Enchanting items in Minecraft can provide powerful bonuses and abilities. The highest level of enchantment is level 30, which requires a significant amount of materials to achieve. This article will provide details on exactly how much of each material is needed to reach the maximum enchantment level.
What Items Can Have Level 30 Enchants?
Not all items in Minecraft can reach level 30 enchantments. The items that can potentially have level 30 enchants include:
- Swords
- Axes
- Bows
- Crossbows
- Books
- Fishing rods
- Tridents
- Shovels
- Pickaxes
- Helmets
- Chestplates
- Leggings
- Boots
Other tools and armor may cap out at lower level enchantments. But the gear listed above can all potentially reach the max level 30 with enough materials.
How the Enchanting Table Works
To enchant items in Minecraft, you need to use an enchanting table. This block allows you to spend experience levels and lapis lazuli to generate random enchantments for your gear. The enchanting table UI shows you some of the possible enchantments and their levels.
The level 30 enchantments will never show up as options right away. To reach level 30, you need to combine lower level books or enchanted items at an anvil. This requires a significant amount of materials, but allows you to slowly work your way up to the maximum enchantment tier.
Required Materials
Reaching level 30 enchantments requires obtaining a lot of the following materials:
- Experience: You’ll need at least 30 levels to combine lower level books. Significantly more is needed if starting from scratch.
- Lapis Lazuli: At least 30-60 pieces to combine books at an anvil.
- Anvils: You’ll wear down several anvils when combining high level books.
- Diamonds: For crafting anvils to replace broken ones.
- Paper: To craft books for storing enchantments.
- Leather: For crafting books as well.
- Enchanted Books: Created through enchanting books or obtained by other means.
Exact amounts will vary based on your process, but expect to need stacks of most materials. Let’s take a closer look at how much of each thing you’ll realistically need.
Experience Levels
It takes at least 30 levels to combine two maxed out books or items at an anvil. But getting to that point requires substantially more experience:
- Around 30 levels to enchant some initial gear at an enchanting table.
- Dozens more levels to combine lower level books into max level tier books.
- Extra experience for failures and do-overs.
All said, you’re looking at needing well over 100 levels to take an item from no enchantments all the way to level 30. Have an efficient XP farm ready!
Lapis Lazuli
You need at least 3 lapis lazuli for each attempt at combining items or enchanting books. To reach level 30 you may go through:
- ~15 combines to make lower level books.
- ~5 combines to max out two books.
- 1 combine to make the level 30 item.
With all the failures and retries, you’ll realistically need 60-100 lapis lazuli to max one item or tool.
Anvils
Anvils allow you to combine enchanted books and tools. But each use damages and eventually destroys them. To reach level 30 you’ll likely go through:
- ~5-10 anvils to combine lower level books.
- ~3 anvils to max out books.
- 1-2 anvils to combine for level 30.
You can expect to use at least 10-15 anvils in the process per enchanted item.
Diamonds
Since anvils get destroyed frequently, you’ll need a lot of diamonds to keep crafting new ones. Each anvil requires:
- 31 iron ingots
- 4 iron blocks (made from 36 ingots)
- 1 diamond
In total, that’s 167 iron ingots and 1 diamond per anvil. If you use 15 anvils, that results in using over 2 stacks of iron and 15 diamonds for a single max enchant!
Paper
Enchanted books require paper to craft. Each book needs 3 paper. If you make around 30 books, you’ll need approximately 1 stack (64) paper.
Leather
Like paper, leather is needed to craft books for storing enchantments. Each book requires 1 leather. For 30 books, you’ll need about 1 stack (64) leather as well.
Enchanted Books
The core items used to build up to level 30 are enchanted books. These are created by:
- Enchanting books at an enchanting table.
- Combining books at an anvil.
- Finding them in loot chests in structures/dungeons.
- Trading with villagers.
- Fishing.
You’ll need books with a variety of lower enchantment levels like Sharpness I-V, Protection I-IV, Power I-V, etc. The full amount varies greatly, but plan on acquiring at least 30-50 enchanted books to work your way up to max level.
Step-by-Step Process
Here is an overview of the full process to take an unenchanted item all the way to a level 30 enchant in Minecraft:
- Acquire base materials: paper, leather, lapis, diamonds, iron, etc.
- Build an efficient XP farm to collect 30+ levels.
- Craft 15+ anvils and books/bookshelves for enchanting.
- Enchant books to lower levels I-V at the enchanting table.
- Combine books at an anvil to reach higher tiers.
- As you advance, replace broken anvils with new ones.
- Continue combining books until you have 2 maxed out tier V books.
- Combine the tier V books at an anvil to create a level 30 enchanted book.
- Apply the level 30 book to your desired item.
This process requires a heavy investment of time and grinding. But the payoff is immensely powerful level 30 enchanted gear!
Minimum Material Requirements
Based on the details above, here are approximate minimums needed to reach level 30 on a single item or tool:
| Material | Amount Needed |
|---|---|
| Experience | 100 levels |
| Lapis Lazuli | 1 stack (64) |
| Anvils | 15 anvils |
| Diamonds | 15 diamonds |
| Iron Ingots | 2.5 stacks (160 ingots) |
| Paper | 1 stack (64 paper) |
| Leather | 1 stack (64 leather) |
| Enchanted Books | 30-50 books |
These amounts may vary somewhat based on luck and other factors. But this gives a general idea of the minimum materials you’ll realistically need to invest.
Optimizing the Process
Here are some tips to optimize and speed up the process of reaching level 30 enchants in Minecraft:
- Build an efficient XP farm based on a mob grinder or furnace system.
- Treasure enchanted books found via fishing, trading, etc.
- Repair anvils instead of replacing to conserve diamonds.
- Combine lower level books first before applying to tools.
- Have a steady supply of lapis lazuli from Fortune-mined ores.
- Use the minimum needed lapis (3) when enchanting books.
- Craft bookshelves to boost enchanting table power as needed.
With good planning and an efficient material-gathering system, you can reduce the grind and reach level 30 enchants more quickly.
Enchantment Cost Scaling
It’s important to note that anvil combining costs scales up exponentially for higher-tier enchantments. According to the Minecraft wiki:
The experience cost depends on the enchantments, with highly enchanted items incurring higher experience costs. There is a multiplier on subsequent level increases that caps at level 40. Each time the anvil is used, a depreciation factor of 12% is applied to the base total cost (with a minimum value of 2 levels), rounded down.
This makes going from level 1 to level 30 enchants require an absolutely massive amount of experience levels. The scaling costs incentivize players to avoid overly recombining high-level books.
Alternatives to Anvil Combining
Some alternatives exist to reach level 30 enchants without solely using an anvil:
- Villager Trading – Rarely max level books can be bought from master-level villagers.
- Epic Loot – Level 30 items are very rare, but can be found in end cities, dungeons, etc.
- Creative Mode – Enchanted books can be given any level in creative mode.
- Commands/Cheats – Commands like /enchant can short-cut enchanting limits.
- Mods – Some mods remove enchanting restrictions to reach level 30+.
However, most players rely on the anvil and enchanting system when playing survival or vanilla servers. But the alternatives provide options when available.
Maximum Enchantment Power
Level 30 is the cap for enchantments in vanilla Survival Minecraft. However, it is possible to combine enchanted books or items beyond level 30 in Creative mode. The maximum enchantment level in Minecraft is Level 127.
At levels above 30, enchantments continue getting more powerful. But the scaling slows down, making the boost above 30 minimal. And given the massive costs, level 30 remains the practical maximum for survival mode.
Conclusion
Reaching the maximum enchantment level of 30 in Minecraft requires a massive investment of time, grinding, and materials. But the payoff is gear with nearly god-like levels of power. With the right planning and effort, level 30 enchanted items can be achieved in survival mode.
The full process involves acquiring and combining many enchanted books while consuming:
- Well over 100 XP levels
- A full stack of lapis lazuli
- 15+ anvils and diamonds
- Over 2 stacks of iron ingots
- Stacks of paper, leather, and books
While reaching level 30 enchants is a monumental effort, it produces weapons, tools, and armor that are incredibly formidable. And for dedicated players pursuing the pinnacle of power, obtaining these maximum enchantments is an exciting end-game goal.
