All Minecraft Helmet Enchantments (And When To Use Them)

Updated: 04 Oct 2022 3:33 pm
All Minecraft Helmet Enchantments (And When To Use Them)
While enchantments might not get you this cool-looking helmet, they will grant you a lot of other things for your helmet.
UmutCeylan's picture BY: Umut C.


The Helmet and its Wonderful Enchantment Explained

The helmet is a wonderful thing in Minecraft, indeed. It saves you from all the figurative and imaginative head trauma you might endure as you hit your hand atop the branch mine. 

In this article, I will be listing and explaining every enchantment you can have on your helmet one by one. Sounds good? I will also be explaining when to use these enchantments. Some of them are incompatible with each other; so, I will try to give you my "veteran of Minecraft" experience to help you choose an enchantment for every situation.

 

11. Fire Protection

“Reduces damage taken from sources of fire.”
Fire Protection stats:

  • Fire Protection I: %8 fire damage reduction.
  • Fire Protection II: %16 fire damage reduction.
  • Fire Protection III: %24 fire damage reduction.
  • Fire Protection IV: %32 fire damage reduction.
  • Incompatible with Blast Protection, Projectile Protection, Protection.

Fire Protection is a great enchantment for those who seem to find themselves caught on fire a lot in Minecraft. If that’s you, this enchantment is for you then. It reduces fire damage by %8 for every level of Fire Protection. That means that with Fire Protection IV on a single piece of armor, you’ll get %32 fire damage protection. Nice.

Fire damage includes things like fire, lava, and so on. You can get up to %80 fire damage reduction as a cap in addition to %15 decrease to burning time for every level of Fire Protection. If you have a lot of Fire Protection worn, you’ll simply not be caught on fire anymore, which is pretty nice.
Use Fire Protection if:

  • You play around with lava and other things that involve fire a lot.
  • You want to swim in lava. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.
  • Fight with mobs like blazes, magma cubes, and so on, a lot.

 

10. Projectile Protection

“Reduces damage taken from projectiles.”
Projectile Protection stats:

  • Projectile Protection I: %8 projectile damage reduction.
  • Projectile Protection II: %16 projectile damage reduction.
  • Projectile Protection III: %24 projectile damage reduction.
  • Projectile Protection IV: %32 projectile damage reduction.
  • Incompatible with Blast Protection, Fire Protection, Protection.

Projectile Protection, similar to Fire Protection, will give you %8 damage reduction for a specific type of damage, this time that specific type of damage being projectiles. Things like arrows will hurt a lot less.

Projectile damage includes tridents, arrows, shulker bullets, llama spit, blaze fireballs, ghast fireballs, and wither skulls. Be really mindful though of the fact that even though projectile damage from ghast fireballs and wither skulls will be reduced, you’ll still feel the explosion the same as before. 

Because you can’t have every type of protection on the same piece of armor, you’ll have to decide which protection type you need the most, and this one is for people who seem to be around a lot of arrows.

Use Projectile Protection if:

  • You fight mobs like skeletons a lot.
  • You play PvP and there are a lot of bows and arrows involved.

 

9. Blast Protection

“Reduces damage taken from explosions and fireworks.”
Blast Protection stats:

  • Blast Protection I: %8 blast damage reduction.
  • Blast Protection II: %16 blast damage reduction.
  • Blast Protection III: %24 blast damage reduction.
  • Blast Protection IV: %32 blast damage reduction.
  • Incompatible with Fire Protection, Projectile Protection, Protection.

Blast Protection is a cool little enchantment that functions the same way that Fire Protection and Projectile Protection functions, but for explosions. “What explosions?” I hear you asking. Well, you will receive %8 damage reduction caused by Creepers, TNT, beds, respawn anchors, firework rockets, and so on. 

In addition to the fact that you can stack the damage reduction all the way up to %80 to basically survive any explosion, every level of Blast Protection will also reduce the knockback caused by explosions by %15.

Blast Protection is incompatible with Fire Protection, Projectile Protection, and Protection; so, choose the best enchantment for you wisely.
Use Blast Protection if:

  • You play around with TNT a lot.
  • If you have explosion-based farms.
  • If you fight with enemies like the Wither, creepers, and so on.

 

8. Protection

“Adds bonus damage reduction.” 

Protection stats:

  • Protection I: %4 damage reduction.
  • Protection II: %8 damage reduction.
  • Protection III: %12 damage reduction.
  • Protection IV: %16 damage reduction.
  • Incompatible with Blast Protection, Fire Protection, Projectile Protection.

If you really can’t decide on which Protection type you need for your particular playstyle or what you are currently doing in the game, you can always go with the simplest and most effective solution and go for Protection.

Even though protection gives you half as much as protection compared to the other Protection enchantment types, this enchantment will reduce that type for every type of damage imaginable. You can stack the enchantments all the way up to %64 and basically be invincible to most threats the game will be able to throw at you. 

This is, for experienced players, the best Protection to go for. If you are not, like, building a base out of TNT or fighting hundreds of skeletons at the same time, there really is no reason to go for the other Protection types.
Use Protection if:

  • You want to receive less damage. I’m guessing you probably do, yeah?
  • You can’t decide over which protection type you need or want.
  • You engage in any combat, PvE or PvP.

 

7. Unbreaking

“Gives a chance for an item to avoid durability reduction when it is used, effectively increasing the item's durability.”
Unbreaking stats:

  • %100 more durability on a tool at Unbreaking I
  • %200 more durability on a tool at Unbreaking II
  • %300 more durability on a tool at Unbreaking III

The durability of your armor really can creep up on you. With the Unbreaking enchantment, it will probably still creep up on you but much, much slower. With Unbreaking III, your armor will have four times more durability compared to the unenchanted version. 

With this amazing little enchantment, you will not have to always go and repair your armor, and the fact that armor and their durability is probably the one durability in the game that players pay the least amount of attention to, it is definitely beneficial, to say the least, to have Unbreaking on them. 

There really is no reason not to have it, anyway. Unbreaking is compatible with every other enchantment in the game so, go crazy.
Use Unbreaking if:

  • You want your armor to last longer and not break on you.
  • You don’t pay too much attention to your armor’s durability.
  • You don’t to go to your base or find an anvil to fix your armor all the time.

 

6. Respiration

“Extends breathing time underwater.”
Respiration stats:

  • +15 seconds of breathing time underwater with Respiration I
  • +30 seconds of breathing time underwater with Respiration II
  • +45 seconds of breathing time underwater with Respiration III

Here comes the first of two enchantments that are exclusive to the helmet. With every level of Respiration, you’ll be able to stay in the water before taking drowning damage for +15 seconds. You can get up to Respiration III, which grants you an additional 45 seconds.

In addition to be able to breathe underwater, the enchantment also grants to chance to not take drowning damage each second when your bubbles run out, I think they are called bubbles in the game, which gives you even more time to escape to the surface or find a spot to breathe in. A great enchantment, especially for exploring the ocean biome and the dangers it may bring with it.
Use Respiration if:

  • You have an underwater base. Trust me.
  • You decide to explore the ocean.
  • You are going to a guardian temple. You will definitely need this enchantment there. 
  • If you want an additional 10 seconds, you can also wear a turtle shell. Together with Respiration, you will have more than a minute of underwater time, which is a lot.

 

5. Aqua Affinity

“Increases underwater mining speed.”
Aqua Affinity stats:

  • Maximum level: 1
  • Enchantment weight: 2
  • Ignores the penalty of underwater mining and breaking speed.

If you are in the water, as you probably realized before, your mining is speed is much slower compared to your speed of mining things when you are not floating in the empty abyss of the ocean. 

This penalty can be explained as being 5 times slower than normal mining speed. That’s pretty slow; however, if you decide to enchant your helmet with Aqua Affinity, the penalty will be ignored, gone! You will mine the same speed as you would in land. 

If you are building or mining things underwater, this enchantment is a must. While every underwater enchantment seems to also be related to the guardians, this one is also really helpful for raiding guardian temples and will help you overall as you explore the ocean.
Use Aqua Affinity if:

  • You want to mine things underwater.
  • You decide to explore the ocean.
  • You want to raid a guardian temple. 

 

4. Thorns

“Causes attackers to be damaged when they deal damage to the wearer.”
Thorns stats:

  • Thorns I: %15 chance to inflict half a heart of damage to the attacker.
  • Thorns II: %30 chance to inflict half a heart of damage to the attacker.
  • Thorns III: %45 chance to inflict half a heart of damage to the attacker.

Thorns is a cool little enchantment that can be quite helpful in combat but also can be quite annoying. With Thorns, you will have a certain chance to damage an enemy that hits you for half a heart. If you have Thorns on all your armor, with some luck, you can do up to 4 half hearts of damage to the enemy. 

That’s not too bad; however, keep in mind that every Thorns hit will take an additional durability from your armor, and if you play with your friends and they always hit you, your armor will break in no time. Also, if you deal with hostile mobs that you don’t want to kill, Thorns will also make that a difficult endeavor. 

Overall, I don’t think that Thorns is a bad enchantment. If you are combat oriented and want to knock back and do a little bit of damage to your opponent, go for it. It’s compatible with every other enchantment for your armor so there is no downside to having this enchantment for PvE and/or PvP.
Use Thorns if:

  • You are combat oriented and do a lot of PvE and/or PvP
  • You don’t deal with hostile mobs that you don’t want to kill.
  • You have additional Unbreaking and Mending on your armor since Thorns can take a lot of durability in a short amount of time. Be careful!

 

3. Mending

“Restores durability of an item using experience.”
Mending stats:

  • Enchantment weight: 2
  • Incompatible with Infinity
  • Maximum level: 1

Hey, we were just talking about mending a few paragraphs above. That’s nice. Why were we talking about Mending? Well, we were talking about it because it’s an amazing enchantment that uses the XP orbs you pick up to fix your tools and armor. When you are fixing your tools, you will have to hold them in your hand; however, wearing is enough for the armor and they will get fixed in no time.

If you wear armor and use it at all, you should have Mending in addition to Unbreaking. Mending is simply too powerful not to have, you will never have to fix your armor again using anvils and you can just pick up XP orbs from the ground from the things you do, like slaying mobs and so on, and every single piece of your armor will always be nice and shiny, and like brand new! What more can you want?
Use Mending if:

  • You want your armor to last.
  • You don’t want to always repair your armor, wasting levels and resources.
  • You value your tools and armor. Really, if you can get your hands on Mending books, definitely have it on your everything.

 

2. Curse of Binding

“Prevents removal of a cursed item from its armor slot.”
Curse of Binding stats:

  • Maximum level: 1
  • Not able to disenchant.
  • Only appliable with an anvil.

Here is a weird one. You can’t really enchant a helmet with Curse of Binding, at least not with an enchanting table, you will instead have to find a piece of armor in the world with Curse of Binding already on it, or find a Curse of Binding book and enchant your armor with it using an anvil. 

However, I wouldn’t hurry up to do any those things I just mentioned, since, as the name suggests, Curse of Binding isn’t the most useful enchantment out there. If you wear an armor with Curse of Binding on it, you simply will not be able to take it off, ever. The armor will only come off if you die or the armor breaks. 

While it has more uses than Curse of Vanishing, it’s still a curse and therefore, isn’t really something you want on your armor.
Use Curse of Binding if:

  • You want to troll your friends by giving them a carved pumpkin via dispenser. 
  • You want to be a dragon bro (someone understand this reference please)

 

1. Curse of Vanishing

“Causes the item to disappear on death.”
Curse of Vanishing stats:

  • Maximum level: 1
  • Not able to disenchant.
  • Only appliable with an anvil.

Curse of Vanishing is not as useful as Curse of Binding, and that was barely useful, so you can guess how useless Curse of Vanishing is. If you have Curse of Vanishing on your armor, they will disappear on death if it’s in your inventory, doesn’t matter if you were wearing it or not.

Sounds pretty risky, right? Well, you can’t get the enchantment out of an enchantment table, and you can only find enchanted books or loot that already has Curse of Vanishing on it. That’s good news. Bad news is that you can’t get the enchantment off of the armor. So, if you found a good piece of armor with Curse of Vanishing on it, but if you still want to use the armor, just be careful to not die when you have it on you, or it will *poof* disappear completely.
Use Curse of Vanishing if:

  • You don’t have any choice, really. 
  • You are completely out of mind and want to enchant your armor with Curse of Vanishing and live life right on the edge. That’s pretty cool, you know, you can do whatever makes you enjoy the game more. We don’t judge.

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Umut C.
As hundred-percenting every game slowly drove me mad, I've decided to dedicate some of the madness to writing about those games.
Gamer Since: 2004
Favorite Genre: RPG
Currently Playing: Minecraft
Top 3 Favorite Games:Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, Dark Souls 3