Best helmet enchantments in Minecraft

Enchanting your gear is essential to success in Minecraft, and your helmet is one of the most important pieces of armor to upgrade. To ensure you have the best protection possible, you need to use the best helmet enchantments you can get.

If you’re not sure which ones to choose, here are all of the best helmet enchantments in Minecraft.

Best enchantments for helmets in Minecraft, ranked

There are 11 helmet enchantments in Minecraft. Ideally, you want to apply as many enchantments to your helmet as possible, but some are mutually exclusive and won’t allow others to coexist. All helmet types—which include leather, chainmail, turtle shell, gold, iron, diamond, and netherite—can be enchanted.

If you’re unsure where to begin or overwhelmed by the number of enchantments available, here’s a complete breakdown of all enchantments for helmets in Minecraft ranked from worst to best so you can spend your hard-earned levels wisely.

10/11) Curse of Binding I and Curse of Vanishing I

We combined Curse of Binding I and Curse of Vanishing I in the worst slot because they’re similarly useless. Curse of Binding prevents removing an item from its armor slot. If you enchant your helmet with it, you can’t take it off until its durability wears off or you die.

Curse of Vanishing makes an item disappear from the world indefinitely upon your death. Unless you’re in a race against some other players in a PvP mode and hope to prevent them from obtaining your gear, there’s no use for this enchantment.

9) Fire Protection IV

Fire Protection, as the name suggests, protects you from all forms of fire. But you should only go for it if you’re preparing for a specific scenario that includes a lot of fire or if you don’t have the usual Protection enchantment available. It conflicts with regular Protection, so it’s usually not worth getting unless you’re in dire need of immediate defense against this element.

8) Blast Protection IV

If you’re gearing up to face enemy players who have lots of TNT under their belt or explore an area that might have lots of Creepers, then Blast Protection should be equipped on your helmet to help you combat this type of damage. The usual Protection enchantment can also shield you in these situations, so it’s best to use that one instead if you can since they conflict.

7) Projectile Protection IV

Projectile Protection defends you from all kinds of projectiles, including arrows, Tridents, Shulker Bullets, and more. If you can’t have standard Protection on your helmet, having Projectile Protection instead isn’t a bad call. That is especially true in the early game when you’ll be facing a lot of Skeletons and Drowned. But just like the other Protection variants, it’s still best to aim for regular Protection instead to grant yourself defense against all types of damage instead of only one.

6) Thorns III

Thorns is an incredibly important enchantment to have because it deflects the damage you take back onto your enemies. For example, if a Skeleton hits you with an arrow while you have Thorns enchantment equipped on one of your armor pieces, it’s immediately hit back with some of the damage it dealt. Thorns has three levels, and the higher level you can get, the stronger the effects are.

Having Thorns on your helmet is always worth it if you also have Unbreaking or Mending on the item, but it’s best to avoid using it until you also have both equipped. The Thorns enchantment breaks your armor more quickly, so you really need both other enchantments alongside it to negate this effect.

5) Aqua Affinity I

Aqua Affinity is a powerful enchantment that makes exploring underwater a lot easier. This enchantment increases the speed of your mining underwater which makes treasure hunting much more efficient. If you find yourself exploring an underwater cave, it helps to have this enchantment on your helmet. Aqua Affinity has only one level, which is more than enough to increase your underwater mining speed as much as you’ll ever need.

4) Respiration III

The Respiration enchantment extends how long you can breathe underwater. There are three levels to this enchantment, and each one adds 15 additional seconds to how long you can breathe underwater.

This means you can get up to 45 additional seconds each time you dive with the third level of this enchantment applied. In most cases, this should be enough to reach any temple or shipwreck you come across.

3) Mending I

Mending is by far one of the best helmet enchantments you can use because it converts the experience you gain into restored durability for the items it’s applied to. Without this enchantment, your items will break over time as you use them, but with it, you can keep your gear forever as long as you work on gaining experience to fix it.

It’s quite easy to gain experience naturally to activate the Mending enchantment. Most activities grant you some fairly consistently including killing mobs and mining ores, so it’s not too difficult to keep on top of restoring your helmet as needed.

2) Unbreaking III

Unbreaking is an essential enchantment that helps your items stay fresh and usable for longer. There’s nothing worse than spending lots of levels to enchant the perfect helmet only to have it end up breaking, so this one is a must to help prevent this from happening.

There are three levels of Unbreaking and each progressive level makes your helmet even stronger. This means you should always aim for Unbreaking III to have the toughest helmet possible.

1) Protection IV

Protection is the single most useful enchantment you can get for your helmet or any other piece of armor. This enchantment reduces the damage you take to increase your odds of staying alive in even the most dangerous fights.

There are four possible levels of Protection, so it’s best to aim for Protection IV for the overall most effective version of this enchantment. If you can’t get it, though, you can take lower levels if needed to keep you safe from harm.

It’s always better to choose the general Protection enchantment over the other specific Protection variants. This enchantment keeps you safe from all damage while the other versions only apply to specific situations.

How to enchant armor in Minecraft

There are three ways to enchant armor in Minecraft including an experienced librarian who enchants specific books for emeralds and other currencies, using a book at an anvil, or using the enchanting table.

The enchanting table is the most common and useful method overall. It allows you to enchant your items in exchange for lapis lazuli and experience. Usually, the highest and best enchantments in Minecraft take around three levels in exchange. On top of that, when building an enchanting table, you have to place it among bookshelves. A total of 15 of them need to be placed around the table to gain access to the best enchantments in the game.

Using an anvil or librarian is a bit trickier. You can only use specific books at the anvil or combine two items which limits your available options. Librarians don’t enchant your armor for you, but you can trade with skilled ones to acquire enchanted books that can be applied through the anvil.

How to quickly find resources for enchanting in Minecraft

The most common resource you need for Enchanting in Minecraft is lapis lazuli, which you can find in mines. It spawns on different levels and there is no rule on where to look for it. One block usually drops between four to nine lapis lazuli. But if you’re hunting for it, it’s best to bring a Pickaxe with the Fortune III enchantment, increasing that drop rate by up to 36 per block.

How to quickly level up in Minecraft to enchant your items

There are many ways to level up quickly. If you’re just starting a world, here’s our best advice:

• Hunt monsters at night.
• Smelt sand, ores, stone, and food.
• Look for spawners in mines.
• Mine materials that grant XP like quartz in the Nether.
• Breed animals.
• Trade with villagers.

You need the best enchantments for every tool and weapon alongside your powerful new helmet, including Maces, Tridents, Pickaxes, and Axes. You also might consider venturing into the Deep Dark biome to take on the Warden or the pale garden biome to battle the Creaking now that you have the necessary protection to do so.