What Does Smite Do in Minecraft? Smite Enchantment Guide

Sharpness gets all the glory, but against the right enemy it is not even the strongest damage enchantment on the table. That honour belongs to Smite — a specialist enchantment that does absolutely nothing to a creeper and absolutely devastating things to a wither skeleton.

What Smite Does

Smite increases the melee damage of a sword, axe or mace against undead mobs only. It has five levels, and each one adds a flat chunk of bonus damage to every hit on an undead target:

Put that in perspective: a Java netherite sword deals 8 base damage. With Smite V it hits undead for 20.5 — which crosses the 20 HP of a standard zombie, skeletons and several other undead, killing them in a single swing. Even the Wither, an undead boss, takes the bonus.

Every Mob Smite Works On

The undead family is bigger than most players realise:

• Zombies, zombie villagers, husks, drowned and zoglins
• Skeletons, strays, wither skeletons and the newer bogged
• Phantoms
• Zombified piglins
• Skeleton horses and zombie horses
• The Wither boss
• Jockeys riding undead mounts

Just as important is what it does not work on: creepers, spiders, endermen, blazes, piglins, ghasts, ravagers and the Ender Dragon are not undead, and Smite adds nothing against them. A quirk worth knowing: undead mobs are healed by Harming potions and hurt by Healing potions — the game's way of confirming what counts as undead.

Smite vs Sharpness

Sharpness adds a smaller bonus against everything; Smite adds a much larger bonus against undead only. They are mutually exclusive, along with Bane of Arthropods, so one weapon can never carry both. The popular endgame answer is to carry two weapons:

• Main weapon: a sword with Sharpness V for everyday fighting.
• Undead specialist: an axe or sword with Smite V for Nether fortresses, wither skeleton farming, ocean monuments full of drowned — and the Wither fight itself.

If you can only afford one, Sharpness is the safer generalist choice. But the moment you are heading somewhere undead-heavy, a Smite V weapon outperforms it by a wide margin.

How to Get Smite

• Enchanting table: Smite appears for swords on both editions. Surround the table with bookshelves to reach the higher levels.
• Librarian villagers: the reliable route to a guaranteed Smite book. Place a lectern by an unemployed villager, check their first trade, and break and replace the lectern until a Smite book shows up, then trade once to lock it in.
• Applying books: use an anvil to put a Smite book onto your weapon — remembering the anvil will refuse if the weapon already carries Sharpness or Bane of Arthropods.

One last tactical note: because Smite is wasted on living mobs, check what you are fighting before you swing. In a mixed nighttime mob pile, your Sharpness sword clears the creepers and spiders; swap to Smite for everything that used to be alive.