What Bane of Arthropods does
Bane of Arthropods is a sword enchantment in Minecraft that adds extra damage to a specific group of mobs: spiders, cave spiders, silverfish, endermites, and bees. It does nothing to anything else. Hit a zombie with a Bane of Arthropods V sword and you’ll do the same damage as a plain sword. Hit a cave spider and you’ll one-shot it.
The enchantment also slows the target. Every hit applies Slowness IV for a short window, which makes spiders and silverfish much easier to deal with in tight tunnels. The combination of bonus damage and the slow is what makes the enchantment useful in the few biomes and structures where arthropods spawn in numbers.
Maximum level is V. You can put it on any sword and, in Java Edition, on any axe.
Which mobs count as arthropods
Five mobs in the game are flagged as arthropods, and Bane of Arthropods affects all of them:
- Spider
- Cave spider
- Silverfish
- Endermite
- Bee
Bees are easy to forget. They’re peaceful most of the time and you have no reason to hit one, but if a bee swarm goes hostile after you break a hive without a campfire underneath, a Bane of Arthropods sword wipes them out fast. That’s a useful side effect, not a reason to enchant a sword.
The Ender Dragon and the Wither are not arthropods, even though they’re treated as hostile in similar ways. Phantoms aren’t arthropods either, despite the bug-like wings. Smite covers undead mobs like phantoms; Bane of Arthropods does not.
Damage per level
Each level of Bane of Arthropods adds 2.5 points of damage on top of your base weapon damage when you hit an arthropod. The level scale stops at V.
| Level | Bonus damage vs arthropods |
|---|---|
| I | +2.5 |
| II | +5.0 |
| III | +7.5 |
| IV | +10.0 |
| V | +12.5 |
For reference, a diamond sword does 7 damage on a base hit. With Bane of Arthropods V, that becomes 19.5 damage against a spider. A regular spider has 16 health, so one swing kills it. A cave spider only has 12 health and dies to a wood or stone sword with Bane V.
The Slowness IV effect
On top of the damage, every hit applies Slowness IV to the target for a random duration. The maximum length scales with the enchantment level. At Bane of Arthropods V, the slow can last up to about 8 seconds, though most of the time it lasts a fraction of that because of the random roll on each hit.
Slowness IV is a severe slow. The mob crawls. For cave spiders in mineshafts, where the real danger is getting cornered and poisoned, this is the part of the enchantment that actually saves your skin. Same story with silverfish, which usually swarm out of a block and overwhelm you. Slowing them lets you back up and pick them off.
Bees aren’t affected by the slow in a meaningful way because you’re killing them in a single hit anyway with a decent sword.
How to get Bane of Arthropods
Enchanting table
You can roll Bane of Arthropods directly on the enchanting table, but it shows up less often than Sharpness or Smite. The chance goes up with more bookshelves and a higher enchantment level, like every other enchantment. If you keep re-rolling and never see it, burn off the table’s current offers by enchanting something throwaway, then try again.
Books from villagers, fishing, and loot
The most reliable way to get a max-level book is from a librarian villager. Once you find a librarian whose trade is a Bane of Arthropods book, lock the lectern by trading with them once, then trade up to the level you want. Librarians can sell up to a level V book, though the cost in emeralds varies with the villager’s experience tier.
Fishing also pulls up enchanted books occasionally, and Bane of Arthropods is one of the possible enchantments. A fishing rod with Luck of the Sea improves the odds of treasure rolls overall. Treasure chests in dungeons, mineshafts, strongholds, and woodland mansions can also contain enchanted books with Bane of Arthropods.
Anvil
Once you have a Bane of Arthropods book, combine it with your sword on an anvil. Each level costs 1 enchantment cost point on the book itself, so a Bane V book is much cheaper to apply than something like Sharpness V from raw experience levels.
Conflicts with Sharpness and Smite
Bane of Arthropods, Sharpness, and Smite are mutually exclusive in survival mode. You can only have one of the three on a single weapon. The game won’t let you combine them at the anvil, and the enchanting table won’t roll two at once. This is the central trade-off of the enchantment: pick the one that fits how you play.
Sharpness adds damage to every mob. Smite adds extra damage to undead, which covers zombies, skeletons, wither skeletons, drowned, husks, strays, zombified piglins, zoglins, phantoms, and the Wither itself. Bane of Arthropods only matters for the five arthropod mobs.
If you’re going caving or running a stronghold, the Bane sword is a real upgrade. If you’re doing general survival, Sharpness wins by default because it works on everything you’re likely to fight.
When it’s actually worth using
Bane of Arthropods earns a spot in your hotbar in a few specific situations. In abandoned mineshafts, cave spiders are the main threat. They have Poison on hit, low health, and they spawn in waves from monster spawners. A Bane V iron sword one-shots them, and the slow keeps them off you while you break the spawner.
In strongholds, silverfish swarm out of infested stone blocks and don’t stop until they’re all dead. A Bane sword shreds them, especially when you accidentally break the wrong block and three silverfish hop out at once. End cities and the outer End islands also see rare endermite spawns from ender pearl throws, which can pile up when you’re exploring. A second sword with Bane is overkill there but cheap insurance.
In jungles, regular spiders are the most common arthropod in the overworld. A Bane sword handles them, though Sharpness handles them almost as well. Most survival players carry two swords late game: a Sharpness V sword for general use, and a Smite V sword for raids and Nether trips. A Bane sword fits into that loadout if you’re heading underground for serious mining, especially around abandoned mineshafts.
Tips and common mistakes
A few things that trip players up. Bane of Arthropods does not grant Poison resistance. Cave spiders can still poison you on hit. The slow just keeps them from chasing you, so back up after each swing.
If you have a Bane sword and need to fight something that isn’t an arthropod, you’ll hit for base damage only. Don’t bring just one weapon into a fight you can’t size up first. Bedrock Edition uses a slightly different damage calculation under the hood, so the per-hit bonus can feel different in practice, but the general rule still holds: Bane V kills arthropods in one or two swings.
You can also enchant axes with Bane of Arthropods in Java Edition. The axe-plus-Bane combo isn’t standard, but it works against silverfish and cave spiders just as well.
Java vs Bedrock differences
The mechanics line up across editions with a couple of small wrinkles. In Java, you can apply Bane of Arthropods to any axe at the anvil. Bedrock restricts the enchantment to swords through the enchanting table, though command-given axes can still carry it.
Bonus damage values are the same across versions. The Slowness IV duration roll uses the same formula. If you’ve used the enchantment in one edition, you know how it behaves in the other.
Frequently asked questions
Does Bane of Arthropods work on bees?
Yes. Bees are flagged as arthropods, so a Bane of Arthropods sword hits them for the same bonus damage and the same slow as a spider. You almost never want to attack bees, but a swarm of angry bees does drop in a hurry if you have to defend yourself.
What’s the max level of Bane of Arthropods?
Level V. You can roll it from an enchanting table, get it from a librarian villager, or combine two lower-level books on an anvil to upgrade to a higher level.
Can I have Bane of Arthropods and Sharpness on the same sword?
Not in survival. Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods are mutually exclusive. The anvil won’t let you combine them, and the enchanting table won’t roll two at once. Creative mode commands can force the combination, but it’s not the intended behavior.
Is Bane of Arthropods better than Sharpness for spiders?
For spider damage in isolation, yes. Bane V adds 12.5 damage against a spider versus Sharpness V’s roughly 3 extra damage. The catch is that Sharpness works on every mob, and you don’t fight spiders alone. For a sword you carry everywhere, Sharpness is the safer pick. For a dedicated mineshaft or stronghold sword, Bane wins.
Does Bane of Arthropods affect phantoms?
No. Phantoms are classified as undead, not arthropods. Smite works on phantoms; Bane of Arthropods does not.
Can you get Bane of Arthropods from fishing?
Yes, enchanted books from fishing can roll Bane of Arthropods. It’s not common, but if you fish for long stretches you’ll see one eventually. Luck of the Sea on the rod improves the odds of treasure rolls in general.
Does the slow effect stack?
No. Each hit refreshes Slowness IV on the target rather than stacking duration or amplifier. Hitting a spider rapidly keeps the slow active throughout the fight, but you can’t push it past Slowness IV.
The bottom line
Bane of Arthropods has a clear job: kill spiders, cave spiders, silverfish, endermites, and bees fast, and slow them while you do it. If your survival world has an abandoned mineshaft, a stronghold, or a serious caving project, the Bane sword pays for itself the first time you walk into a cave spider spawner. If you only carry one sword, stick with Sharpness. If you’re building a kit, a second sword with Bane V is worth the bookshelves.