Sword

Sword

160px160px160px160px160px160px

Rarity color	Common
Durability	Java Edition Golden: 32 Wood: 59 Stone: 131 Iron: 250 Diamond: 1561 Netherite: 2031 Bedrock Edition Golden: 33 Wood: 60 Stone: 132 Iron: 251 Diamond: 1562 Netherite: 2032
Renewable	Netherite: No All others: Yes
Stackable	No

A sword is a melee weapon that is mainly used to damage entities and for mining cobwebs or bamboo. A sword is made from one of six materials, in order of increasing quality and expense: wood, gold, stone, iron, diamond, and netherite.

Obtaining

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Description
Any Planks or Iron Ingot or Gold Ingot or Diamond + Stick
Any Cobblestone or Blackstone + Stick		‌[until JE 1.17]
Any stone-tier block + Stick		‌[upcoming: JE 1.17]
Damaged Matching Swords		The durability of the two swords is added together, plus an extra 5% of the tool type's total durability. Enchantments are removed unless combined on an anvil. Example: Two wooden swords, each with remaining durability of 20, combine into a wooden sword having 43 durability (20 + 20 + 5% of 60).

Repairing

Unit repair

Main article: Anvil mechanics § Unit repair

A sword can be repaired in an anvil by adding units of the tiers' repair material, with each repair material restoring 25% of the sword's maximum durability, rounded down.

Mob loot

Main article: Drops § Equipped items

Some mobs can spawn with a sword and have an 8.5% chance of dropping them upon death caused by player. This chance is increased by 1% per level of Looting, up to a maximum of 11.5% with Looting III. Zombies and husks can drop iron swords, zombified piglins and piglins can drop golden swords, and wither skeletons can drop stone swords. The dropped sword is usually badly damaged and may be enchanted. Stone swords dropped by wither skeletons are never enchanted.

A vex wields an iron sword that normally has a 0% chance of dropping, because their main hand's HandDropChances is 0. However, this chance increases by 1 percentage point per level of Looting. It is never damaged‌^{[Java Edition only]} and may be enchanted.

In Bedrock Edition, pillagers and vindicators that spawn from raids have a 4.1% chance (5.12% chance on hard mode) of dropping a damaged iron sword. This sword has a 50% chance of being enchanted.

Trading

File:Weaponsmith Diamond Sword Trade.png

The diamond sword trade of a weaponsmith.

In Bedrock Edition, apprentice-level weaponsmith villagers sell enchanted iron swords for at least 7-21 emeralds, and master-level weaponsmiths sell enchanted diamond swords for at least 13-27 emeralds.

In Java Edition, novice-level weaponsmith villagers have a ²⁄₃ chance of selling an enchanted iron sword for at least 7-22 emeralds. Master-level weaponsmiths offer to sell an enchanted diamond sword for at least 11–27 emeralds.

The enchantments of the swords offered by villagers are the same as the ones obtained from an enchantment table at levels 5–19.

Chest loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Iron Sword	Buried treasure	Chest	1	75%
	Stronghold	Altar chest	1	12.1%
	Village	Weaponsmith's chest	1	25.6%
Enchanted Iron Sword	End city	Chest	1	13.3%
Damaged Enchanted Iron Sword	Bastion remnant	Generic chest	1	19%
Golden Sword	Bastion remnant	Bridge chest	1	11.2%
		Generic chest	1	9.8%
	Nether fortress	Chest	1	19%
Enchanted Golden Sword	Ruined portal	Chest	1	20.5%
Diamond Sword	Bastion remnant	Treasure chest	1	18.7%
Enchanted Diamond Sword	End city	Chest	1	13.3%
Damaged Enchanted Diamond Sword	Bastion remnant	Treasure chest	1	18.7%
Bedrock Edition
Iron Sword	Stronghold	Altar chest	1	11.8%
	Village	Weaponsmith's chest	1	25.6%
Enchanted Iron Sword	End city	Chest	1	13.3%
Golden Sword	Bastion remnant	Bridge chest	1	12.2%
		Generic chest	1	16%
	Nether fortress	Chest	1	19%
Enchanted Golden Sword	Ruined portal	Chest	1	20.5%
Damaged Diamond Sword	Bastion remnant	Treasure chest	1	10.2%
Enchanted Diamond Sword	End city	Chest	1	13.3%
Damaged Enchanted Diamond Sword	Bastion remnant	Treasure chest	1	16.8%

Usage

Attacking

Pressing attack while holding a sword inflicts damage on both mobs and other players. Upon damaging a mob or player, the sword's durability decreases by 1.

Attacking a boat or a minecart with a sword instantly destroys it, without decreasing the sword's durability.

Sweep attack

Template:Exclusive If the attack recharge meter is 84.8% or above, and the player is standing or moving no faster than walking speed, the sword performs a "sweeping" attack that can hit nearby enemies. Enemies near the hit enemy are knocked back and damaged by 19px from the sweeping attack. The Sweeping Edge enchantment increases the damage dealt by 50% of the normal hit damage for level I, 67% for level II, and 75% for level III. The amount of knockback is 80% that of the knockback due to Knockback I (in other words, 2.8 blocks), and does not benefit from that enchantment. All enemies within 1 block horizontally and 0.25 blocks vertically of any part of the attacked mob and within up to 4 blocks of the player are knocked back. It is impossible to perform a sweep attack at the same time as a critical hit or sprint-knockback attack. A sweeping attack is performed only when the player swings downward; hitting an entity above the player's head does not perform a sweep attack.

Damage

Java Edition

Swords have an attack speed of 1.6 and take 0.625 seconds to recover.

Material	Wooden	Gold	Stone	Iron	Diamond	Netherite
Attack Damage	49px9px	49px9px	59px9px9px	69px9px9px	79px9px9px9px	89px9px9px9px
Attack Speed	1.6	1.6	1.6	1.6	1.6	1.6
Damage/Second (DPS)	6.4	6.4	8	9.6	11.2	12.8
Durability	59	32	131	250	1561	2031
Lifetime damage inflicted	2369px × 118	1289px × 64	6559px × 327.5	15009px × 750	109279px × 5463.5	162489px × 8124

Bedrock Edition

In Bedrock Edition, swords have no attack cooldown or sweep attack and do the following, stronger damage:

Material	Wooden	Gold	Stone	Iron	Diamond	Netherite
Attack Damage	59px9px9px	59px9px9px	69px9px9px	79px9px9px9px	89px9px9px9px	99px9px9px9px9px
Durability	60	33	132	251	1562	2032
Lifetime damage inflicted	3009px × 150	1659px × 82.5	7929px × 396	17579px × 878.5	124969px × 6248	182889px × 9144

The most amount of damage that a sword enchanted with Sharpness V can do is 11 in Java Edition and 15.25 in Bedrock Edition, without critical hits.

Sword breaking times

Main article: Breaking

A sword can also be used to destroy certain blocks 50% quicker, sometimes much quicker than with fists. Using a sword to destroy any block that doesn't break instantly decreases its durability by 2.

If a sword is enchanted with Silk Touch, either using Creative or commands, it can collect cobwebs rather than getting the string drop. This is due to the sword being classified as the proper tool for cobwebs.

The following table shows the time it takes to break blocks on which swords have any effect. Colors indicate what gets dropped:

• White: an original block.
• Blue: block's normal drop (e.g. seeds, sapling, apple).
• Red: nothing.

Block	Fists	Sword	Proper/fastest tool
Cobweb	Template:Tc	Template:Tc		Template:Breaking time s
Jack o'Lantern	Template:Breaking time s	Template:Breaking time s		Template:Breaking time – Template:Breaking time s
Melon	Template:Tc	Template:Tc		Template:Tc
Pumpkin	Template:Breaking times	Template:Breaking time s		Template:Breaking time – Template:Breaking time s
Cocoa	Template:Tc	Template:Tc		Template:Tc
Leaves	rowspan="2" Template:Tc	rowspan="2" Template:Tc		Template:Breaking times
		Template:Tc
Vines	rowspan="2" Template:Tc	rowspan="2" Template:Tc		Template:Tc
		Template:Breaking time s
Hay Bale	1s	0.8s		Template:Breaking time – Template:Breaking time s

Swords can also be used for instant breaking of bamboo.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Safety around constructions

In Creative mode, swords are unable to break blocks. However, care must still be taken around minecarts, paintings, item frames and armor stands; these are entities, thus can be broken with swords in Creative.

Enchantments

Swords can receive, or be found in an End City with the following enchantments:

Name	Max Level	Method	Weight
Fire Aspect	II		2
Looting	III		2
Unbreaking	III		5
Sharpness	V		10
Smite	V		5
Bane of Arthropods	V		5
Knockback	II		5
Mending	I		2
Curse of Vanishing	I		1
Sweeping Edge‌[JE only]	III		2

Fuel

Wooden swords can be used as fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per sword.

Smelting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Smelting recipe
Iron Nugget or Gold Nugget	Iron Sword or Golden Sword + Any fuel	0.1

Sounds

Sound	Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
File:Critical attack1.oggFile:Critical attack2.oggFile:Critical attack3.ogg	Critical attack	?	?	entity.player.attack.crit	?	0.7	?	16
File:Knockback attack1.oggFile:Knockback attack2.oggFile:Knockback attack3.oggFile:Knockback attack4.ogg	Knockback attack	?	?	entity.player.attack.knockback	?	0.7	?	16
File:Weak attack1.oggFile:Weak attack2.oggFile:Weak attack3.oggFile:Weak attack4.ogg	Weak attack	?	?	entity.player.attack.nodamage	?	0.7	?	16
File:Strong attack1.oggFile:Strong attack2.oggFile:Strong attack3.oggFile:Strong attack4.oggFile:Strong attack5.oggFile:Strong attack6.ogg	Strong attack	?	?	entity.player.attack.strong	?	1, 2, 3, 4 = 0.6; 5, 6 = 0.7	?	16
File:Sweep attack1.oggFile:Sweep attack2.oggFile:Sweep attack3.oggFile:Sweep attack4.oggFile:Sweep attack5.oggFile:Sweep attack6.oggFile:Sweep attack7.ogg	Sweeping attack	?	?	entity.player.attack.sweep	?	0.7	?	16
File:Weak attack1.oggFile:Weak attack2.oggFile:Weak attack3.oggFile:Weak attack4.ogg	Weak attack	?	?	entity.player.attack.weak	?	0.7	?	16
File:Random break.ogg	Item breaks	?	?	entity.item.break	subtitles.entity.item.break	1.0	0.9	16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Form	Translation key
Wooden Sword	wooden_sword	Item	item.minecraft.wooden_sword
Stone Sword	stone_sword	Item	item.minecraft.stone_sword
Iron Sword	iron_sword	Item	item.minecraft.iron_sword
Diamond Sword	diamond_sword	Item	item.minecraft.diamond_sword
Golden Sword	golden_sword	Item	item.minecraft.golden_sword
Netherite Sword	netherite_sword	Item	item.minecraft.netherite_sword

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Wooden Sword	wooden_sword	268	Item	item.wooden_sword.name
Stone Sword	stone_sword	272	Item	item.stone_sword.name
Iron Sword	iron_sword	267	Item	item.iron_sword.name
Diamond Sword	diamond_sword	276	Item	item.diamond_sword.name
Golden Sword	golden_sword	283	Item	item.golden_sword.name
Netherite Sword	netherite_sword	743	Item	item.netherite_sword.name

History

Blocking

File:Parrying.png

The blocking animation using a sword before and after Java Edition 14w30a (from the Adventure to the Bountiful updates).

Previously, since the Adventure Update, all types of swords could be used to parry to block some forms of damage. If the player is blocking with a sword when attacked, the sword deflects 50% of incoming damage from melee, non-magical projectiles like arrows, and explosions, along with minimizing knockback. The sword is held in front of the player and its durability is not reduced by blocking. The player moves at a slower rate than sneaking if blocking with a sword. Sword blocks could be engaged and disengaged instantly, with no delay between the input and damage mitigation nor cooldown between lowering a block and raising a new one.

After the Combat Update, the sword blocking functionality was replaced by blocking with shields and to accommodate the dual wield system. Shields negates more damage and knockback than sword blocking from blockable attacks (they block 100% damage and knockback after Java Edition 1.11), but, unlike swords, they have a 0.25 second startup period before damage can be mitigated and can be temporarily disabled by attacks with an axe.

Knockback

The knockback dealt by swords used to be higher than while the players are using another melee items, like an axe or with the hands. This feature was removed in Java Edition 1.9 and is also no longer used in Bedrock Edition.

Java Edition Indev
0.31		20091231-2			32px Added iron swords.
					Iron swords cannot be crafted yet, but can be added to the player's inventory during world creation.
		?			The iron sword is no longer added to the player's inventory during world creation.
		20100128			32px 32px 32px Swords made from wood, stone, and diamond have been added.
					Wood, stone and diamond swords cannot be crafted yet, but have been added to the item chest in the Indev house.
					The iron sword has been added to the Indev house item chest.
		20100129			Wood, stone, iron, and diamond swords can now be crafted.
		20100130			32px Swords can now be made out of gold.
		20100201-1			Swords now take damage when being used.
					Better swords now last longer.
20100206					32px The texture of gold swords has been slightly changed.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0		release			Zombie pigmen now hold golden swords.
Java Edition Beta
1.2					Swords, like all tools, now have more durability.
					Prior, diamond swords had 1024 durability, iron swords had 128, stone swords 64 and wood and gold had 32 durability.
1.5					The damages of all swords have increased by 1, due to the player's barehand damage increasing from 19px to 29px.
					As a result, wooden and golden swords now dealt 59px9px9px, stone swords 79px9px9px9px, iron swords 99px9px9px9px9px, and diamond swords 119px × 5.5.
1.8		Pre-release			Added the ability to block with a sword, giving the player more options in combat.
					Swords deflect 50% of incoming melee damage, non-magical projectiles like arrows and explosion damage, and a bit of knockback.
					The sword is held in front of the player and its durability is not reduced by blocking.
					The player moves at a slower rate than sneaking when blocking with a sword.
					As barehand damage has been reduced from 29px to 19px, the damages of all swords have been reduced to their pre Beta 1.5 values.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3			Sword damage has been reduced to make way for enchanting. A diamond sword's damage has been reduced from 109px9px9px9px9px to 79px9px9px9px, iron has been reduced from 89px9px9px9px to 69px9px9px and stone has been reduced from 69px9px9px to 59px9px9px. Wooden and golden swords still deal 49px9px damage.
					Iron swords are now found in the new stronghold altar chests.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4			Swords can now be enchanted in the enchantment table.
1.1		12w01a			Iron swords are now found in village blacksmith chests.
1.2.1		12w06a			The player now has a rare chance of obtaining iron swords by killing zombies and golden swords from zombie pigmen from the addition of rare drops. These swords have a 20% chance of being enchanted.
1.3.1		12w18a			Wooden swords can now be used as fuel in a furnace.
		12w21a			Blacksmith villagers now sell diamond swords for 12–13 emeralds, and iron swords for 7–10 emeralds.
					With the trading implementation, renewable items such as wheat can now be sold to buy a diamond sword. This has now made all swords renewable.
1.4.2		12w32a			Zombies may sometimes wield iron swords, dealing extra damage.
		12w34a			If a player has dyed leather armor equipped and selected a sword of any kind, it appears in the color of the dye applied to the armor, when switching to second or third person view.
		12w36a			Added wither skeletons, which hold stone swords.
1.4.6		12w49a			Unbreaking can now be applied to a sword with an enchanted book.
1.6.1		13w18a			Golden swords are now found in the new chests in nether fortresses.
		13w21a			Instead of replacing the barehanded damage (19px), swords now add their damage onto the barehanded damage, which results in all swords doing 19px more damage than before.
		13w25b			In Creative mode, swords are no longer able to break blocks, and no sound plays when they're hit with one.
1.8		14w02a			Weaponsmith villagers now sell enchanted diamond swords for 12–15 emeralds, and iron swords for 9–10 emeralds. Unenchanted swords are no longer sold.
		14w30a			Sword holding position have been tweaked, and the blocking animation has changed. Blocking while mining was made impossible. Blocking immediately after attacking no longer continues the swing animation.
1.9		15w31a			Enchanted iron and diamond swords can now be found in end city ship chests.
		15w33c			Swords no longer block attacks. Instead, shields are used.
		15w34b			Swords now use the attack speed attribute. The attack speed of a sword is 1.25 or 0.8 seconds.
		15w34c			Nerfed swords, they now do 19px less damage and have an attack speed of 1.45, or 0.69 seconds.
					Swords can now do a sweep attack when moving at walking speed or slower, which knock back mobs near the one hit. The attack speed meter must be filled for it to work.
		15w36a			Each Sharpness level now adds 19px damage to the base damage at level I and an additional 0.59px × 0.25 for each additional level, down from a flat 1.259px × 0.625 per level.
		15w37a			Swords now have an attack speed of 1.6, or 0.63 seconds.
		15w43a			The average yield of golden swords in nether fortress chests has been decreased.
		15w49a			Sweep attack now does 19px damage to affected mobs and players.
1.11.1		16w50a			Golden and iron swords now smelt down into one of their respective nuggets.
					Added Sweeping Edge enchantment.
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, these items' numeral IDs were 268, 272, 267, 276 and 283.
		18w10a			Swords can now generate in buried treasure chests.
September 10, 2018					32px 32px 32px 32px 32px Jasper Boerstra tweets an image of updated sword textures.
1.14		18w43a			32px 32px 32px 32px 32px The textures of all swords have been changed.
					Swords now break bamboo instantly.
1.16		20w06a			32px Added netherite swords.
					Netherite swords are obtained by combining one diamond sword and one netherite ingot in a crafting table.
		20w09a			32px The texture of diamond swords has been changed.
		20w10a			32px The texture of netherite swords has been changed.
					Netherite swords can no longer be crafted.
					Netherite swords are now obtained by combining one diamond sword and one netherite ingot in a smithing table.
		20w15a			Stone swords can now be crafted using blackstone.
		20w16a			Golden and netherite swords now generate in bastion remnants chests.
					Golden swords now generate randomly enchanted in ruined portal chests.
		20w17a			Diamonds swords now generate in place of netherite swords in bastion remnant chests.
Upcoming Java Edition
Combat Tests		1.14.3 - Combat Test			The attack speed for all swords has been increased to 3.
					The base damage is now 29px, meaning that all swords now do 19px more damage than before}.
					The attack reach of swords has been increased to 3.5 blocks.
		Combat Test 2			The attack speed of all swords has been decreased to 2.5.
		Combat Test 3			The attack speed of all swords has been changed from 2.5 back to 3.0.
					The attack key can now again be held down to automatically attack when the attack meter is full.
					Attacks now happen only when the sword is at 120% charge, slower than if attacks were timed.
		Combat Test 4			Sword can now perform critical, knockback (sprint) hits on 100% charge.
					The attack reach of all weapons was decreased by 0.5 block. Sword now have a 3 blocks reach.
					The 200% attack now gives a bonus reach of 1 block.
		Combat Test 5			Weapons have been nerfed. All material tiers have been nerfed by 19px except wood and gold, and the sword tier have been nerfed by 19px. This means that the wooden/stone/golden sword now does 49px9px damage, the iron sword now does 59px9px9px damage and the diamond sword now does 69px9px9px damage.
		Combat Test 6			All weapons' attack reach have been buffed by 0.5 block.
					200% attacks have been removed.
					Swords now always do sweep attack, even in the air.
					The cooldown for missed hit is a 4-tick cooldown instead of using the attack speed attribute.
		Combat Test 7c			All weapons' attack reach have been nerfed by 0.5 block. The sword's attack reach is now 3 blocks again.
					200% attacks have been readded.
					Swords no longer sweep without Sweeping Edge and 200% charge again.
					Adjusted the netherite tier value to match the weapon nerf in Combat Test 5
		Combat Test 8b			Enchantment bonus attack damage are now included in the base damage when calculating critical hits (they were excluded before). Due to this change, enchanted swords critical attacks are now way more powerful (especially with high enchantments)
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0					32px Added stone swords.
v0.3.0					32px Added wooden swords.
					Survival players no longer start out with an infinite durability stone sword in the inventory.
v0.3.2					32px 32px 32px Added iron, gold, and diamond swords.
v0.4.0					Iron swords have replaced stone swords in the the creative inventory.
v0.9.0		build 1			Iron swords can now be found in stronghold altar chests and inside blacksmith chests.
v0.11.0		build 11			Wooden, stone, golden and diamond swords are now available in the creative inventory.
		build 12			Wooden, stone, golden and diamond swords have been removed from creative.
		build 13			All swords are available in creative mode again.
v0.12.1		build 1			Instead of replacing the barehanded damage (19px), swords now add their damage onto the barehanded damage, which results in all swords doing 19px more damage than before.
					In creative mode, swords are no longer able to break blocks, and no sound plays when they're hit with one.
					Golden swords can now be found in nether fortress chests.
					Zombies now rarely spawn holding an iron sword that have a chance to dropped.
					Golden swords are now rarely dropped by zombie pigmen.
					Stone swords are now rarely dropped by wither skeletons.
v0.15.0		build 1			Iron swords are now sometimes dropped by husks that spawn holding an iron sword.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Enchanted iron and diamond swords can now be found in end city chests.
1.0.4		alpha 1.0.4.0			Iron swords and enchanted diamond swords are now sold by weaponsmith villagers.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Iron and golden swords are now smeltable.
					Added vexes, which rarely drop an iron sword if killed using Looting enchantment.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			32px 32px 32px 32px 32px The textures of all swords have been changed.
					Iron swords are now found in plains village weaponsmiths.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.1			Iron swords can now be found in savanna, snowy taiga, taiga and desert village weaponsmiths.
		beta 1.11.0.4			Pillagers and vindicators that spawn in raids can now drop iron swords upon death.
					Trading has been changed. Iron swords sold by weaponsmith villagers now cost 2 emeralds while diamond swords cost 8 emeralds as part of their fourth tier trades.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.51			32px Added netherite swords.
					Netherite swords are obtained by combining one diamond sword and one netherite ingot in a crafting table.
					32px The texture of diamond swords has been changed.
					Golden swords are now sometimes dropped by piglins that spawn holding a golden sword.
		beta 1.16.0.57			Netherite swords can no longer be crafted.
					Netherite swords are now obtained by combining one diamond sword and one netherite ingot in a smithing table.
					Stone swords can now be crafted using blackstone.
					Golden and netherite swords now generate in bastion remnant chests.
					Golden swords now generate randomly enchanted in ruined portal chests.
		beta 1.16.0.63			Diamonds swords now generate in place of netherite swords in bastion remnant chests.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	1.0.1	32px 32px 32px 32px 32px Added swords (all five types).
TU5					The ability to block with swords has been added, giving the player more options in combat.
TU53	CU43	1.49	Patch 23	1.0.3	Iron and golden swords are now smeltable.
		1.90			32px 32px 32px 32px 32px The textures of all swords have been changed.
		1.92			The ability to block with swords has been removed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					32px 32px 32px 32px 32px Added swords.
					Swords cannot block attacks.

Trivia

• The sword's texture came from Notch's abandoned RPG, Legend of the Chambered. The iron sword's texture was created first, as it was from the game, and the other swords followed.
• With the introduction of netherite swords, it is possible to one-hit kill undead mobs in the game (except withers and zombies/skeletons with random armor) using a sword with the Smite V enchantment, without the need to perform a critical hit (this was previously possible only with a Smite V stone, iron, or diamond axe).
• Plastic diamond and enchanted swords are official Minecraft merchandise.

Gallery

Enchanted swords

• Enchanted Wooden Sword.gif
• Enchanted Stone Sword.gif
• Enchanted Iron Sword.gif
• Enchanted Golden Sword.gif
• Enchanted Diamond Sword.gif
• Enchanted Netherite Sword.gif

References

Items

View at: Template:Items/content [edit]