I do like unbreakable when im branch mining as it makes it last quite abit longer. I dont think its worth grinding anything higher then level 15-20.
Silk touch is a ***** to get (so far got like 20picks enchanted with levels 20-29 and still havent gotten it) its indeed generally not usefull but it does make legit players able to have more decoration abilitys and a few small perks for special projects (water in nether for example).
Efficiencyis pretty much useless indeed, diamond pick is fast enough that efficiency barely matters. Definatly not worth grinding for, i would take it as a 2nd enchant combined with unbreakable though.
Fortune is definately one of my favorites and it increase the amount of resources you get quite a bit.
Wow OP, that page you linked is some amazing stuff!
I suggest everyone read both the 'how to read these tables' and the link on that page which exains the math behind enchanting and xp in great but easy to understand detail.
Grass will take forever to grow on a staircase that spans almost half a map above an ocean and grass only grows when you are in nearby chunks (I spend most of my time on that round island in the middle) Also vast amounts of dirt are hard to come by on my map.
I can see why you'd want Silk Touch, but considering the huge amount of work and frustration it takes to get it, I actually think you'd be better off just making a dirt staircase halfway across the map. It would take less time and be easier, as you can just let the game idle and do something else while you wait for it to grow.
I do like unbreakable when im branch mining as it makes it last quite abit longer. I dont think its worth grinding anything higher then level 15-20.
Probably not worth grinding for on it's own, but if you're going to go for Silk Touch / Fortune then you'll be getting some Unbreakable III's whether you like it or not. It's a nice enchantment to have, though. Much preferable to Efficiency.
Have you been doing legitimate grinding to enchant those 20 picks at levels 20-29? How long did that take?
Wow OP, that page you linked is some amazing stuff!
I suggest everyone read both the 'how to read these tables' and the link on that page which exains the math behind enchanting and xp in great but easy to understand detail.
Yeah, it's very useful for figuring out optimal levels. If you're gonna grind for some of this stuff, might as well go for the level which is the most XP efficient.
Right now, the only way to get high level enchantments in this game is to grind at a monster spawners. It can take many many hours just to get a chance at one high level enchantment, and of course the good enchantments only have a small chance of occuring so you will have to repeat that process many times. And after all that... you get an item that helps you out a little and breaks after awhile. Generally not worth it.
So I thought I'd review all of the possible enchantments and give my opinion which ones are worth getting. I'll be using this guide for statistics: http://pernsteiner.org/minecraft/enchant/tables/
Tools
Fortune: The one enchantment that is actually worth grinding for, but only if you use it correctly. If you use this up quickly mining random blocks, it's a huge waste. IMO this should only be used for the rarest material, and that means diamonds, period. It should never be used to mine common blocks. If you only use this for diamonds, it will last an incredibly long time. A Fortune III can double your diamond output over that time.
Unfortunately Fortune III is incredibly hard to get... the most cost effective level on a diamond pickaxe is 44, and even then you only have a 1/4 chance of getting it. Which means that on average, I'm guessing it would take something like 20-30 hours of monster grinding. You could have spent that time getting a LOT of diamonds the normal way, so it's probably not worth the effort.
Fortune II is a little more reasonable. It doesn't quite double the amount of diamonds you get, but a 70% increase is still nice enough. The most cost effective level on a diamond pickaxe is 28, and you chance is only 1/6, however at that level you also have a 5% of getting Fortune 1 and a 1% chance of Fortune III. So you're overall chance of getting Fortune is 1/5. It's still a huge amount of grinding to get to level 28, but if you don't mind grinding then it might possibly be worth it.
Fortune I is easier to get, the most cost effective level is 15. Your chance of getting it is only 1/7, but since it's actually possibly to get to level 15 in normal play, this is the one I would go for. It only gives you 30% more diamonds, but that's still a decent increase.
Silk Touch: The optimal level for a diamond tool is 21 at 8%. On average it you will have to get to level 21 12 times, meaning that you will have to do a lot of grinding to get this. It's considerably easier to get it on a gold pickaxe, but you have to waste a lot of gold pickaxes, and the durability is so low that I don't think it's worth it. Silk Touch lets you acquire certain blocks that are otherwise unobtainable, but most of these can be "placed" in other ways. You don't need to acquire grass blocks, you can spread grass naturally. Mining bookshelves or glass can be a nice perk, but it's far easier to just make more of those than it is to get Silk Touch. The only block that is really nice to pick up is ice, but IMO that's not worth the effort.
Silk Touch seemed like a neat thing to have when it was first introduced, but for practical purposes it is simply not worth the huge amount of effort to get. Of course, if you decide to go for a Fortune pickaxe then there's always a chance you could get Silk Touch. But if you already have a fortune pickaxe, I would suggest ignoring it.
So to summarize... the tools worth grinding for are:
Efficiency: No.
Unbreaking: No.
Fortune: Yes for Fortune I, and possibly II. (If used for diamonds only, otherwise not worth it.)
Silk Touch. No.
Armor
Unfortunately I'm not clear on how armor enchantments work... I don't know exactly how much they protect you. Also, I don't know if you need to get an enchantment on all 4 pieces or if it'll work fine on only 1... I'm assuming that Protection I on a single piece of armor is all you need.
Even so, armor with enchantments that are meant to protect you can never be worth it at high levels. Armor simply doesn't last long enough to be worth it. Normal armor works well enough and is all you need. The only armor enchantments I would consider going for would be the underwater effects, because these can potentially last forever, making them worthwhile. They are also extremely useful for underwater builders. Because you don't need to wear them in combat, there's no need to put them on diamond helmets, instead you can simply use whichever type of helmet is most cost effective to get, making them a bit easier to get than tool enchantments.
Respiration: The most cost effective level for Respiration III is 23 on a gold helmet, at a 28% chance. This means you need to get to level 23 roughly 4 times. This will require a fair amount of grinding, so I would rather go for a lower level respiration since you don't necessarily need III.
The most cost effective level for Respiration II is a bit tricky... experience wise, it is the cheapest at level 1, but you will waste 30 gold helmets on average. At level 10, you only waste 9 gold helmets, but it will take a lot more experience. It's probably best to enchant somewhere between level 5 and 10. You also have a decent chance of getting Respiration I at any of these levels, so you can simply settle for that if you get it.
Aqua Affinity: For underwater building, this arguably might be more useful than Respiration. Luckily it only comes in one tier, and it's by far the easiest useful enchantment to get. It even has the best % of getting on leather helmets, meaning you don't have to waste good material. At level 1, you have a 20% chance of getting it on a leather helmet, and the % only goes down from there (because it's considered a weak enchantment) so you should only go for this at level 1. However, if you're gonna go for Respiration, you should try for that first, because it's likely that you'll get Aqua Affinity during your attempts at Respiration.
So to summarize... the armor worth grinding for are:
Protection: No.
Fire Protection: No.
Feather Fall: No.
Blast Protection: No.
Projectile Protection: No.
Respiration: Yes.
Aqua Affinity: Yes... (but no need to grind.)
Weapons
The nice thing about enchanting weapons is that the enchantment will last a very long time if you use a diamond sword. However, whether it's "worth it" to grind for better weapons depends on the actual damage increase. In other words, if you can't kill monsters in less hits, it's not worth it. Also, you have to ask yourself if it's really worth the trouble to make a sword more powerful, considering that in many situations the bow is a preferable weapon.
As it stands, there's only 1 enemy that you would REALLY want to kill in less hits, preferably one hit... the Creeper. However, I don't believe it's possible for a Sharpness sword to one-hit a Creeper, even at tier 5. And even if it was possible, Tier 5 weapons are insanely hard to get. You only have a 10% chance at level 50 to get Sharpness 5. This essentially makes them impossible to get, as it would take hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of grinding to get them.
Since you'll still mainly be using bows, IMO it's never worth grinding for any weapon. I'm not sure if level 1 enchantments are enough to reduce the number of hits with a diamond sword for any enemies, but if they are then you should never bothered with anything but low level enchantments. If not, then you shouldn't bother enchanting weapons period.
So to summarize... the weapons worth grinding for are:
None.
So out of all the enchantments in the game, I believe there are only 2 worth grinding for: Fortune, and Respiration. And even those are easy to ignore if you hate grinding. The conclusion I've reached is that if you want Minecraft to stay a fun game, you're best off using the enchanting system only for low level enchantments, and forgetting that the high ones exist.
For those who ask "what about PVP"? I don't particularly care about PVP, but for those who do, my suggestion is to only play on a server which bans enchantments, unless you love grinding for hundreds of hours.
why do you keep saying that gold is the most efficient choice? Is it actually any different from other types of tools?
why do you keep saying that gold is the most efficient choice? Is it actually any different from other types of tools?
To put it simply without explaining the mechanics behind the system, gold items have the ability to receive better enchantments at lower levels. For example I once got a gold shovel at level 2 that had unbreaking II and efficiency II on it, this is a very rare occurrence, but it probably won't happen with other materials at the same level at all.
If all you wanted was floating grass, I would say that building grass staircases is far less effort than attaining Silk Touch. But yes, to get water in the Nether you'll need Silk Touch. If you use it sparingly, you will probably be fine with a gold pick Silk Touch which is considerably easier to get. Though I don't blame you at all if you decide to save scum it.
Just save scummed, got it on my 10th attempt using level 17. Even though it took ten tries it was better than what you would have expected on average. I think the system needs tweaking... Now that I have both Fortune I (Level 20 Diamond Pick) and Silk Touch I don't need to bother grinding for xp anymore. Hurray.
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When no one was looking, the Endermen took forty blocks.
They took 40 blocks. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.
I think your overestimating how long it take to get levels. My grinder gets my to level 20 in about 20ish minutes. If you do stuff around the tower mobs keep spawning so you can work in your farm, get trees, come back, kill 50 mobs, repeat. It doesn't feel like grinding for hours and hours. When I get a few more towers built I'll be getting xp really fast.
The only reason that games have it is to increase play time, way back when gaming was young it was easier to just make the player kill the same monsters over and over for an hour than to fill the hour with unique story driven gameplay. The biggest reason being that the more unique stuff you have, no more space it will take up. But modern games don't need that fluff, we can store **** loads of data without flinching.
But in Minecraft there is already infinite replayability, grinding is purely idiotic. It is a waste of time, a waste of resources, and simply is NOT FUN.
So there are a number of solutions:
1. Make enchantments cost MUCH less.
2. Remove the BS randomness from enchantments, if I grind for it I sure as hell better get it.
3. Make mobs drop more XP, like A LOT more.
4. Remove leveling curve. All levels cost the same as level 1, so that getting up past 10 isn't impossible.
5. Other ways to get XP, like drop XP from blocks as we mine them, more XP from rare blocks or hard to break blocks.
6. Drop from environmental kills. Let us build a mob killer, that does our work for us. XP shouldn't mean we are good at killing things, it should mean we are good at the game. Build a epic mob grinder = you are awesome, have some XP.
7. Base enchantment off of mana crystals or something. Add a item that replaces XP use, or significantly reduces it when enchanting.
8. Make enchanted items unbreakable.
Or any combination of the above.
Grinding is the crutch of the developer, to save room, to save time, or to slack off. Notch doesn't need to do any of those things.
BTW: When getting silk touch, you will often also get unbreaking, which can significantly increase the lifespan of a gold tool.
I didn't want to start a new thread, so I thought I'd post my question here.
What exactly does the armor enchamtment "Protection" actually protect you against? I know wiki says it "converts environmental damage to armor damage", but what is considered "environmental damage"? I would assume that would include fire and drowning, but with there already being an enchantment for fire protection, I'd guess not.
Thanks.
Oh, just some info to add to what enchantments I received and at what level spent, I got Protection IV for my diamond breastplate at lvl 47, and for lvl 26 I got Efficiency III/Unbreakable III/Fortune II on my diamond pick axe.
I take it to mean fire, fall and water damage, but I could be wrong.
Just tested all three, and the only thing my breastplate with Protection IV saved me from was fire damage (to an extent... the longer I stood in fire, I started to take small amounts of damage. I appeared to take drowning and falling damage normally.
I can see why you'd want Silk Touch, but considering the huge amount of work and frustration it takes to get it, I actually think you'd be better off just making a dirt staircase halfway across the map. It would take less time and be easier, as you can just let the game idle and do something else while you wait for it to grow.
Probably not worth grinding for on it's own, but if you're going to go for Silk Touch / Fortune then you'll be getting some Unbreakable III's whether you like it or not. It's a nice enchantment to have, though. Much preferable to Efficiency.
Have you been doing legitimate grinding to enchant those 20 picks at levels 20-29? How long did that take?
Yeah, it's very useful for figuring out optimal levels. If you're gonna grind for some of this stuff, might as well go for the level which is the most XP efficient.
I farmed blaze mobs with fire and str potions in the nether. So yes it was legit.
Getting level 20-25 takes 1hour of grinding, so its a real pain in the ass. Blaze seem to drop more xp then other creatures, dont break my armour cause fire potion make me immume to their attacks. Between spawns i mined alot of netherbrick to spend my time more efficiently, now i just need a nice project which requires netherbrick ;p
You might be right ... but it's virtually impossible...
Just so you know, this looks like you decided your conclusion before you saw the arguments. I can see, from what people have been trying to tell you (and you haven't been listening) that in a big game (i.e. complexity) there are lots of options, often unexpected.
While I agree that grinding for these chants isn't worth it for me, thanks to the responses in this thread I can see why some may choose to do so.
You need to examine your motivation for posting. If it's self-satisfaction, you should get that once you figure out the answer -- before posting. So posting would be unnecessary in that case. If it's to impress others, then you should realize that the benefits of that in this forum are few. If it's to learn, which I feel is one of the best reasons to post, then you must listen to the responses and appreciate them, not just evaluate them.
FWIW your OP was pretty good.
I googled this to try to figure out if it's worth it to grind to like lvl 5 to enchant iron armor. Basically I want to figure out how to survive in survival mode, as I die a lot. Any thoughts on that?
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To the last question, it is NOT worth it to grind to enchant iron armor. You are better off just sticking with level one or two enchantments, because you only slightly increase your chances of getting better stuff by going up a couple of levels. If you want to grind for better stuff you realistically need to get into the 20s and that takes a long time. I can tell you this from personal experience after getting to level 15 and getting an efficiency 1 pickaxe.
So personally I have decided to just use low level enchantments. Every time I get a level or two and am convenient to my enchanting table I enchant a new piece of armor or pickaxe or sword or axe. That way I'm mostly using enchanted stuff. Sure it's only the crap enchantments but they are a bit better than nothing. Indeed efficiency 1 on an iron pickaxe seems to noticably increase the speed of my tree farming.
If and when I spend a lot of time away from my base on a big adventure if I pick up a lot of levels, I may decide to start saving up for something like level 25 and hope for silk touch, but I haven't gotten there yet.
I do like unbreakable when im branch mining as it makes it last quite abit longer. I dont think its worth grinding anything higher then level 15-20.
Silk touch is a ***** to get (so far got like 20picks enchanted with levels 20-29 and still havent gotten it) its indeed generally not usefull but it does make legit players able to have more decoration abilitys and a few small perks for special projects (water in nether for example).
Efficiencyis pretty much useless indeed, diamond pick is fast enough that efficiency barely matters. Definatly not worth grinding for, i would take it as a 2nd enchant combined with unbreakable though.
Fortune is definately one of my favorites and it increase the amount of resources you get quite a bit.
I suggest everyone read both the 'how to read these tables' and the link on that page which exains the math behind enchanting and xp in great but easy to understand detail.
I can see why you'd want Silk Touch, but considering the huge amount of work and frustration it takes to get it, I actually think you'd be better off just making a dirt staircase halfway across the map. It would take less time and be easier, as you can just let the game idle and do something else while you wait for it to grow.
Probably not worth grinding for on it's own, but if you're going to go for Silk Touch / Fortune then you'll be getting some Unbreakable III's whether you like it or not. It's a nice enchantment to have, though. Much preferable to Efficiency.
Have you been doing legitimate grinding to enchant those 20 picks at levels 20-29? How long did that take?
Yeah, it's very useful for figuring out optimal levels. If you're gonna grind for some of this stuff, might as well go for the level which is the most XP efficient.
why do you keep saying that gold is the most efficient choice? Is it actually any different from other types of tools?
To put it simply without explaining the mechanics behind the system, gold items have the ability to receive better enchantments at lower levels. For example I once got a gold shovel at level 2 that had unbreaking II and efficiency II on it, this is a very rare occurrence, but it probably won't happen with other materials at the same level at all.
Just save scummed, got it on my 10th attempt using level 17. Even though it took ten tries it was better than what you would have expected on average. I think the system needs tweaking... Now that I have both Fortune I (Level 20 Diamond Pick) and Silk Touch I don't need to bother grinding for xp anymore. Hurray.
They took 40 blocks. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.
but i doubt that i'd ever enchant a weapon.
The only reason that games have it is to increase play time, way back when gaming was young it was easier to just make the player kill the same monsters over and over for an hour than to fill the hour with unique story driven gameplay. The biggest reason being that the more unique stuff you have, no more space it will take up. But modern games don't need that fluff, we can store **** loads of data without flinching.
But in Minecraft there is already infinite replayability, grinding is purely idiotic. It is a waste of time, a waste of resources, and simply is NOT FUN.
So there are a number of solutions:
1. Make enchantments cost MUCH less.
2. Remove the BS randomness from enchantments, if I grind for it I sure as hell better get it.
3. Make mobs drop more XP, like A LOT more.
4. Remove leveling curve. All levels cost the same as level 1, so that getting up past 10 isn't impossible.
5. Other ways to get XP, like drop XP from blocks as we mine them, more XP from rare blocks or hard to break blocks.
6. Drop from environmental kills. Let us build a mob killer, that does our work for us. XP shouldn't mean we are good at killing things, it should mean we are good at the game. Build a epic mob grinder = you are awesome, have some XP.
7. Base enchantment off of mana crystals or something. Add a item that replaces XP use, or significantly reduces it when enchanting.
8. Make enchanted items unbreakable.
Or any combination of the above.
Grinding is the crutch of the developer, to save room, to save time, or to slack off. Notch doesn't need to do any of those things.
BTW: When getting silk touch, you will often also get unbreaking, which can significantly increase the lifespan of a gold tool.
I didn't want to start a new thread, so I thought I'd post my question here.
What exactly does the armor enchamtment "Protection" actually protect you against? I know wiki says it "converts environmental damage to armor damage", but what is considered "environmental damage"? I would assume that would include fire and drowning, but with there already being an enchantment for fire protection, I'd guess not.
Thanks.
Oh, just some info to add to what enchantments I received and at what level spent, I got Protection IV for my diamond breastplate at lvl 47, and for lvl 26 I got Efficiency III/Unbreakable III/Fortune II on my diamond pick axe.
Couldn't agree more with those ideas.
@ Aria
I take it to mean fire, fall and water damage, but I could be wrong.
Just tested all three, and the only thing my breastplate with Protection IV saved me from was fire damage (to an extent... the longer I stood in fire, I started to take small amounts of damage. I appeared to take drowning and falling damage normally.
Thanks for the reply
I farmed blaze mobs with fire and str potions in the nether. So yes it was legit.
Getting level 20-25 takes 1hour of grinding, so its a real pain in the ass. Blaze seem to drop more xp then other creatures, dont break my armour cause fire potion make me immume to their attacks. Between spawns i mined alot of netherbrick to spend my time more efficiently, now i just need a nice project which requires netherbrick ;p
Just so you know, this looks like you decided your conclusion before you saw the arguments. I can see, from what people have been trying to tell you (and you haven't been listening) that in a big game (i.e. complexity) there are lots of options, often unexpected.
While I agree that grinding for these chants isn't worth it for me, thanks to the responses in this thread I can see why some may choose to do so.
You need to examine your motivation for posting. If it's self-satisfaction, you should get that once you figure out the answer -- before posting. So posting would be unnecessary in that case. If it's to impress others, then you should realize that the benefits of that in this forum are few. If it's to learn, which I feel is one of the best reasons to post, then you must listen to the responses and appreciate them, not just evaluate them.
FWIW your OP was pretty good.
I googled this to try to figure out if it's worth it to grind to like lvl 5 to enchant iron armor. Basically I want to figure out how to survive in survival mode, as I die a lot. Any thoughts on that?
So personally I have decided to just use low level enchantments. Every time I get a level or two and am convenient to my enchanting table I enchant a new piece of armor or pickaxe or sword or axe. That way I'm mostly using enchanted stuff. Sure it's only the crap enchantments but they are a bit better than nothing. Indeed efficiency 1 on an iron pickaxe seems to noticably increase the speed of my tree farming.
If and when I spend a lot of time away from my base on a big adventure if I pick up a lot of levels, I may decide to start saving up for something like level 25 and hope for silk touch, but I haven't gotten there yet.
Also, I'm sorry for the friggin preachiness of my last message ><.
It's obvious and it isn't, and I have the same habit.