Minecraft offers many ways to players to make their weapons stronger, including crafting new weapons, armour, potions and enchanting items. Enchantments are particularly helpful as they can strengthen the weapon and increase its damage.
One such enchantment in Minecraft is called Impaling, which is useful for increasing the damage of any Trident. Impaling is a commonly used enchantment in Minecraft to fight aquatic mobs.
Aquatic mobs or sea creatures against whom Impaling enchantment will increase the attack include guardians, elder guardians, squids, glow squids, dolphins, turtles, axolotls and all fish variants except drowned. Drowned are classified under undead mobs, and Smite enchantment works best to fight them.
Here are a few key points you need to know about Impaling in Minecraft.
- Impaling enchantment is available till level V (five) — higher the level, more damage increment for the weapons.
- Each additional level of the Impaling enchantment increases weapon damage by 2.5 (1.25 hearts).
- While impaling enchantment didn’t deal additional damage against undead mobs (drowned) in earlier Minecraft editions, it does now.
Also read: What does Smite do in Minecraft?
How to enchant a weapon with Impaling?
You can use an enchanting table or anvil to add Impaling enchantment to any trident.
Once you’ve got the trident enchanted, you’ll need to hold it in your hand for the improved attack strength to work against aquatic mobs.
Impaling enchantment is available on all platforms and was added to the game during version 1.13, and its abilities were again updated with the version 1.17 update.
| Enchantment Level | Increase in Damage | Melee attack | Ranged attack |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Extra 2.5 damage (1.25 hearts) | 11.5 (5.75 hearts) | 10.5 (5.25 hearts) |
| II | Extra 5 damage (2.5 hearts) | 14 (7 hearts) | 13 (6.5 hearts) |
| III | Extra 7.5 damage (3.75 hearts) | 16.5 (8.25 hearts) | 15.5 (7.75 hearts) |
| IV | Extra 10 damage (5 hearts) | 19 (9.5 hearts) | 18 (9 hearts) |
| V | Extra 12.5 damage (6.25 hearts) | 21.5 (10.75 hearts) | 20.5 (10.25 hearts) |
How to get a Trident?
If you don’t already have a trident, you can get one by defeating drowned mobs. However, not every group of drowned mobs will grant you a trident, and there’s no way of knowing whether or not they’ve got it in the first place. You’ll get one or two tridents upon defeating the drowned.
Note that you’ll need a helmet enchanted with respiration or a potion of water breathing to fight the aquatic mobs.
Also read: How to fix ‘https aka ms remoteconnect not working’ issue in Minecraft?
Impaling enchantment in Java edition vs Bedrock edition
While the impaling enchantment works in all Minecraft editions, it acts differently in two aforementioned versions — Java and Bedrock.
In the Java edition, impaling enchantment applied on a trident will only deal extra damage to aquatic mobs. Any regular mobs in the water won’t receive the additional damage. As mentioned above, drowned (or undead) mobs don’t receive extra damage either.
On the contrary, in the Bedrock edition, the extra damage will be dealt to all the mobs and players in the water, including in the rain.
However, with the recent update, the damage is dealt to all mobs in the Java edition too, including the drowned.
