Thorns

Overview

Thorns reflects damage back at whatever hits you, which sounds unambiguously good and is one of the most argued-about enchantments in the game. The case for it is real: in a fight where several mobs are hitting you at once, the reflected damage adds up without any effort on your part, and against a player it punishes every exchange. The case against is durability. Every reflection costs the armour piece extra durability beyond the hit itself, so a Thorns set wears out considerably faster than a plain one — and before Mending, that was expensive enough to make most players skip it. It also kills things you may not want killed. At a mob farm, reflected damage means mobs die to your armour rather than to your Looting sword, which quietly costs you drops. The modern verdict is that Thorns is worth taking on one piece rather than a full set, on armour that already carries Mending and Unbreaking III, and mostly for PvP or for a raid where you expect to be surrounded. It conflicts with nothing, so the only thing standing between you and a Thorns chestplate is whether you want to pay for the wear.

Punishing melee attackers automatically — PvP exchanges and raids where you are surrounded — at the cost of noticeably faster armour wear on the piece that carries it.

Reflects damage back at anything that hits you, at the cost of extra armour durability. Divisive: it kills mobs you wanted to farm and wears your gear down faster.

The highest level of Thorns is III. It is standard, so it sits in the enchanting table's own offer pool.

Weight 1 gives it roughly 3–4% of the pool a table draws from for an item in its slot, and that share is about how often a level-30 table puts it in front of you.

How to get it

Enchant armour at a table with 15 bookshelves, or combine 2 level II books on an anvil for level III. Weight 1 makes it one of the rarest table rolls, and level III reflects damage on roughly 45% of hits taken.

Tips

• Put it on one piece rather than four; the durability cost scales with how much of your set carries it.
• It steals kills at a mob farm, which costs you Looting drops you would otherwise have had.
• Only pair it with Mending and Unbreaking III — without them the wear is genuinely expensive.
• It reflects a fixed small amount, so it never replaces actually killing the thing hitting you.

What each level does

Level by level, this is what you get. Most of the gain is in reaching III, and two II books on an anvil make one III.

Thorns III gives a 45% chance to reflect 1-4 damage.

Properties

A table offers it as it stands, and a librarian's book is usually the cheaper route, with a lectern reroll to get the offer.

What it can be applied to

Thorns can be applied to Helmet, Chestplate, Leggings, and Boots.

• Helmet
• Chestplate
• Leggings
• Boots

Gear it goes on

Turtle ShellLeather CapLeather TunicLeather PantsLeather BootsChainmail HelmetChainmail ChestplateChainmail LeggingsChainmail BootsIron HelmetIron ChestplateIron Leggings

How to get it

Enchanting table or an enchanted book.

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 Thorns III, 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

Related pages

Blast ProtectionFire ProtectionProjectile ProtectionProtection