6 Best Trident Enchantments in Minecraft (and the Two Builds to Make)

You cannot craft a trident. Every one of them starts as a lucky drop from a drowned, which makes each trident precious — and makes enchanting it properly worth the thought. The trident has just six enchantments available, but two of them cannot coexist, so the real decision is which of the two classic builds you are making.

All Six Trident Enchantments

1. Loyalty (max level III)

Throw your trident and it flies back to your hand like a boomerang, faster at higher levels. It is the enchantment that turns the trident into a genuine ranged weapon — throw, hit, catch, repeat. Two limits: a trident thrown into the void does not return on Java, and if you die mid-throw it drops where you fell, like any item.

2. Channeling (max level I)

When a thrown trident hits a mob during a thunderstorm, lightning strikes that mob — provided it is standing under open sky. It works in melee too, but the thrown strike is the spectacle. The lightning is more than damage: it creates charged creepers, turns villagers into witches, pigs into zombified piglins, and flips a mooshroom's color. Channeling is incompatible with Riptide.

3. Impaling (max level V)

The damage enchantment. Each level adds 2.5 points of extra damage — but on Java it only applies to aquatic mobs, while on Bedrock it applies to anything touching water, including rain. Against guardians, elder guardians and the drowned themselves, Impaling V is devastating. It conflicts with nothing, so both builds below take it.

4. Riptide (max level III)

Throw the trident while standing in water or rain and instead of leaving your hand, it launches you — roughly six blocks further per level. Riptide is personal flight on tap: launch out of the ocean, soar in the rain, and chain launches with an elytra for absurd speed. It cannot combine with Loyalty or Channeling, because the trident never actually leaves your grip.

5. Unbreaking (max level III)

The quiet essential. Unbreaking slows durability loss on everything it touches, and on a weapon you cannot replace at a crafting table, it belongs on the trident from day one.

6. Mending (max level I)

Mending converts experience orbs you collect into repairs — two durability per XP point — so a Mending trident can genuinely last forever. It only comes from enchanted books (villager trades, fishing, loot), never from the enchanting table.

Build One: The Storm Spear (Ranged)

• Loyalty III — your throws always come back
• Channeling — thunderstorm throws call lightning
• Impaling V — maximum damage in and around water
• Unbreaking III + Mending — it never wears out

This is the trident for ocean monuments, sea bases and thunderstorm theatrics. It can hit targets up to around 80 blocks away when thrown.

Build Two: The Flying Trident

• Riptide III — launch yourself through water and rain
• Impaling V — you are the projectile, so arrive with damage
• Unbreaking III + Mending — launches still cost durability

Keep this one on you whenever you travel by elytra in wet weather, and never underestimate it as a getaway tool — nobody chases a player who just left vertically.

Applying the Enchantments

Use an enchanting table for the common ones (Loyalty, Channeling, Impaling, Riptide, Unbreaking all appear there), and an anvil with enchanted books for precision work and for Mending. Because tridents cannot be crafted, many players keep a spare unenchanted one in an ender chest — the ocean always provides another drowned eventually.