Guides / Ideal Tools
The Ideal Shears Enchantments
September 15, 2026
Shears are the item most likely to make someone check the enchanting table twice, wondering where Fortune and Silk Touch went. The answer is: they were never coming.
Why no Fortune or Silk Touch
Fortune and Silk Touch both live in the mining_loot enchant category, alongside pickaxes, axes, shovels, and hoes. Shears simply aren't registered in that category — mechanically, shears already behave like a built-in Silk Touch for everything they're meant to harvest (wool stays wool, leaves stay leaves as a block when sheared in some cases, cobwebs drop as string-cutting cobweb items). There's no "quantity" version of that to boost, so Fortune wouldn't have anything to multiply, and the game doesn't offer either enchantment on shears at all.
Efficiency V
The one meaningful speed enchantment shears get, and it matters: shears are the tool for cobwebs, vines, wool, leaves, and (situationally) for harvesting a beehive without angering the bees when combined with care. Efficiency V makes clearing large amounts of any of these near-instant.
Unbreaking III + Mending
Standard durability pairing — nothing else is available to conflict with it.
Efficiency V- Unbreaking III
- Mending I