This is an enchantment that can be placed on swords, axes, and maces. This is part of a playlist going through every enchantment. There’s a card on the top right if you want to enter that playlist.
How to get the Bane of Arthropods
This is an easy enchantment to get. It can be acquired through:
- Enchanting items or books in the enchanting table
- From librarians from enchanted book trades
- Enchanted books in chest loot
- Through fishing
What is the Bane of Arthropods?
Bane of Arthropods can be placed on three weapons: the sword, axe, and mace. The maximum level is five of the enchantment.
It will do 2.5 damage per level to arthropod mobs. At level five, it will do 12.5 damage total. It will also inflict Slowness 4. This effect will last between 1 to 1.5 seconds, increasing by .5 seconds per level of the enchantment. Slowness decreases walking speed by 15% per level, so it will make a mob 60% slower.
The arthropod mobs in the game are bug-like mobs like:
- Bees
- Cave spiders
- Endermites
- Silverfish
- The spider
Enchantments Incompatible with the Bane of Arthropods
Incompatible means you can only have one of these enchantments on your weapon.
With the sword and axe, the Bane of Arthropods is incompatible with Sharpness and Smite. Smite can do the exact same amount of damage, but to undead mobs. Undead mobs are:
- Bogged
- Drowned
- Husk
- Phantom
- Skeleton
- Stray
- Wither
- Wither Skeleton
- Zombie
- Zombie Villager
- Zombified Piglin
This is a wider variety of mobs that it can do damage to. The Sharpness does less damage at six damage in Java and 6.25 in Bedrock at level five. However, it can also be used against all mobs.
On the mace, the Bane of Arthropods is incompatible with Smite, Density, and Breach. Plus, you can’t put Sharpness on a mace.
Density increases the damage per a block fallen when you do a smash attack, increasing by 0.5 per level, and the maximum level is five. What the smash attack is, is when you’re falling while attacking a mob. The Breach enchantment will reduce the effectiveness of armor of a target by 15% per level with the maximum level being four.
I think with the mace, it is more fun to use the mace specific enchantments as Density allows you to do a lot of damage and Breach can be useful in PvP. Otherwise, I honestly prefer Sharpness over Bane of Arthropods as it does damage to all mobs. I think at the beginning of a game, it’s not the worst thing to have Bane of Arthropods on a weapon.