what does breach do in minecraft
In Minecraft, Breach is a mace-only enchantment that makes your hits ignore a big chunk of your enemy’s armor, so each swing does noticeably more damage, especially in PvP.
What Breach Actually Does
- Breach reduces the armor effectiveness of the target you hit, not their health directly.
- Each level of Breach cuts armor effectiveness by about 15%, up to level 4 (Breach IV), which totals roughly 60% reduced armor.
- It works on both worn armor (like netherite, diamond, etc.) and natural armor on some mobs.
In simple terms: if someone is super tanky, Breach turns their “tank mode” way down so your mace hits feel much stronger.
Key Facts at a Glance
| Aspect | What Breach Does |
|---|---|
| Item type | Mace-only enchantment. |
| Main effect | Reduces enemy armor effectiveness so your damage goes through more. |
| Per level power | About 15% armor effectiveness reduction per level. |
| Max level | Breach IV (about 60% armor effectiveness reduction). |
| Best use | Player-vs-player and fights against heavily armored mobs. |
| Does not affect | Protection enchantments or Resistance effect, only base armor points. |
| Incompatible with | Density, Smite, Bane of Arthropods on the mace (mutually exclusive choices). |
How Strong Is Breach in Practice?
Players who tested Breach IV found that it can make a massive difference between hitting a leather player and a netherite player: with high Breach, both can die in a similar number of critical hits because the armor is being heavily bypassed.
One example: with Breach IV and a Strength II effect on a mace, you might only need around four crits to take down even very well-armored players (like Protection IV netherite) in survival combat.
So if you feel like armor fights last forever, Breach is designed to shorten those duels dramatically.
How You Get and Use Breach
You don’t just find Breach on any weapon; it’s tied specifically to the mace and some loot/enchants systems.
Ways players can obtain Breach include:
- Enchanting a mace or book at an enchantment table (high levels help).
- Trading with librarian villagers for Breach books, if they roll that enchant.
- Rare fishing loot and chest loot (like in special structures or ominous-related content).
- Unlocking ominous trial/ominous vault–type rewards in newer updates, which can drop powerful enchanted books including Breach.
If you use commands, you can apply Breach I–IV directly to a mace with the standard enchant command syntax on supported versions.
Breach in Today’s Meta (2025–2026)
Recent guides and server-hosting blogs talk about Breach as a big part of modern combat setups and PvP arenas.
- Many PvP-focused servers tweak enchant rates so Breach feels rare but impactful.
- Discussion posts and videos debate whether Breach is “better” than classic damage enchants like Sharpness or Smite; the general take is: Breach shines most in player combat and against armored targets, while traditional damage enchants can be better for general mob farming.
If you’re mainly fighting other players in full armor, Breach is often considered a must-have on your mace; if you’re mostly grinding mobs, some players still prefer pure damage enchants like Smite or Density instead.
Mini Story: Why Players Care About Breach
Imagine you’re in a late-game survival world, full netherite, max Protection, golden apples in your hotbar. Another player jumps in with a Breach IV mace. Even though your armor is stacked, their crits suddenly chunk your health way harder than you expect, because your armor isn’t blocking nearly as much damage anymore.
That “wait, how did I die so fast?” moment—that’s exactly what Breach is built to create in modern Minecraft combat.
TL;DR: What does Breach do in Minecraft?
It’s a mace enchantment that cuts down your opponent’s armor effectiveness (about 15% per level, up to 60%), making your hits punch through even heavy armor and turning long, tanky fights into much shorter, high-risk duels.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.