Every piece of equipment in Minecraft, whether it’s made of leather, iron, diamond or even Netheriteis subject to attrition. With enough uses (or hits taken in the case of armor), they will eventually break, disappearing with all the effort you took into making it.
This is what makes Mending one of, if not THE best enchantment in the game since it is the only renewable way to repair your equipment. Appropriately enough, it’s also one of the most difficult enchantments to get. Luckily, we’ve put together a guide on all the ways to get the Mending enchantment, including the most reliable.
What Is Mending?
Mending is an enchantment that is compatible with every tool, armor, and non-throwable weapon in the game, only conflicting with the Infinity enchantment on the bow. It repairs durability damage to anything it’s enchanted to if it is worn or in hand, using experience orbs.
Getting Mending represents a paradigm shiftin your gameplay, since outside of death and bad luck, any equipment with Mending no longer has to be replaced. This means that you’re free to get all the best enchantments on your most powerful weapons without the fear of losing all the work you put into them.
Even other methods of repair have their limits: grindstones remove enchantments and prior work penalties mean anvil repairs eventually get too costly. Once you have your perfect kit enchanted with Mending, you never have to think about your equipment again, freeing you up for other pursuits.
How Do You Get Mending?
Mending is a treasure enchantment, a type of enchantment that can’t be found in the enchanting table but instead is found in other ways. Treasure enchantments can be found in two ways: already attached to a piece of equipment or in an enchanted book.
You can get an enchanted fishing rod or bow from fishing relatively reliably, and if you’re especially lucky, they could even have Mending.
The latter is optimal since you can choose what piece of gear to apply it to, but depending on what type of gear it’s on (like diamond) and what other enchantments are on it, the former can be just as good.
The only ways to acquire treasure enchantments are in treasure chests, pillager drops in raids (in Bedrock), and villager trades. Of those, villager trades are the most reliable.
Where Do You Get Mending?
You can get enchanted books or gear in treasure chests, which are found in structures generated in the Overworld, underwater, the Nether, and The End. These placesare generally dungeon-likeand include mineshafts, bastion remnants, and end cities.
Because of how loot is generated, this isn’t a reliable way to get the Mending enchantment. While the chance of getting an enchanted book isn’t low, getting one with Mending isn’t likely since each book can have almost any one of the many possible enchantments that exist in the game.
This is also true for any enchanted gear found in loot chests, though the chances are slightly higher since most enchantments only apply to specific gear, limiting the number of available enchantments and increasing the chance of having Mending.
Ancient Citiesand Strongholds have a high chance of having enchanted books.
How To Get Mending From Villages
The most reliable way to get Mending, especially as an enchanted book, is by trading with villagers. In particular, you’re looking to trade with Librarians villagers. Librarians are guaranteed to trade up to four different random enchanting books at max level, each of which has a chance to be Mending.
What makes this method so reliable is that as long as you haven’t traded with them, you may actually re-randomize their trades by breaking their Lecterns and then replacing them. Since you can’t trade with them, they can’t level up, so only their Novice-level trades will be available. This is enough, however, since every reroll, they have a chance to get almost any enchantment or a bookshelf. This includes treasure enchantments and most importantly, Mending.
What makes this method so reliable is that as long as you haven’t traded with them, you may re-randomize their trades by breaking their Lecterns and then replacing them. Since you can’t trade with them, they can’t level up, so only their Novice-level trades will be available. This is enough, however, since every reroll, they have a chance to get almost any enchantment or a bookshelf. This includes treasure enchantments and most importantly, Mending.
How To Reroll Trades Quickly
Manually breaking and replacing a Librarian’s Lectern until you get Mending is tedious and time-consuming. If you’re trying to do it with more than two at a time, then it’s nearly impossible. However, there are steps you can take to make it quicker and easier:
Find your Librarians
Ideally, you do this in a fresh village with one or fewer Librarians, that way you can decide how many of them you want to work with. Fewer Librarians mean that they’re easier to find and move, but more Librarians mean more opportunities for one of them to get Mending.
If you’re adding more Librarians, make sure to put their Lecterns in one place, easily accessible and on the ground floor. Move existing Lecterns to that place as well.
Isolate your Librarians
Once you have all the Lecterns in one place, corral all your Librarians to that place, one at a time. If they’re nearby, you walk at them and nudge them in the right direction. If not, or if they’re being difficult, you’re able to put them in a boat or railcar to move them to the right place.
Once they’re there, make sure they can’t leave. You can encase them in a little booth if you want, but digging two blocks down and pushing them in is just as effective. If you’re doing the latter, place a block two blocks above their heads so no other villagers can fall into the holes.
Build and place sticky pistons
Build as many sticky pistons as there are Lecterns. Sticky pistons are made from pistons, which in turn are made from four cobblestones, three planks, one iron, and one redstone dust. Then craft the piston with a slime ball, which is looted from Slimes and sometimes traded from wandering traders.
Place the sticky pistons on the ground facing upwards. Place a button adjacent to all the sticky pistons. Ideally, you want three sticky pistons in this setup. Any more and the button gets more difficult to press. Press the button and if all the pistons extend, then you did it right.
Place the Lecterns
ensure that you have at least three blocks of clearance above your sticky piston setup, then break and place the Lecterns on the sticky pistons.
Press the button
When you press the button, the sticky pistons should push all the Lecterns up and then pull them back down. This will remove the jobs of all Librarians linked to them when they go up, and then give their jobs back when it comes down.
The Librarians should have different trades, just inspect them to find which one with Mending and make sure to trade with them to lock it in. If you don’t have the desired results, press the button and inspect them until you have what you want.
This process isn’t limited to Mending or even Librarians. Substitute Lecterns with the job block of your desired artisan to get desirable trades from any employed villager.
