Anvil

An Anvil is a block that uses the new item repair interface to repair, rename, and combine enchantments on items. The Anvil uses a complex XP cost system, where the way the tools are positioned and how many times they are repaired affect their cost. For more info, see Anvil Mechanics.

Usage
Anvils can be used to repair and rename items and blocks, and are affected by gravity like sand, dragon egg, and gravel.

Repairing and renaming
Unlike crafting to repair items, Anvils can use materials to repair or combine two items. When using materials, the material depicting the item quality is needed (e. g. an iron ingot for an iron sword). On heavily damaged tools, more than one piece of material may be required. Few experience levels are also used if repairing by materials only. Anvils can both retain enchantments and expand on them. The player can also rename any item - not just tools or armor - using this method. This costs levels proportional to what is given. Simply renaming an item will cost 5 levels for a non-tool/armor item, whereas renaming and repairing an enchanted tool/armor is substantially more. Renaming an item removes the penalty for repairing the same item multiple times. On each use, anvils have a 12% chance to be damaged. On its last use, the GUI will close and the anvil will disappear, dropping the item on the ground. Naming items could be useful for creators of adventure maps, as they could rename items to fit the map's story line.

Falling anvils
If there is no block below an anvil, it will fall. An anvil will make a metal-like sound when it falls.

When an anvil lands on a non-solid block (like torches, rails, etc.), it will destroy that item instead of dropping itself as an item like sand, gravel, and dragon eggs do. When dropped on a pressure plate, a boat, cobwebs, a slab, a sign, a cake, a lily pad, closed trapdoor or opened fence gate, the anvil will drop as an item. When dropped on a flower pot, the flower pot is destroyed without a drop. When dropped on a head, the head is dropped as an item.

A falling anvil will also damage mobs and players. Damage amount depends on fall distance: × MIN(Distance × 2, 10). Wearing a helmet will reduce the damage by 45%. A player dying by an anvil falling on them will receive this message: "player was squashed by a falling anvil." However if a player is touched by an anvil entity, or falling anvil, no damage will result until the anvil becomes a block in the gridspace where the player is. So anvils can be shot with a TNT Cannon, and pass right through a player, and not damage them.

An anvil has a chance to be damaged by the fall. Damage chance also depends on fall distance and is equal to (5 + Distance*5)%

Combining Enchantments
Due to the lack of a level cap in creative mode, it is now possible to combine any two (or more) enchantments on two items. Owing to the anvil's ability to add two enchantments together to make a better version (like two sharpness 2 swords can be combined to a sharpness 3 sword), and the lack of an enchantment number cap (a knockback and looting sword can be combined with a fire and sharpness sword to make a knockback, looting, fire, and sharpness sword). Alone, each of these attributes is useful, but when combined together, it is possible (in creative) to make a Sharpness V, Fire Aspect II, Knockback II, Looting III Diamond Sword from a whole pile of lower enchantment tier diamond swords. (Ex: 16 Sharpness I swords, 4 Fire Aspect I swords, 4 Knockback I swords, and 8 Looting I swords can be combined into a sword with the enchantments listed above. However, one can not combine the enchantments of weaponry/armor of different materials (combining an enchanted golden pickaxe with a diamond one). So, you cannot combine the highly enchantable gold pickaxe with a diamond one to create a diamond pickaxe with the same enchantment.

Bugs

 * No matter which direction an anvil was facing before it fell, it will default to a specific orientation while falling.
 * The item version of the anvil is missing the underside textures completely, although when placed all textures are visible.
 * Renamed Book & Quills are no longer functional after renaming, unless you have already written in them.
 * When anvils are dropped on a bed, you can still sleep on it.
 * If you drop an item from a renamed stack of items it will no longer stack, even with more items with the exact same name.
 * If you place a renamed block or give a renamed item to a zombie and then reclaim it, the block or item will lose its name.
 * Anvils can be pushed by pistons if the anvil is falling
 * You cannot repair a damaged anvil

Trivia

 * It takes a total of 31 iron ingots to craft an anvil.
 * Similarly to obsidian, bedrock and End Portal Frames, anvils cannot be pushed or pulled by pistons.
 * The anvil has the same blast resistance as obsidian and enchantment table.
 * If you rename a material, such as diamonds, it will not stack with unnamed or differently-named items.
 * An anvil will last about 25 uses.
 * Armor reduces amount of damage caused by falling anvil.
 * The high blast resistance and transparency of the block makes for a good blast-proof window.
 * If a falling anvil lands on a pressure plate, it will damage any mob standing on the pressure plate, and drop as an item without damaging itself.
 * It is more expensive to repair an item using an anvil than to make a new item, making it inefficient to repair unenchanted items. However, this is not true for all unenchanted items.
 * It will likely costs less to repair armor than what it costs to make new armor.
 * For most tools, however, crafting 2 together is more efficient than repairing both individually, since it costs about 2 or 3 ingots to repair an item with just half of its life left.
 * If placed on top of exploding TNT blocks, the explosion won't affect the surrounding area.
 * Bows and fishing rods cannot be repaired with either sticks or string.