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Swords are melee weapons that are mainly used to deal damage to mobs and/or players.

Obtaining

Crafting

Ingredients Crafting recipe Description
Any Planks or
Cobblestone or
Iron Ingot or
Gold Ingot or
Diamond +
Stick

Damaged Matching Sword


The durability of the two swords is added together, plus an extra 5% durability.

Mobs

Some monsters can spawn with a sword, and have a 8.5% (9.5% with Looting I, 10.5% with Looting II and 11.5% with Looting III) chance of dropping them upon death by player: Zombies and Husk can drop iron swords, zombie pigmen can drop golden swords, and wither skeletons can drop stone swords. It will usually be badly damaged, and may be enchanted. Stone swords dropped by wither skeletons will always be unenchanted.

A vex wields an iron sword which normally has a 0% chance of dropping, because their main hand's HandDropChances is 0. However, this chance increases by 1 percentage point per level of Looting. It is never damaged‌[Java Edition only] nor enchanted.

Trading

Weapon Smith villagers sell enchanted iron swords for 9–10 emeralds as one of their second tier trades, and enchanted diamond swords for 12–15 emeralds as one of their third tier trades. The enchantments will be the same as might be obtained from an enchantment table at levels 5–19.

Natural generation

Item Structure Container Quantity Chance
Java Edition
Iron Sword Buried treasure Chest 1 25%
Stronghold Altar chest 1 12%
Village Weaponsmith's chest 1 25.6%
Bedrock Edition
Iron Sword Stronghold Altar chest 1 11.6%
Village Weaponsmith's chest 1 25.6%


Item Structure Container Quantity Chance
Java Edition
Golden Sword Bastion remnant Generic chest 1 9.8%
Bridge chest 1 11.2%
Nether fortress Chest 1 19%
Bedrock Edition
Golden Sword Bastion remnant Generic chest 1 9.8%
Bridge chest 1 11.2%
Nether fortress Chest 1 19%

Unknown item enchanted-iron-sword.

Item Structure Container Quantity Chance

Unknown item enchanted-diamond-sword.

Item Structure Container Quantity Chance
Notes


Usage

Attacking

Pressing attack while holding a sword will increase your damage to both mobs and players. Upon damaging a mob or player, the sword's durability will decrease by 1.

Attacking a boat or a minecart with a sword will instantly destroy it and will not decrease the sword's durability.

Sweep attack

Information icon
This feature is exclusive to Java Edition. 

If the attack recharge meter is 84.8% or above, and the player is standing or moving no faster than walking speed, the sword will perform a "sweep" attack which can hit nearby enemies. Enemies near the hit enemy will be knocked back and damaged by 1♥ from the slashing attack. The Sweeping Edge enchantment will increase the damage dealt by 50% of the normal hit damage for level I, 67% for level II, and 75% for level III. The amount of knockback is 80% that of the knockback due to Knockback I (in other words, 2.8 blocks), and does not benefit from that enchantment. All enemies within 1 block horizontally and 0.25 blocks vertically of any part of the attacked mob and within up to 4 blocks of the player will be knocked back.

Damage

Java Edition

Swords have an attack speed of 1.6 and take 0.625 seconds to recover.

Material Wooden | Stone Iron Diamond
Attack damage 4♥♥ 4♥♥ 5♥♥♥ 6♥♥♥ 7♥♥♥♥
Damage/Second (DPS) 6.4 6.4 8 9.6 11.2
Durability 60 2000 132 251 1562
Lifetime damage inflicted[note 1] 240♥ × 120 132♥ × 66 660♥ × 330 1506♥ × 753 10934♥ × 5467
  1. The formula to find the total lifetime damage is Durability × Damage per hit = Lifetime damage minimum. It ignores enchantments and critical hits, and assumes the sword is at maximum charge

Console and Bedrock editions

In the Console and Bedrock editions, swords have no attack cooldown or sweep attack and do the following damage:

Material Wooden I Stone Iron Diamond
Attack Damage 5♥♥♥ 5♥♥♥ 6♥♥♥ 7♥♥♥♥ 8♥♥♥♥
Lifetime damage inflicted[note 1] 300♥ × 150 165♥ × 82.5 792♥ × 396 1757♥ × 878.5 12496♥ × 6248
  1. The formula to find the total lifetime damage is Durability × Damage per hit = Lifetime damage minimum. It excludes enchantments and critical hits

Sword breaking times

Main article: Breaking

A sword can also be used to destroy certain blocks more quickly than with fists. Using a sword to destroy any block that doesn't break instantly decreases its durability by 2.

The following table shows the time it takes to break blocks on which swords have any effect. Colors indicate what will be dropped:

  • White: an original block.
  • Blue: block's normal drop (e.g. seeds, sapling, apple).
  • Red: nothing.
Block Fists Sword Proper/fastest tool
Cobweb 20 s 0.4 s 0.4 s
Jack o'Lantern 1.5 s 1 s 0.125 – 0.75 s
Melon 1.5 s 1 s 0.125 – 0.75 s
Pumpkin 1.5s 1 s 0.125 – 0.75 s
Cocoa 0.3s 0.2s 0.025 – 0.15 s
Leaves 0.3 s 0.2 s 0.02s
Vines 0.3 s 0.2 s 0.025 – 0.15 s
0.02 s

Blocking (sword parrying)

Information icon
This feature is exclusive to Legacy Console Edition. 

Only in the Legacy Console Edition, swords can be used to block some forms of damage. If the player is using a sword when attacked, the sword will deflect 50% of the incoming arrow and explosion damage. The player will also move at a slower rate than sneaking if blocking with a sword.

File:SwordBlocking.jpg

A player blocking with a diamond sword.

Enchantments

Swords can receive the following enchantments:

  1. a b c Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods are mutually exclusive.
  2. a b Only available using enchanted books and an anvil, or by finding an enchanted sword in an End city chest.

Fuel

Wooden swords can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1 item per sword.

Smelting ingredient

Name Ingredients Smelting recipe
Iron Nugget or
Gold Nugget
Iron Sword or
Golden Sword +
Any fuel


Data values

ID

Sword/ID

Video

Note: This video is outdated. Since version 1.9, swords can no longer block attacks. Instead, shields are used.Sword/video

Achievements

Icon Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different) Gamerscore earned Trophy type (PS4)
PS4 Other
Time to Strike!Use planks and sticks to make a sword.Pick up any type of sword from a crafting table output.10GBronze
OverkillDeal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.30GBronze

History

indev
0.31 (January 29, 2010)Added craftable swords made from wood, stone, iron and diamond.
0.31 (January 30, 2010)Swords can now be made out of gold.
0.31 (February 1, 2010, 1)Swords now take damage when being used. Better swords last longer.
alpha
v1.2.0?Zombie pigmen added, holding golden swords.
beta
1.2Swords, like all tools, have more durability.
1.5All melee attacks, including fists, did 1♥ more damage, making the stone sword arguably nearly as effective as the iron one as it kills most mobs in the same number of hits. If the player combines swordplay with archery, the iron sword's extra damage will save some arrows and closely matches performance with the diamond sword.
1.7.3All melee attacks no longer do an extra 1♥ of damage.
1.8?Added the ability to block with a sword, giving the player more options in combat.
Swords no longer inflict more damage than bows.
release
1.0.0Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3Swords have been nerfed to make way for enchanting. A diamond sword now deals 7♥♥♥♥ damage instead of 10♥♥♥♥♥.
Iron swords are now found in the new stronghold altar chests.
Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4Swords can now be enchanted in the enchantment table.
1.112w01aIron swords are now found in village blacksmith chests.
1.2.112w06aOne has a rare chance to obtain iron swords by killing zombies and golden swords from zombie pigmen from the addition of rare drops. These swords have a 20% chance of being enchanted.
1.3.112w18aWooden swords can now be used as fuel in a furnace.
12w21aBlacksmith villagers now sell diamond swords for 12–13 emeralds, and iron swords for 7–10 emeralds.
With the trading implementation, you could sell renewable items such as wheat to buy a diamond sword. This made all swords renewable.
1.4.212w32aZombies may sometimes wield iron swords, dealing extra damage.
12w34aIf you have dyed leather armor equipped and selected a sword of any kind, it will appear the color of the dye applied to the armor, when switching to second or third person view.
12w36aWither skeletons added, holding stone swords.
1.4.612w49aYou can apply Unbreaking to a sword with an enchanted book.
1.6.113w18aGolden swords are now found in the new chests in nether fortresses.
13w25bIn Creative mode, swords no longer break blocks, and no sound will play when they're hit with one.
1.6.2?Instead of replacing the barehanded damage (1♥), swords now add their damage onto the barehanded damage, which results in all swords doing 1♥ more damage than before.
1.814w02aWeapon smith villagers now sell enchanted diamond swords for 12–15 emeralds, and iron swords for 9–10 emeralds. Unenchanted swords are no longer sold.
1.915w31aEnchanted iron and diamond swords can now be found in end city ship chests.
15w33cSwords no longer block attacks. Instead, shields are used.
15w34bSwords now use the attack speed attribute. The attack speed of a sword is 1.25 or 0.8 seconds.
15w34cSwords now do one less damage and have an attack speed of 1.45, or 0.69 seconds.
Swords can now do a sweep attack when moving at walking speed or slower, which will knock back mobs near the one hit. The attack speed meter must be filled for it to work.
15w37aSwords now have an attack speed of 1.6, or 0.63 seconds.
15w43aDecreased average yield of golden swords in nether fortress chests.
15w49aSweep attack now does 1♥ damage to affected mobs.
1.11.116w50aGolden and iron swords now smelt down into one of their respective nuggets.
Added sweeping edge enchantment.
1.1317w47aPrior to The Flattening, these items' numeral IDs were 268, 272, 267, 276 and 283.
18w10aSwords now can generated in buried treasure chests.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.2.0Added stone swords.
0.3.0Added wooden swords.
0.3.2Added diamond, iron and gold swords.
0.9.0build 1Iron Sword can be found in stronghold altar chest and inside blacksmith chest.
0.11.0build 11Wooden, stone, golden, and diamond swords are now available in the creative inventory.
build 12Removed wooden, stone, golden, and diamond swords from creative.
build 13All swords are available in creative mode again.
0.12.1build 1In Creative mode, swords no longer break blocks, and no sound will play when they're hit with one.
Golden sword can be found in nether fortress chest.
Zombie rarely spawn holding IronSword that have a chance to dropped.
Golden sword now rarely dropped by Zombie Pigman.
Stone Sword now rarely dropped by Wither Skeleton.
0.15.0build 1Iron Sword sometimes dropped by Husk that spawn holding Iron Sword.
Pocket Edition
1.0build 1Enchanted Iron Sword and Enchanted Diamond Sword can be found in End City chest.
1.0.4build 1Iron Sword and Enchanted Diamond Sword now sold by Weaponsmith Villager.
1.1build 1Iron and golden swords are now smeltable.
Added Vex that rarely drop Iron Sword if killed using Looting Enchantment.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1CU1 1.0 Patch 1Added swords (all five types).
TU5Added the ability to block, giving the player more options in combat.
TU53CU43 1.49 Patch 23Patch s3Iron and golden swords are now smeltable.

Issues

Issues relating to "Sword" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • The sword's texture came from Notch's abandoned RPG, Legend of the Chambered. The iron sword's texture was created first, as it was from the game, and the other swords followed.
  • If a sword is enchanted with Silk Touch, either using Creative or commands, it can collect cobwebs rather than getting the string drop. This is due to the sword being classified as the proper tool for cobwebs.
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