I just spent a good chunk of time placing a diamond sword into and out of an enchantment table to get a high level enchantment to come up as an option. I did that probably about two or three hundred times before I got a level 48 enchantment. How fun! It was Bane of Anthropods V with Fire Aspect II. Now, I consider Bane of Anthropods is fairly useless overall ...how many spiders are there in the game? But it can still be used as a regular sword with the occasional bonus when you happen upon a spider. Fair enough since we're meant to gamble with our hard earned XP. Wait... We're meant to gamble with our hard earned XP?!? ... And then there's Fire Aspect... Well, while the effect seems really cool, I've discovered that it should actually be called "XP Reduction". Why? When a monster dies from fire it drops no XP orbs. This enchantment is actually a negative effect... a curse. Using it means you get less XP because some of the monsters you hit with it are going to die from the fire. After doing a facepalm and shaking my head, feeling like I just wasted hours of collecting XP, I went to the walkway outside of my tower and I threw the sword into the lava. The way enchanting is set up is really bogus and not fun at all.
Its meant to be "less random" in the next release which I think means its easier to get the high level enchantments from the table ( less page flipping ) - but yea - couldnt agree more.
There's a lot of effort to get to that high level to enchant something, I wonder, even if you get the enchantment you want first go, is it really worth the effort? Some things, like being able to breath underwater would be handy, but extra damage and the like, mobs aren't that hard to kill with my ordinary iron sword.
I lost maybe a full day collecting XP to get a level III unbreaking pickaxe xD *47 XP levels to the ground.*
I've had a Level III unbreaking pickaxe from only 10 xp before, so I think you have to weigh up the chances of getting something good to spending a lot of experience on it. Out of 50xp I'd say you're better off enchanting five gold items instead, and to be honest, the only thing I feel worth enchanting is the Pickaxe for that Fortune 'chant.
I feel your pain Liz, but I must point out that there is a way to translate what the enchantments are before you put them on. I have managed to get some great enchantments from low XP before. At one point I had 20 levels, put a diamond pickaxe in the enchanter, decoded all three of the enchantments it gave me, and got a silk touch with unbreaking 1 for 11 levels. There are ways to make it less randdom already, but it is time consuming doing the translations.
*Sigh* The words in the enchantment menu mean nothing. I don't know why it bothers me when people think otherwise, but it does.
this is why I only enchant diamond picks. since anything they get will be useful. I only do level 1 enchants on armor, since protection is the only good one anyways.
On what kind of pick did you get silk touch at level 11? gold or wood? It's not possible on diamond or iron at that level.
it is not possible to get silk touch at level 11 http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enchanting that, is not my word, is Wiki's word...
Gold tools have a higher starting point base than anything else, so realistically, you're better off using gold tools in the hope of getting Fortune, and then using them very sparingly.
Thanks for all the tips everyone. There's some useful information on the dos and don'ts of enchanting here. It definitely sounds like spending less XP on an enchantment is the way to go, and spending more than 20 or 30 levels on an enchantment is likely to be a total waste. I didn't even think of putting level 1 enchantments on armour... I had just figured putting any enchantment on armour was a senseless waste. It seems the system is set up to support lower level expenditures of xp, and also set up to severely discourage high level expenditures. As disappointing and lame as enchanting is, there is still some value to it... otherwise we'd all just forget about XP and go build things. Some of the enchantments are useful when applied to the right items in the right way. I guess it's just a matter of figuring out what's what and how to make the best of a wonky and generally ill-conceived system (Welcome to Minecraft, lol. I'll bet these kinds of challenges are why we love this game so much). Zanderboy, I didn't think the enchantement jargon was decipherable either... I even tried it with the "galactic" alphabet replaced with an English one and it still made no sense. You'll have to explain how deciphering the jargon works. From what I can see, the words are totally random and actually have nothing to do with the enchantment even.
liz i know the feeling i got 45 levels from blaze farming then i get home to enchant thinking its gonna be really good i enchant my diamond sword thinking i would use it for more blaze farming when i enchant i get sharpness one. I was so dissapoint
Actually I just went and did the math, a silk touch on diamond is POSSIBLE at level 11, but getting the double enchant should not be.
If ur gonna enchant anything Enchant Picks to high lvls, Swords to lvls that appear with no book cases, and armor to lvls under 3 or 4
