All Minecraft Chestplate Enchantments (And When To Use Them)

Updated:

22 Nov 2022

A List of All Minecraft Chestplate Enchantments (And When To Use Them)

Armor is really important in Minecraft, and because the chestplate is simply the most powerful armor piece you can have, you really ought to know all the enchantments that can go with a chestplate and when you should be using them.

Today, we will be doing you a favor and help you not google every single Chestplate enchantment's name and try to learn every detail. We will be listing them out for you, in addition to explaining when you should be using these enchantments. You can thank us by reading the article and learning.

9. Fire Protection

“Reduces damage taken from sources of fire.”
Fire Protection stats:

Fire Protection I: %8 fire damage reduction.
Fire Protection II: %16 fire damage reduction.
Fire Protection III: %24 fire damage reduction.
Fire Protection IV: %32 fire damage reduction.
Incompatible with Blast Protection, Projectile Protection, Protection.

There are a variety of different protection enchantments for your chestplate. First, let’s look at Fire Protection and its benefits.

Fire Protection gives you damage reduction against fire damage. This damage reduction includes things like fire, lava, magma blocks, lit campfires, and mobs that deal fire damage, like blazes. The damage reduction increases by %8 for every level and with Fire Protection IV for your chestplate, you can get %32 fire damage reduction.

If you choose to enchant your other pieces of armor with Fire Protection, you can get up to %80 Fire Protection. In addition, your burn time will decrease by %15 by every level of Fire Protection as well.
Use Fire Protection if:

You don’t want to catch on fire. With 7 levels of Fire Protection, you will never catch on fire ever again. Pretty cool!
You play around places with fire damage like the Nether a lot.
You fight enemies like blazes, magma cubes, and so on.

8. Projectile Protection

“Reduces damage taken from projectiles.”
Projectile Protection stats:

Projectile Protection I: %8 projectile damage reduction.
Projectile Protection II: %16 projectile damage reduction.
Projectile Protection III: %24 projectile damage reduction.
Projectile Protection IV: %32 projectile damage reduction.
Incompatible with Blast Protection, Fire Protection, Protection.

Projectile Protection is also very similar to Fire Protection in the way that it greatly reduces a certain type of damage you can receive in the game. This time, of course, that type of damage is projectiles. With every level of Projectile Protection enchanted on your chestplate, you will be able to negate %8 more damage for anything projectile.

Projectile damage includes arrows, tridents, shulker bullets, llama spit, and blaze fireballs, ghast fireballs, and wither skulls.

Similar to Fire Protection, you can stack Projectile Protection up to 10 with different armor pieces and will only receive %20 of the original damage caused by the projectiles. However, because you can’t have two or more protection enchantments on the same armor, you will have to choose very carefully the type of protection you want on your armor.
Use Projectile Protection if:

You fight with enemies like skeletons that shoot projectiles.
You want to kill the Wither.

7. Blast Protection

“Reduces damage taken from explosions and fireworks.”
Blast Protection stats:

Blast Protection I: %8 blast damage reduction.
Blast Protection II: %16 blast damage reduction.
Blast Protection III: %24 blast damage reduction.
Blast Protection IV: %32 blast damage reduction.
Incompatible with Fire Protection, Projectile Protection, Protection.

Blast Protection! If you find yourself playing around with TNT or mobs that tend to explode, you might choose this enchantment over the other protection enchantments. Similar to the other enchantment with similar names, Blast Protection gives %8 damage reduction, but to blast damage this time.

The blast damage this enchantment will protect you from is caused by TNT, creepers, beds (in the Nether), Respawn Anchors (in the overworld) and firework rockets. In addition to damage reduction, the knockback from the explosions will also decrease by %15 per level as well.

Similar to the other enchantment, you can stack up to 80% damage reduction as the cap.
Use Blast Protection if:

You fight enemies like creepers a lot.
You play around with TNT.
Use Respawn Anchors in the overworld for things like fast mining.

6. Protection

“Adds bonus damage reduction.”

Protection stats:

Protection I: %4 damage reduction.
Protection II: %8 damage reduction.
Protection III: %12 damage reduction.
Protection IV: %16 damage reduction.
Incompatible with Blast Protection, Fire Protection, Projectile Protection.

Protection might be the best enchantment for your armor if you can’t decide on with type of protection enchantment you should have on your armor. Because this enchantment is incompatible with Blast Protection, Fire Protection, and Projectile Protection, we should take a look at the benefits before we really decide on which enchantment is the best for us.

First of all, this enchantment gives you half the damage reduction compared to the other enchantments. Every level of protection brings you %4 damage reduction, but this damage reduction is for every kind of damage in the game. Pretty cool, huh?

If you decide to enchant all your armor with Protection IV, you’ll get 64% damage reduction for every damage in the game.
Use Protection if:

You can’t decide on a specialized Protection enchantment.
You are doing anything whatsoever related to PvP and/or PvE.

5. Unbreaking

“Gives a chance for an item to avoid durability reduction when it is used, effectively increasing the item's durability.”
Unbreaking stats:

%100 more durability on a tool at Unbreaking I
%200 more durability on a tool at Unbreaking II
%300 more durability on a tool at Unbreaking III

Unbreaking is one of the most important enchantments in the game, and this fact doesn’t change with armor as well. With every level of Unbreaking, you’ll receive %100 more durability on your tool, or in this case, your armor. With Unbreaking III, you will have 4 times the original durability of your armor.

When you are using tools, you can at least see the durability of your tools very easily; however, with armor, you need to open up your inventory and look at it, which many of us might not do as regularly as they should, and their armor breaks without them even realizing. For this reason and more, Unbreaking is a very important enchantment for your armor, and there really is no reason to not give this enchant to all your pieces of armor.
Use Unbreaking if:

You don’t want to always repair your armor.
You don’t pay too close of an attention to your armor’s current durability.
You want your armor to last longer. Duh.

4. Thorns

“Causes attackers to be damaged when they deal damage to the wearer.”
Thorns stats:

Thorns I: %15 chance to inflict half a heart of damage to the attacker.
Thorns II: %30 chance to inflict half a heart of damage to the attacker.
Thorns III: %45 chance to inflict half a heart of damage to the attacker.

Thorns is a cool enchantment that might benefit you a lot, or really annoy you. If you decide to give Thorns to your piece of armor, you’ll realize that whenever an enemy hits you, ranged or not, there is a chance that they will also take a slight bit of damage themselves and get slightly knocked back.

If you have thorns on multiple pieces of equipment, their chances will play out separately and if all four armor pieces manage to hit the enemy back for the same attack, you will be able to do two hearts of damage to that enemy.

However, the Thorns ability will apply more durability penalty to your armor whenever it activates, and if you are hanging around with hostile mobs that you don’t want to kill and keep for things like mob farms, Thorns might prove to be a thorn on your side. Heh.
Use Thorns if:

You want that additional damage whenever an enemy attacks you.
You want to knock back and confuse your enemy in PvP.

3. Mending

“Restores durability of an item using experience.”
Mending stats:

Enchantment weight: 2
Incompatible with Infinity
Maximum level: 1

Mending is close to the perfect enchantment as you can get. Only reason you wouldn’t want Mending on any equipment would be to enchant your bow with Infinity, but we are talking about armor today.

With Mending, similar to Unbreaking, you will be able to repair your armor through picking up XP orbs without even realizing. Because armor is more susceptible to breaking without you realizing, combined with Unbreaking, Mending can play a huge role in keeping your armor always new and shiny.

There really is no reason for not having Mending on your armor other than finding Mending enchantments. Because Mending is not available at an enchantment table, you will have to find or buy enchanted books from different places and apply those books to your armor with an anvil. Overall, it’s definitely worth the effort.
Use Mending if:

You don’t pay too much attention to your armor’s durability.
You fight with enemies, farm, or do other things that grant you XP to fix your armor.
You want your armor to last longer, fair and simple.

2. Curse of Binding

“Prevents removal of a cursed item from its armor slot.”
Curse of Binding stats:

Maximum level: 1
Not able to disenchant.
Only appliable with an anvil.

Curse of Binding is a weird enchantment that causes the item with it to get stuck on you if you decide to wear it. For example, if you wear a chestplate with Curse of Binding on it, you will not be able to take it off and it will always stay there until you die, or the armor gets broken. This is worse with other wearable attire like carved pumpkins but that’s another story for another day.

Overall, you won’t be able to get Curse of Binding through an enchantment table, so don’t worry; however, if you come across an armor as loot with this enchantment, tread carefully and know that this enchantment can’t be erased like other enchantments can.
Use Curse of Binding if:

You want to troll your friends.
If you want to become a dragon bro.

1. Curse of Vanishing

“Causes the item to disappear on death.”
Curse of Vanishing stats:

Maximum level: 1
Not able to disenchant.
Only appliable with an anvil.

Curse of Vanishing is a similar enchantment to Curse of Binding. Why? Because you can’t get it on an enchantment table and can only find it as loot. Also, like Curse of Binding, it cannot be disenchanted. Well, what does this curse do?

An item enchanted with Curse of Vanishing will disappear when you die with it on your inventory, hand, worn, whatever. It will not drop as an item drop like other things will, and just *poof* disappear. So, why would you want this enchantment? I really don’t know.
Use Curse of Vanishing if: