God Sword: The Ideal Sword Enchantments

Unlike a pickaxe, a sword's best-in-slot enchantments don't actually compete with each other — you can stack nearly everything onto a single blade. Players commonly just call the result the "God Sword."

Sharpness V (or a specialist swap)

Sharpness adds flat bonus damage against everything. It's mutually exclusive with Smite (bonus vs. undead — zombies, skeletons, the wither) and Bane of Arthropods (bonus vs. spiders and silverfish, plus a slow effect), because all three occupy the same "damage type" exclusion group. Sharpness V is the correct generalist pick for a main sword; keep a dedicated Smite sword if you're grinding an XP farm built on zombies or skeletons, since the specialist enchant out-damages Sharpness against its target type.

Looting III

Increases mob drop quantities and, for several mobs, raises the odds of rare drops that are already technically possible but vanishingly unlikely without it — zombies have roughly a 0.83% base chance to drop each of iron, a carrot, or a potato, and each Looting level adds +1% to that; endermen's ender pearl count similarly climbs with Looting level. Essential for any farm you intend to stand at and kill mobs manually.

Sweeping Edge III

Sword-only. Boosts the damage of the sweep attack (the small AoE hit you land on nearby mobs when your main swing connects) up to matching your main-hand hit, turning sword combat against groups into genuine crowd control instead of single-target chipping.

Unbreaking III + Mending

Standard pairing: reduced durability loss rate, then XP-funded repair.

The God Sword

Diamond Sword

Sharpness V
Looting III
Sweeping Edge III
Unbreaking III
Mending I

None of these five conflict — Sharpness only excludes the other damage-type enchants, and Looting/Sweeping Edge/Unbreaking/Mending have no exclusions listed at all. This is the one "everything at once" build in the whole game.

Build the God Sword →

Give this build in-game

Java 26.3

/give @s minecraft:diamond_sword[enchantments={"minecraft:looting":3,"minecraft:mending":1,"minecraft:sharpness":5,"minecraft:sweeping_edge":3,"minecraft:unbreaking":3}]

Needs cheats enabled and operator permission (or creative mode with commands allowed).

Bedrock 26.60

/give @s diamond_sword
/enchant @s looting 3
/enchant @s mending 1
/enchant @s sharpness 5
/enchant @s unbreaking 3

Run the commands one at a time, in order. /enchant works on the item held in your hand. Needs cheats enabled.

Not in this edition, left out: sweeping_edge.

See also Best Sword Enchantments, which compares every sword enchantment side by side with the Java and Bedrock differences, and Best Enchantments in Minecraft for every other item.

To see where this build sits among all your gear, see Minecraft Enchanting Order.

Frequently asked questions

Can Sharpness and Smite go on the same sword?

No. Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods all sit in the same damage-type exclusion group along with Breach and Density — the game only allows one enchantment from that group on an item at a time.

Why would someone choose a dedicated Smite sword instead of just using Sharpness?

Against its specific target type — undead mobs like zombies, skeletons, and the wither — Smite out-damages Sharpness at the same level. That makes a dedicated Smite sword worth keeping if you're grinding an XP farm built around undead, even though Sharpness remains the better generalist pick for a main sword.

Does Looting affect ender pearl drops from endermen?

Yes, though not the base chance of getting a pearl at all — each level of Looting raises how many pearls you can get per kill, up to 4 at Looting III versus just 1 without it, which roughly quadruples your average yield over a farming session.

Can one sword really have Sharpness, Looting, Sweeping Edge, Unbreaking, and Mending all at the same time?

Yes — this is the one build on the whole site with no internal conflicts at all. Sharpness only excludes the other damage-type enchantments (Smite, Bane of Arthropods, and so on), and Looting, Sweeping Edge, Unbreaking, and Mending don't exclude anything, including each other.

Can Sweeping Edge go on an axe too?

No, it's sword-only. Axes get their own separate moveset and don't have access to the Sweeping Edge enchantment at all.