What Does Mending do in Minecraft and How to Use it?

Minecraft is a popular fun favorite among many gamers and has only grown in popularity over the years. One of the many things that make it exciting, engaging, and somewhat convenient is its enchantments. Today we talk about mending skill, and how to best utilize it.

It’s bittersweet to find or make new items on Minecraft because none of them ever lasts forever. For those that find themselves going through a bunch of various equipment over a short period, mending is a powerful treasure enchantment that allows the user to extend the durability of their items and keep them in great working condition.  It also gives the player a sense of security and therefore the confidence to use whichever equipment as many times as needed without worrying about them breaking.

Each item has a certain life span, to increase the longevity of tools, weapons, armor, you can employ the mending enchantment to increase their durability by using experience orbs. Every time you gain experience, for example by slaying mobs, trading, using furnaces, or mining ores, the XP gained is used to repair your gear. 

If you have several items with mending, they will be mended randomly, there is no priority system to repair items with. To repair items using mending, you have to acquire them first, using a couple of ways that I’m going to explain further, thereafter set it on the anvil’s first box, and place the mending book on the second slot, and press the plus symbol. If for some reason it does not work, it could mean you don’t have adequate experience to place the enchantment. 

Mending is often mistaken with repairs done using an anvil, however, it is found on chests, not enchantment tables like normal repairs would be, and mending enchantments cannot be made, only found.  For some reason (probably its rarity), it is one of the more underused enchantments but once players figure out how to use it, it could turn you into a lethal enemy, not to be messed with. 

Mending is a great compromise to spend experience on, to keep your end-game tools and armor in fully durable condition. In this article, I plan to answer all questions concerning Mending in Minecraft, more so the mechanical bits and give some handy pro tips for how to best use it, so have a read. 

What does mending do in Minecraft?

Mending is an enchantment that can be used on pretty much any tool or weapon in Minecraft for added durability. When it is added to a tool or weapon, any experience accrued will go to repairs of those items, at a rate of 2 durabilities per experience point, which means that the experience will go towards fixing the item rather than to the player. 

Mending will not repair items in your inventory, just items you have on hand or on your armor slots. The best way to find mending is to find a librarian who will agree to trade one with you or find their block, take it out, destroy it and reset their buy/sell stock. Another fairly easy way is healing a villager. 

This involves finding a zombie villager, luring him away from the village, dousing him with a splash of a portion of weakness, and feeding him an apple. If he has a profession already, you can place a lectern beside his to change it and then have a look at his trade stock, you’ll probably find mending in there. 

If you do this enough times, you’ll likely find a good supply of mending books. The highest level for mending enchantment is the first level, items can only be enchanted on the first level, nothing more. 

Regardless of how overly enchanted your tools are they can only be repaired at 2 durabilities even if the item has unbreaking on it. Super lucky players can find mending in raids, mineshaft chests, dungeon chests, pillager outpost chests, etc. 

How to use mending in Minecraft?

With the successful acquisition of mending, you can combine it into an item using an anvil. If you happen upon it on a weapon or armor, use an anvil to fuse them together. For you to gain mending ability, you must hold the item in your hand and earn XP. 

When your armor is enchanted, all the experience you attain will go into repairing it, prolonging its durability. If you have a bow as your weapon of choice, its durability will be refilled as you collect more experience orbs. 

Can mending keep going forever? 

Does anything ever last forever? Mending can last indefinitely, well…unless the tool breaks or you disenchant it. For as long as you keep an eye on the durability bars and keep your experience going to your item, it can last infinitely. It is for this reason that mending is considered one of the most valuable enchantments on Minecraft.

Can items with mending break? 

I used to think items enchanted with mending were indestructible until the day my pickaxe broke and disappeared never to be seen again. The answer to the question, is it depends on which tool you are using, fishing rods, for example, are pretty low maintenance, enchanted with mending, they will rarely break nor need repairs if ever but only if you use them exclusively for fishing, eltrya too never break completely. 

It is important to remember that mending is a repair enchantment, it is only used to mend items, not make them indestructible. Also, don’t forget that mending and infinity are mutually exclusive, you cannot have both, you can either have infinite swords or have a sword that can be repaired but not both. 

Does mending take away XP? 

If you pick an item with full durability then no, it won’t take away experience, if not the XP will go to the tool. 

One downside I’ve found with using your mended item for farming XP is it takes a pinch longer to get to the next level because your item is getting slightly damaged and then mended, slowing your progress. Mending is still worth the effort if you ask me.

Is mending the best enchantment?

I would wager, mending is definitely one of the best enchantments on Minecraft. When you are fully suited with diamond gear and furnished with it, you are basically good to go. You won’t need diamonds either, just as long as you take care to mend your items before they fully wear out. 

Pro tip here is that you can utilize mending best combined with unbreaking. Unbreaking stops your equipment from breaking sooner, unbreaking will also reduce the number of trips you make to the unbreaking enchantment, using the experience grinder your items will remain fully durable.

 Does mending get more costly? 

As things stand at the moment, mending items won’t add to your anvil costs but the price will increase over time, each time you pass through the anvil just to keep things challenging. 

As you continue to make something, it will keep on getting more expensive to repair, in the beginning, I didn’t notice but after repairing my diamond pick a couple of times, I started getting the message, “too expensive”. 

You have to agree that being able to use an item perpetually is a bit over the top, this is something that has led to some fiery debates on whether mending is in fact an overpowered enchantment. The expenses of course can always change with newer versions of the game.

Is mending or Infinity better? 

Both, I always want both, but if I have to choose, mending, the reason being you can always make huge loads of arrows but when the arrow inevitably breaks, you’ll lose the enchantment on it, along with the arrow itself, after which you’ll have to put in time and effort on experience levels trying to recover the loss onto one bow and only if you even have the XP levels to do it with. 

It takes a minimum of 30 levels to get to the really good stuff, as far as enchantments. Some people argue that infinity is better because you need only one arrow but what good is a finite amount of arrows if they keep breaking all over the place? 

What should I put mending on first?

All items with a bar showing reducing durability can be mended. Personally, I always like to go with resource-gathering items or/and weapons, it saves a ton of time and resources on levels. 

Still, you can add the mending charm to any pickaxe, scoop, hatchet, digger, casting a pole, carrot on a stick, shears, protective cap, chest plate, tights, boots, safeguard, elytra, sword, harpoon, bow, or crossbow utilizing a captivating table, blacksmith’s iron, or game order, etc anything you can add mending to is a good call.

Except if you have a decent method to cultivate XP orbs, I’d propose the pickaxe long before armor. Some gamers still prefer to add it to armor first because it is more expensive to make but the armor will absorb basically any XP orbs you may get, while the pickaxe can support itself through mining coal veins alone. 

Fortune is your companion when combined with Mending. Until you got a decent XP farm.

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