5 things you don’t know about unbreaking in Minecraft

Minecraft is a game full of minor features and strange interactions. And some things that seem simple on the surface can have a surprising depth to the mechanics. With nearly a whopping 40 enchantments, some are bound to be more involved than others.

Unbreaking is one of those involved enchantments. It seems simple: it adds more durability to the tool or armor. But there is a surprising amount of math happening behind the scenes that makes unbreaking a much more exciting and deep enchantment than it would appear.

Five unknown things about unbreaking enchantment in Minecraft

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1) High enchantment weight

Unbreaking appearing in the enchanting table (Image via Minecraft)

The unbreaking enchantment has an enchantment weight of five, the second-highest enchanting weight, second only to the enchantments with a weight of 10. This means that unbreaking is one of the more common enchantments to get in the game.

There are nine enchantments in the game with a weight of five and only five enchantments with a weight of 10.

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2) Doesn’t change durability stat

Tiers of the unbreaking enchantment (Image via Minecraft)

Unbreaking does not impact the item's durability stat. Instead, each level of unbreaking adds a chance to avoid the durability reduction each time it occurs.

In tools, this manifests as the following equation: 100/(level+1)%. This means that each level of unbreaking has the following chance to use durability:

• Unbreaking one: 50%
• Unbreaking two: 33.3%
• Unbreaking three: 25%

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3) Primary vs secondary items

All of the items the game considers to be primary items (Image via Minecraft)

Only certain items can get the unbreaking enchantment from the enchanting table. Others can have unbreaking enchantments placed on them, but it must be done via an enchantment book and an anvil.

The following items are primary items that can be enchanted with unbreaking at an enchanting table:

• Pickaxes
• Shovels
• Axes
• Hoes
• Fishing Rods
• Helmets
• Chestplates
• Pants
• Boots
• Swords
• Bows
• Tridents
• Turtle Shells
• Crossbows

The following items are considered secondary items in the game:

• Shears
• Flint and Steels
• Shields
• Carrots on a stick
• Warped fungus on a stick
• Elytras

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4) Armor vs tools

The two different types of unbreaking: armor and tools (Image via Minecraft)

The unbreaking enchantment does different things for tools and armor. On the latter, the percent chance to avoid using durability for each hit is equal to (60 + (40/(level +1))). While that looks like a lot of awful math, it means that each level of unbreaking has the following chance to negate losing durability on a hit:

• Unbreaking one: about 20%
• Unbreaking two: about 27%
• Unbreaking three: about 30%

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5) Multiple hits to durability at once

A stack of TNT (Image via Minecraft)

When durability would be reduced by multiple points, as when hooking a mob with a fishing rod, or getting blown up with TNT, the unbreaking formula is applied for each point of durability that would be lost.

This means that there is a chance that every point of durability damage in these situations can be avoided, should gamers be lucky enough. Or, should they be unlucky enough, none of the durability damage can be avoided.

Note: The list reflects the writer's personal opinion.