Breach Enchantment: How Much Armor the Mace Ignores

Breach is a mace enchantment that makes your hits partly ignore the target’s armor. Each level removes 15 percentage points of armor damage reduction, up to 60 points at Breach IV. If someone’s armor normally blocks 50% of a hit, Breach I drops that to 35%, and Breach IV drops it to zero.

The formula: damage taken = weapon damage × (1 − max(0, armor reduction − 15% × level)).

Level	Armor reduction removed	Armor that blocked 50% now blocks	Armor that blocked 80% now blocks
I	15 points	35%	65%
II	30 points	20%	50%
III	45 points	5%	35%
IV	60 points	0%	20%

Breach only touches armor points and armor toughness. It does not reduce the effect of Protection or the other protection enchantments, and it doesn’t cut through the Resistance effect either. It does nothing against a target with no armor. It does affect mobs with natural armor points, such as zombies, and it’s most noticeable against a shulker with its shell closed.

Levels above IV only exist through commands, and anything past VI has no practical effect because by then it has already removed all the armor reduction there is to remove.

How to get Breach

• Enchanting table: put in a mace or a book.
• Ominous vaults in trial chambers, plus any chest that can hold enchanted books.
• Fishing.
• Librarians in the default trades. The experimental Villager Trade Rebalance removes mace enchantments from librarian trades.

Its table weight is 2, so it’s one of the less common rolls. If you’re after Breach IV specifically, two Breach III books merge into IV on an anvil, and a librarian Breach IV book costs 14 to 58 emeralds in default trading.

Conflicts

Breach can’t go on the same mace as Density, Smite or Bane of Arthropods. It also conflicts with Sharpness and Impaling, but no weapon can take both in survival, so that never comes up. It pairs with Wind Burst, Fire Aspect, Unbreaking and Mending.

Breach and Density are the real choice. Density adds damage to a smash attack based on how far you fell, so it rewards big drops. Breach makes every hit, including small falls and normal swings, count for more against armor. Wind Burst launches you back up after a smash, so a Breach and Wind Burst mace can keep chaining smash attacks on an armored player after the first drop.

Is Breach worth it?

For PvP, yes. At Breach IV, full Protection IV netherite armor protects almost as little as full Protection IV leather. On Bedrock, where there is no attack cooldown, a Breach IV mace out-damages a Sharpness V netherite sword against diamond or netherite armor.

For normal survival, take Density or Smite instead. Most mobs that wear armor are zombies and skeletons, which Smite handles better, and Breach does nothing against unarmored mobs like creepers or endermen. Breach also adds less than Smite against the armored mobs in ominous trial chambers, since many of them have Protection enchantments.

A common mistake is putting Breach on your only mace in single-player because it sounds strong. Outside PvP, the only mobs that wear armor are undead mobs and piglins, so unless you spend a lot of time fighting in a bastion, a Density or Smite mace does more for you.