All Minecraft Trident Enchantments (And When To Use Them)

Updated:

04 Oct 2022

Trident and All Its Wonderful Enchantments

The trident is pretty hard to get. You have to go and find a drowned with a trident and have it kill, hoping against all hope that it will drop and you will finally have it within your grasp. If you don't have a drowned farm or anything insane like that, you want to look after your trident, right?

So, let's use the trident to the most of its ability and power. Today, we'll be looking at every single trident enchantments with all their details and benefits; and after, we will see which enchantments you should use in different situations. Let's start!

7. Loyalty

“Causes the trident to return to the owner once thrown.”
Loyalty stats:

Maximum level: III
Enchantment weight: 5
Incompatible with Riptide

Loyalty is great enchantment for the trident. Honestly, using the trident feels like kind of a chore without Loyalty. Imagine that you use a bow that only has a very expensive and hard to find arrow, a singular arrow, and every time you use this said arrow, you have to go and pick it up from the ground to use again. Doesn’t sound very appetizing, does it?

With Loyalty, however, the trident you throw will return back to you. Sounds pretty cool, huh? It is not only very efficient and timesaving, but also really cool looking whenever you hit an enemy with the trident, and it magically returns back to your hand.

With further levels, the time it takes before it returns back to you after hitting an entity decreases and you will be able to throw it much quicker as a result.
Use Loyalty if:

You are susceptible to throwing your trident around and losing it.
You don’t want to pick up your trident every time you throw it.
You decide that Loyalty is better than Riptide for what you want to do, since you can’t have both.

6. Channeling

“Produces lightning.”
Channeling stats:

Maximum level I
Incompatible with Riptide
Enchantment weight: 1

If you saw the trident for the first time and the first thing that came to your mind was the image of Zeus, you can rest easy knowing that that’s exactly what happened with the developers at Mojang.

With Channeling, if there is a thunderstorm going on, you can throw your trident at an enemy and when the trident hits, a lightning will be produced also, damaging and sometimes burning the enemy.

While this looks really cool and you feel amazing when you do it, there is a lot of requirements for this enchantment to work. Firstly, there needs to be thunderstorm, and secondly, the entity you are hitting needs to be exposed to the open sky.

Other than doing damage, this enchantment also has some secret benefits. For example, you can turn normal creepers to charged creepers with this enchantment. The same thing goes for turning villagers to witches, pigs into zombified piglins, and changing the color of mooshrooms.

Use Channeling if:

You like feeling amazing when you summon lightning upon your enemies.
You want to get your hands on some charged creepers, for whatever the reason may be.
Decide to use Channeling instead of Riptide, since they are incompatible and can’t be enchanted for the same trident, unfortunately.

5. Riptide

“Hurls the user in the direction the user is facing, but only when they are wet.”
Riptide stats:

Maximum level: III
Incompatible with Loyalty
Incompatible with Channeling

Riptide brings a different way to travel around the game world, and I definitely love how much innovation it brings to the table.

Riptide makes it so that when you throw your trident while it’s raining or when you are in water, it never leaves your hand and instead you fly the direction you aimed the trident at.

This helps create new ways to climb places and build bases around the Riptide enchantment. With more levels with the maximum being 3, you get to fly more. Because the trident never really leaves your hand, you can’t combine Riptide with neither Loyalty nor Channeling.
Use Riptide if:

You want to experience a different form of travel.
You plan on building bases that needs Riptide to move around in.
You will be hanging around biomes with a lot of water, since Riptide can make travel a lot easier in biomes like the ocean or the swamp.

4. Impaling

“Causes the trident to deal extra damage on each hit against aquatic mobs.”
Impaling stats:

Impaling I adds 2.5 half hearts of damage to the trident’s original damage.
Impaling II adds 5 half hearts of damage to the trident’s original damage.
Impaling III adds 7.5 half hearts of damage to the trident’s original damage.
Impaling IV adds 10 half hearts of damage to the trident’s original damage.
Impaling V adds 12.5 half hearts of damage to the trident’s original damage.

As you can see, each level of Impaling adds 2,5 half hearts of damage to the trident’s original damage, but only for aquatic mobs. Well, I can hear you asking about these aquatic mobs, which mobs are counted as as an aquatic mob? Let’s answer that question:

Axolotls, dolphins, guardians, elder guardians, squid, glow squid, turtles, and all variants of fish are counted as aquatic mobs. You might be a little bit confused not seeing the drowned in this list. So are we. They count as undead mobs rather than aquatic mobs; so, that’s the reason.

If you think about going to a guardian temple anytime soon, or have a guardian farm, you might be interested in having this enchantment for your trident.
Use Impaling if:

You are fighting aquatic enemies a lot, or you are in aquatic biomes a lot.
You plan on raiding a guardian temple sometime soon.
You have a guardian farm where you use the trident to kill guardians.

3. 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

The durability for the trident is really low, 250 to be exact. Because it is so low, and the trident is quite difficult to get, you really need to be careful not to break your trident. To help with this, Unbreaking can be really helpful.

With unbreaking III, you will have 1000 durability rather than the meek 250 durability you have on an unenchanted trident. In addition to Mending, which will also be really helpful for the longevity of your trident, Unbreaking is a must-have for your precious trident as you will waste a lot of durability when you throw it around.
Use Unbreaking if:

You use your trident a lot.
You might not pay attention and break your trident on accident.
You enjoy using your trident much more before you need to go and repair it.

2. Mending

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

Enchantment weight: 2
Incompatible with Infinity
Maximum level: 1

Mending is also a definite must-have for your trident. With Mending is on your trident, you will be able to collect XP orbs from the enemies you slay, and XP will, instead of going to your XP bar and levelling you up, go and repair the tool you are holding or wearing at the moment.

As you slay a lot of enemies with your trident, you will automatically repair every durability point you spend and if you are even the slightest bit of careful with your trident, and also if you have unbreaking III on it as well, there is almost zero chance you will accidently break your trident.

Damage and usefulness is really important for a tool, but durability and reliability is also as important. That is also the case for your trident.
Use Mending if:

You spend a lot of time killing enemies with your trident.
You don’t want to manually repair your trident all the time.
You want to decrease the chance of your trident accidently breaking without you realizing it.

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 weird little enchantment that is, as far as we are aware, impossible to find for the trident naturally. To get Curse of Vanishing for your trident, you will need to get a Curse of Vanishing enchanted book and enchant that to your trident willingly.

Curse of Vanishing makes it so that your items enchanted with it will disappear when you die, rather than drop on the ground as an item drop.

Because you need to enchant your trident with it rather than finding it, and the fact that the enchantment is stuck to your trident, or any other equipment, and you can’t remove it, we don’t really see a reason why one would enchant their trident with it but you do you. We don’t judge.
Use Curse of Vanishing if: