Minecraft 1.21: Differences between mace and sword explained

One of the most unexpected, but exciting, Minecraft 1.21 additions was the mace weapon. This is the first weapon that Mojang has added to the game since the Village & Pillage update added crossbows, making it quite a significant event. The mace more than justifies its existence by being very different from the game's most common weapon, the sword.

Every way that maces and swords differ is detailed down below, along with what makes these changes so significant.

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All the differences between Minecraft's sword and mace weapons

Weapon Stats

The mace is most similar in damage to iron and stone swords, depending on version (Image via Mojang)

Weapon stats are one of the biggest areas where maces and swords are different. There are six tiers of swords, while there is only a single mace. The mace's base damage is three hearts. This is the same as iron swords on Java Edition and stone swords on Bedrock.

The mace also has only 500 durability. This might seem like a lot, as it's twice as much as an iron sword. However, netherite swords have a total durability of more than 2000, making the 500 of the mace feel much smaller.

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Utility

A mace knocking back a horde of zombies (Image via Mojang)

Utility is another area where swords and maces have a ton of differences. The mace has two unique pieces of utility. The first, and more important of the two, is the ability to convert falls into attack damage. The rate at which the game does this drops off as the fall increases in height, but there's no cap, meaning any Minecraft mob with health can be one shot from a tall enough fall.

The mace's other utility ability is an AEO knockback blast when landing one of the fall-boosted attacks, known as smash attacks. All the mobs near the target of a smash attack will fly back as if they were the mobs hit.

Swords only have an extra piece of utility on Java Edition. Java swords have a sweeping attack, able to damage mobs near the target. The sweeping edge enchantment can make this sweeping attack much better, dealing up to 75% of the full damage. This is one of the biggest parity differences between Minecraft Java and Bedrock.

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Getting the weapon

The mace can only be crafted and is much more expensive than swords (Image via Mojang)

Another area in which swords and maces differ in huge ways is actually getting the weapons. Swords can be found as loot in many of Minecraft's structures, such as buried treasures, strongholds, villages, and Nether fortresses. They can also be crafted using a single stick and two pieces of material, such as iron or diamond. Finally, they can be traded for by weaponsmith villagers.

On the other hand, Minecraft's mace cannot be obtained in any way other than by crafting it. And the materials for doing so—breeze rods and heavy cores—can only be obtained within trial chambers. Breeze rods are the exclusive drop of breeze mobs, while heavy cores are the rarest piece of loot from ominous vaults.

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Different weapon enchantments

The new Wind Burst enchantment allows for a completely new technic of fingting ghasts which is especially satisfying. Just bounicng off the ghasts' fire charges is a pure bliss by itself byu/Pedalnerd inMinecraft

The final area with major differences between the mace and sword is the enchantments available to them. Three new Minecraft mace-exclusive enchantments are being added in 1.21.

The first of these is density, which makes maces more damaging. The next is a breach, which makes maces punch through armor better. The final mace enchantment is wind burst, which allows players to pogo back into the air after landing a smash attack.

Density and breach can be applied to maces in the normal way: directly from enchanting tables or through using enchanted books in anvils. However, wind burst stands out, as the only way it can be obtained is in enchanted book form from ominous vaults.

There are also three enchantments exclusive to swords now: knockback, looting, and sweeping edge. Knockback increases the distance that hostile mobs are knocked back when taking damage. Sweeping edge increases the sword's sweeping damage, all the way up to 75% of full damage when at max level.

Looting is the final sword-exclusive enchantment and is also one of the best Minecraft weapon enchantments in the game as a whole. It increases the percent chance for mobs to drop rare items and increases the number of common items that mobs can drop.