A crossbow is a powerful alternative to the bow that uses arrows or fireworks as ammunition.
Obtaining
Crafting
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Stick + Iron Ingot + String + Tripwire Hook |
Repairing
Template:Repair
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Damaged Crossbow or Damaged Arrow Loaded Crossbow or Damaged Firework Loaded Crossbow |
The durability of the two crossbows is added together, plus an extra 5% durability.[Bedrock Edition only] |
Pillagers
Pillagers have a small chance (8.5%) of dropping a crossbow or loaded crossbow when killed, and this rate increases per level of Looting. Crossbows can also be found in 50% of loot chests in pillager outposts.
Natural generation
Crossbows have a chance to be found in pillager outpost watchtower chest.[upcoming: Lua error in Module:Version_link at line 112: attempt to concatenate local 'text' (a nil value). & BE 1.10]
Usage
Charging the crossbow (GIF).
Weapon
Crossbows are similar to bows, but take longer to load and are slightly more powerful, shooting farther due to slightly higher accuracy. They can be drawn back by using them, forcing you to move at a sneaking speed, and unlike bows, the arrow or firework rocket will only be fired after it is fully loaded. Once it has reached full charge, the player's speed returns to normal and the crossbow can be placed in another inventory slot or into an item frame without the arrow or firework rocket being unloaded or fired. In order to use the crossbow, at least one arrow or firework rocket must be present in your inventory. The player can choose which type of arrow to fire based on its location in the inventory. Arrows in the off-hand, or the selected hotbar slot if the crossbow is in the off-hand, are prioritized first. If there are no arrows in the off-hand or selected hotbar slot, the arrow closest to slot 0 is selected.
Endermen cannot be hit with crossbow arrows no matter what, as an enderman shot with an arrow will teleport, and the arrow will disappear without a trace.
| Attack damage | |
|---|---|
| Minimum | 6 |
| Maximum | 11 |
| Average | 9 |
Fireworks
Firework rockets can be fired by shooting the crossbow while holding the rockets in the off-hand. Firework rockets with higher flight durations will launch further and also have a longer time before they explode. Launching firework rockets with multiple firework stars in them can obscure the targeted player's vision, due to the number of particles produced. Firework rockets also work with the Multi-Shot enchantment, enabling the player to shoot 3 firework rockets at a time.
If a shot firework rocket hits a mob, the rocket will explode instantly.
Repair
Crossbows can be repaired in an anvil or grindstone by combining two crossbows, but this will sacrifice any ammo loaded in both crossbows.
Enchantments
Crossbows can receive 3 unique enchantments, and have a base enchantability of 1.
Enchantments specific to crossbows include Quick Charge, Multishot, and Piercing. Multishot and Piercing are mutually exclusive, and normal methods of applying enchantments allow only one of them to be applied to a single crossbow simultaneously. It is possible to use commands to apply both to a single crossbow.
Quick Charge (I–III) decreases the reloading time of the crossbow by level * 0.25 seconds. Crossbows with Quick Charge III fire slightly faster than bows.
If commands are used to enchant a crossbow with Quick Charge V, the crossbow will charge instantly. A crossbow enchanted with Quick Charge VI is effectively impossible to charge, which renders it useless. This can only be done in Java Edition, as in Bedrock Edition, /enchant limits the level to the maximum normally obtainable.
Multishot (I) makes the crossbow fire a spread of 3 projectiles at once instead of a single projectile. This works for both arrows and firework rockets. Each shot still costs only one projectile, and because of that, it is only possible to recover one of three arrows shot from a Multishot crossbow.
Piercing (I–IV) makes arrows shot from the crossbow pierce entities they hit and continue their flight, which allows each arrow to hit up to level + 1 entities. Armor stands and end crystals cannot be pierced.
If commands are used to enchant a crossbow with Piercing V or a higher level of the enchantment, the enchantment will have no effect, and arrows shot from the crossbow will not pass through hit entities.[Java Edition only]
Crossbows can also be enchanted with Mending and Unbreaking.
Fuel
Crossbows can be used as fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per crossbow.
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Ol' Betsy | Shoot a Crossbow | Adventure | — | adventure/ol_betsy
|
![]() | Two Birds, One Arrow | Kill two Phantoms with a piercing Arrow | Ol' Betsy | Use a crossbow enchanted with Piercing to kill two phantoms with a single arrow shot. | adventure/two_birds_one_arrow
|
![]() | Who's the Pillager Now? | Give a Pillager a taste of their own medicine | Ol' Betsy | Kill a pillager with a crossbow. | adventure/whos_the_pillager_now
|
![]() | Arbalistic | Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot | Ol' Betsy | This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed. | adventure/arbalistic
|
History
| September 29, 2018 | Crossbows are announced at MINECON Earth 2018. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upcoming Java Edition | |||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | Added crossbows. They can be enchanted with either the Quick Charge (Highest Level III), Piercing (Highest Level IV), or Multishot (Highest Level I) | |||
| 18w47a | Crossbows can now be found inside loot chests at the top of pillager outposts. | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.8 | beta 1.8.0.10 | Added crossbows as part of Experimental Gameplay. | |||
| 1.9 | beta 1.9.0.0 | Added pillagers, which use and drop crossbows. | |||
| beta 1.9.0.3 | Crossbows now appear bigger in a pillager's hand. | ||||
| Upcoming Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.10 | beta 1.10.0.3 | Fully implemented crossbows, separate from Experimental Gameplay. | |||
| Crossbow can be found in pillager outpost chest. | |||||
Issues
Issues relating to "Crossbow" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia
- Crossbows enchanted with Quick Charge VI and above get stuck on the first frame on the recharging animation because the resulting charge time is negative, and the game never reaches the time markers that tell it to advance the animation or the reloading procedure itself. It is technically possible to charge such crossbows, but this would require overflowing the value which determines how long the crossbow has been charged for. This takes such an amount of time that this is practically impossible: for example, charging a crossbow with Quick Charge VI would take 69.4 years to complete.
- Due to being able to be put away and still be loaded, a player could have 9 crossbows in their hotbar, allowing for the rapid unloading of arrows. With average damage, this does 90 total damage with normal arrows, which is enough to kill a player in protection IV diamond armor with resistance II (38.1 damage total, taking armor toughness into account), the highest effect obtainable in a survival game without using a Potion of the Turtle Master.
Gallery
A crossbow shown at MINECON Earth 2018.
A pillager armed with a crossbow, shown at MINECON Earth 2018.
- ALEXCROSSBOW.png
How the crossbow is equipped.



