamond, and use level 1 enchanted cobble picks for everything else.
Armor
It is also not necessarily always good to use max level enchants on armor. Weapons and tools should be a higher priority for max level enchants than armor. Because of this it can be come time before you are able to invest in high level enchants on your armor. When you are in a less developed world (eg you chose to develop other areas of your world like developing farming infrastructure, or focusing on any other elements of the game over diamond farming) diamond armor may not yet be readily available, And considering that Iron armor has less than half the durability of diamond armor, it may not be worth the cost.
Even on hard difficulty a full suit of unenchanted armor offers massive amounts of survivability. As long as you don't do anything stupid low level enchants on a suit of iron armor are more than enough to stay alive and allow you to bank the levels for use on more suitable items.
Iron Armor Suit Provides 62.5% damage reduction.
Iron Armor Suit with Protection I in all slots provides 71.5-80.5% damage reduction. (Average 76% damage reduction).
An unenchanted Suit of Diamond armor provides 80% damage reduction.
4xProtection I on Iron is more than a 20% increase in damage reduction.
The average protection of this suit is only 4% lower than unenchanted diamond.
I know that you will not always get Protection I from a level 1 enchant. You are more likely to end up with the other less powerful protections, but the point remains. Iron armor with level 1 enchants is a LOT of increase in survivability.
These are just a few of my random thoughts on the subject. I have to admit that I only perform either level 1-10 enchants OR level 30 enchants and nothing in between. But I have done very little research into when higher level enchants have a chance to appear for each slot. I am sure that by using the concepts that I do when choosing what level enchants to use based on more than just the 'best in slot' mentality with a bit more research into the enchanting tables could result in more efficient use of the entire system. But I am more than convinced that it is inefficient to always use max level enchants, and to never use low level enchants.
I have a question, though.
What is the best way to level up? Is it from mining or killing mobs?
Killing mobs is alot more dangerous than mining, but i can imagine it giving you more EXP of you take high risks.
Mining may be slower, but now that you gain EXP from mining AND smelting, it should be good when you're lacking the gear to fight mobs.
Does that sound correct?
And to answer sikcool i still find mob grinders more efficient. My enderman grinder gets me max level within 3 minutes.
Mining is more of a "bonus exp" if you will, if you just need resources you get a bit of both
Now you can laugh at skeletons with impunity?
Silk Touch is overrated. Fortune III is where it's at. You want that, not Silk Touch.
At any rate, some great info here. Thanks!
Swords: Unless you are specifically going for Looting III or Fire Aspect II the best sword enchanting level is 26 which minimizes the chances for Bane of Arthropods IV taking the Sharpness slot. It also reduces the Knockback II only chance to 12.5% and still gives you the best shot for Looting II and a decent shot for either of the Fire Aspects.
Vest and Pants: Best level to enchant is 26 which gives you a 45% chance of getting Protection III while minimizing getting a specific protection.
I do agree with you on the rest of your post though.