A plain bow and a fully enchanted one are different weapons. The right bow enchantments in Minecraft turn 6 damage per shot into 25, make your arrow supply infinite (or your bow immortal), and set whatever you hit on fire on the way in. The wrong picks waste anvil levels on effects that fight your playstyle.
This guide gives you the exact numbers for every bow enchantment on Java 26.2, the one genuine decision the build hinges on, and the parts most guides skip: how to actually get the books, what order to combine them so the anvil doesn't hit "Too Expensive", and how the build changes between PvP and farm duty.
Every bow enchantment at a glance
| Enchantment | Max | What it does | From the table? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power | V | Arrow damage +25% × (level + 1) — +150% at V | III–IV typical; V via anvil |
| Infinity | I | Arrows aren't consumed (keep 1 in your inventory) | Yes, rare |
| Flame | I | 5 fire damage over 5 s on top of the hit; burn ignores armor | Yes |
| Punch | II | Roughly +3 blocks of knockback per level | Yes |
| Unbreaking | III | ≈4× durability — about 1,500 shots instead of 384 | Yes |
| Mending | I | XP orbs repair 2 durability per point instead of leveling you | No — trading, fishing, loot |
| Curse of Vanishing | I | Bow disappears when you die | No — and you don't want it |
The one decision that matters: Infinity or Mending
Every other slot on the bow is a free upgrade. This one is a fork: Infinity and Mending are mutually exclusive, so every bow you build picks a side.
Infinity means never crafting arrows again — as long as one regular arrow sits in your inventory, shots are free. The catches: tipped and spectral arrows are still consumed (Infinity won't fire them for free), and the bow itself still loses durability, so an Infinity bow eventually breaks.
Mending flips the trade. The bow effectively lasts forever — XP orbs repair 2 durability per point while it's in your hand — but you're back to carrying arrows. If you run a skeleton farm, that's a non-problem: the same farm that repairs the bow also drops more arrows than you can shoot.
Rule of thumb: Infinity is the early-to-mid-game pick, Mending the endgame one. The moment you have an XP farm, Mending wins — and nothing stops you from keeping one bow of each.
1. Power V — the damage multiplier everything else rides on
Power adds 25% × (level + 1) to arrow damage: +50% at I, +75% at II, +100% at III, +125% at IV, and +150% at V. A fully charged shot from a plain bow deals 6 damage; with Power V that becomes about 15, and a critical (jump before the shot fully releases) lands up to 25 — enough to one-shot any 20 HP mob on a crit and two-shot it without one.
There is no build where you skip Power. It multiplies with everything else on this list, including Flame's burn stacking on top of the boosted hit.
2. Flame — free damage that armor ignores
Flame sets the target burning for 5 fire damage over 5 seconds, on top of the arrow's impact damage — and burn damage isn't reduced by armor, which makes it disproportionately good in PvP against enchanted diamond and netherite sets. Flaming arrows also light campfires, candles, and TNT from range, which is the cheapest remote detonator in the game.
Three limits worth knowing: rain and water extinguish the arrow mid-flight, fire does nothing to nether mobs, and animals killed while burning drop cooked meat — a feature if you're hunting dinner, a bug if you wanted leather-farm XP from the smelting.
3. Punch II — space control, not damage
Punch adds roughly three blocks of knockback per level; a Punch II hit shoves a target around nine blocks back in total. It adds zero damage. That makes it a positioning tool: superb for keeping a skeleton horde off a bridge, knocking players off ledges in PvP, or buying reload time — and actively harmful on a mob-farm bow, where it punts mobs out of your kill chamber.
4. Unbreaking III — the quiet multiplier
A bow has 384 durability. Unbreaking III makes each shot skip the durability cost three times out of four, stretching that to roughly 1,500 shots. On an Infinity bow it's what stands between you and re-enchanting from scratch; on a Mending bow it means each repair session lasts four times longer. Always take it.
What to skip
Curse of Vanishing deletes the bow when you die — it exists for map makers, not survival. If it rides in on an otherwise good loot bow, use the bow as a donor: the curse transfers when you combine, so keep cursed gear out of your anvil chain. And note that crossbow enchantments don't cross over: Quick Charge, Multishot, and Piercing won't go on a bow, and Power won't go on a crossbow.
Getting the books (and surviving the anvil)
Where each one comes from
- Power, Flame, Punch, Unbreaking, Infinity all roll on the enchanting table. A level-30 table with full bookshelves usually gives Power III–IV; Infinity is a rare roll.
- Power V reliably comes from combining two Power IV books or bows on an anvil — same-level enchantments merge one level up.
- Mending never appears on the table. Reroll a librarian: place a lectern, check the book trade, break and replace the lectern until Mending shows up, then lock it in with a trade. Fishing and structure loot are the slow backup.
Anvil order — dodge "Too Expensive"
Every anvil operation adds a hidden prior-work penalty that doubles each time, and past 39 levels the anvil refuses outright. Applying five books to the bow one at a time is how you hit that wall with one enchantment to go. Instead, merge the books into one: combine pairs (Power IV + Power IV → Power V, then Power V + Flame, Unbreaking III + Infinity), then apply the two stacked books to the bow in two operations. Fewer operations on the bow, lower penalty, everything fits.
Applying with commands
On your own server you can skip the grind entirely. In-game (holding the bow):
/enchant @s power 5 /enchant @s unbreaking 3 /enchant @s flame 1 /enchant @s infinity 1
From a server console there's no "self", so target the player by name — on Campfire, paste it straight into the panel console:
enchant YourName power 5
/enchant respects survival rules: it won't exceed max levels and won't stack Infinity onto a Mending bow.
PvP vs farm: two different bows
| Use | Build | Why |
|---|---|---|
| PvP / base defense | Power V, Punch II, Flame, Unbreaking III, Mending | Knockback controls spacing; armor-ignoring burn pressures enchanted sets |
| Mob farm / grinder | Power V, Unbreaking III, Infinity — no Punch, no Flame | Punch ejects mobs from the kill zone; Flame cooks drops you may want raw |
| Exploration | Power V, Flame, Infinity, Unbreaking III | Free arrows beat repairs when you're a continent from your XP farm |
Common mistakes
- Stocking tipped arrows on an Infinity bow. Infinity only makes regular arrows free — tipped and spectral are consumed as normal.
- Applying books one at a time. That's the "Too Expensive" trap — merge books first, then apply (see the anvil order above).
- Punch on a farm bow. Nine blocks of knockback and your grinder is suddenly redecorated with escaped zombies.
- Firing uncharged. All the math above assumes a full draw — a half-drawn Power V bow still hits like a wet noodle.
- Shooting endermen. They teleport away from every arrow, no matter the enchantments. That one's a sword job.