The mace is a new weapon in the Minecraft 1.21 update that increases the amount of damage a player can do based on how far they have fallen. There is no limit to the amount of damage that can be done with this weapon.
The crafting recipe is a heavy core and a breeze rod, which crafts a mace. The mace is in the 1.21 update. To get them currently, you will have to turn on the experiments. If there are any changes, I’ll do an updated video.
How to Use the Mace in Minecraft
Let’s start with the basics on how the mace works. The base damage of a mace is six. This is the same as an iron sword. It can be used as a melee weapon, but it does way more damage with falling. Also, it doesn’t have the enchantments as a melee weapon, so it is less effective than an axe or a sword as a melee weapon.
Now, let’s go through how to increase the damage you can do with the mace by understanding the smash attack.
The Smash Attack
The smash attack will be activated when the player falls more than 1.5 blocks and hits a mob. You can hear the sound effect when this happens.
The damage will be:
- Four damage per block fallen for the first three blocks.
- The next five blocks will give you two damage per a block.
- After that point, you will get one damage per a block.
This makes the mace most effective from eight blocks up. You still will do damage at higher heights, but you will be capped at one damage per a block.
Also, mobs within 2.5 blocks of a mob that was hit with a smash attack will be hit with knockback.
The Critical Hit
The next part is the critical hit. This is when you hit a mob when falling. This can be seen when there are small star and cross-shaped particles that fly out of the target. You can usually perform this attack by jumping and hitting a mob when you are jumping down.
When you are using a mace and doing a smash attack, you should be doing a critical hit at the same time automatically without thinking. The critical hit damage is added into the amount of damage per a block fallen.
Negating Fall Damage
Another factor is the negation of fall damage you take, meaning you won’t take fall damage if you hit a mob with a smash attack. It’ll basically reset from the point you hit the mob.
This means you will still take fall damage if you miss the mob or if you still fall far after you’ve hit the mob. You probably will want to have feather falling enchantment on your boots that will reduce the amount of fall damage you take just in case.
Other Mace Mechanics
Two other things with the mace is that there’s a cool down of two seconds, so it is a lot slower than the other weapons in the game. It won’t do a smash attack if it isn’t on cool down. This is more meant so you can’t spam attacks with the mace.
The other is that the mace won’t work with the elytra flight.
Mace Enchantments
Now let’s go through the three new enchantments that are specific to the mace.
Density
The first is the density enchantment that increases the damage per a block fallen, increasing by 0.5 per a level. The maximum level is five. At level five, it increases the damage by 2.5 per a block fallen. This can increase the damage done with the mace by a lot. This enchantment is available through the enchanting table, the villager trading, and fishing.
Breach
The next enchantment is the breach enchantment that reduces the effectiveness of armor by 15% per level. The maximum level is four. At level four, it will reduce the armor effectiveness by 60%. This would be useful in PvP against other players or mobs that have armor. This enchantment is available through the enchanting table, villager trading, and fishing.
Wind Burst
The last enchantment is the wind burst enchantment. This enchantment will emit a burst of wind like a wind charge when you do a smash attack. The strength of the wind burst increases per level. The maximum level is three. Also, the wind burst does not negate fall damage, so you will take fall damage.
What this enchantment will do is launch the player upwards and knock back mobs surrounding you. This will be useful as you can use it to launch yourself in the air then chain attacks against mobs, or if you’re being attacked by a large amount of mobs, you can knock them all back.
This enchantment is difficult to acquire as the only location to get it is through the ominous vault in the trial chamber.
Other Compatible Enchantments
The other three enchantments that can be put on the mace are the smite, the bane of arthropods, and the fire aspect.
Both the smite and bane of arthropods enchantments will increase the amount of damage by 2.5 per level. The maximum level is five. Bane of arthropods does damage to arthropod mobs and the smite does damage to undead mobs. Of these two enchantments, I would go with the smite as there are more undead mobs in the game and the Wither is an undead mob.
The fire aspect has two levels and lights a mob on fire. It does three damage at level one or seven at level two. The amount of damage is based on how long the mob is on fire.
Incompatible Enchantments
Let’s talk about the incompatible enchantments. The density, breach, smite, and bane of arthropods are all incompatible with each other, meaning you can only have one of these enchantments on the mace.
I think the best one is the density as it increases the damage. Breach might make sense in PvP. However, the other two enchantments are mob specific, so they don’t make as much sense for the mace.
Durability and Repair
Lastly, let’s go through the durability of the mace and how to repair it.
The mace has a durability of 500, with it losing one durability when it is used. The mace can have unbreaking and mending enchantment placed on them. The unbreaking enchantment will have a maximum level of three and reduces the possibility of durability being used when the mace is used. Mending will repair the durability of the mace with XP.
To repair the mace, you can combine two maces that will add the durability together and give a five% bonus in the crafting grid or the grindstone. The mace can be repaired in the anvil with breeze rods, adding 25% durability. Putting it through the anvil will add the prior work penalty, which will increase the enchantment levels each time you put it through the anvil.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this weapon is insane, especially the amount of damage you can do. You can one-shot any mob in the game if you fall from the right height, not to mention the enchantments that increase the amount of damage. The mace is the best part in the 1.21 update, and this is definitely a weapon you’ll want to use.