Efficiency

Overview

Efficiency is the enchantment that changes how much of your life is spent holding down the left mouse button. Mining speed compounds with everything else you do — every tunnel, every foundation, every ore vein — so it repays itself faster than any other enchantment in the game and is usually the first thing a player puts on a new pickaxe. Level V is where the interesting threshold sits. On its own it takes stone down to about a tenth of a second on a diamond pickaxe; add Haste II from a beacon and it crosses into true instant mining, where the block goes with no swing animation at all. That is the usual reason a strip miner builds a full pyramid. Deepslate, at twice the hardness, never reaches instant mining in survival at all — the best combination in the game gets it to two ticks. It goes on more than pickaxes: an axe with Efficiency clears a forest in a fraction of the time, a shovel with it digs out a build site, and shears with it harvest leaves and wool fast enough to matter on a large build. The one thing to remember is that speed does not change what a tier can harvest — a stone pickaxe with Efficiency V still cannot mine diamond ore.

Every job measured in blocks broken — strip mining, quarrying, clearing a build site, felling a forest — where a fractional speed gain repeats tens of thousands of times.

Increases mining speed. It is the first enchantment most players want, because it compounds with every block you will ever break.

Efficiency goes up to V. It is a standard enchantment, so an enchanting table can roll it directly.

At weight 10 it takes up about 26–67% of the offer pool for an item that accepts it; the larger that share, the less rerolling a level-30 table costs you.

How to get it

Roll it at a table with 15 bookshelves for 3 levels and 3 lapis, or buy the book. Its weight of 10 makes it one of the commonest offers in the game, and 2 level IV books combine into level V on an anvil.

Tips

• Efficiency V on diamond takes stone to about a tenth of a second; Haste II from a beacon is what makes it truly instant.
• It works on axes, shovels, hoes and shears too — an Efficiency V axe changes what a forest costs you.
• Speed is not harvest tier: a stone pickaxe with Efficiency V still drops nothing from diamond ore.
• Enchant before upgrading to netherite; the smithing table carries every enchantment across unchanged.

What each level does

The table below is the per-level effect. Going from I to V is where the real difference is, and an anvil turns two IV books into a V.

Efficiency V on a diamond pickaxe takes stone to about a tenth of a second; Haste II makes it instant.

Properties

It sits in the table's own offer pool, and a librarian will trade the book for it, so reroll the lectern until that offer comes up.

What it can be applied to

Efficiency can be applied to Pickaxe, Axe, Shovel, Hoe, and Shears.

• Pickaxe
• Axe
• Shovel
• Hoe
• Shears

Gear it goes on

Wooden ShovelWooden PickaxeWooden AxeWooden HoeStone ShovelStone PickaxeStone AxeStone HoeGolden ShovelGolden PickaxeGolden AxeGolden Hoe

How to get it

Enchanting table, anvil or villager trading.

Build the full fifteen-bookshelf ring and take the level-30 slot: below 30 the pool is smaller and the levels are lower.

Command

Cheats on: the first command enchants what is in your hand with Efficiency V, and the second spawns the finished item. The component syntax below replaced the old NBT tag in 1.20.5.

Guides and tools that cover this

• GuidesThe Complete Minecraft Enchanting Guide (1.21.4)→
• ToolsEnchantment Order Calculator→

Frequently asked questions