Understand Diamond Sword
Useful when…
- Fight mobs with a direct melee weapon and damage-focused enchantments.
- Choose a target-specific damage enchantment or broad Sharpness, depending on the enemies faced.
- Use Looting, Knockback, Fire Aspect, or Java Sweeping Edge for their supported secondary effects.
How does it handle attacks?
In Java, the sword's attack-damage modifier is 6, producing 7 HP base damage on a normal hit. Its attack-speed modifier is -2.4, so attacks need recovery; the reference's damage table assumes fully charged attacks, an unarmored target, and no effects. A critical hit has a separate listed base value of 10.5 HP. Sharpness adds damage, while Smite and Bane of Arthropods specialize against undead and arthropods; those three damage enchantments are mutually exclusive.
Which enchantments add utility?
Looting III increases drops from entities killed with the sword. Knockback II increases knockback, Fire Aspect II ignites targets, and Sweeping Edge III increases Java sweeping damage. Unbreaking III helps conserve durability and Mending repairs the sword when experience is collected. Curse of Vanishing makes it disappear on death. Choose the damage enchantment around the target type rather than expecting to stack all three.
What else can it do, and how is it maintained?
The sword can break certain blocks quickly, including cobwebs, but breaking a block that does not break instantly by hand costs two durability. It has 1,561 maximum durability. An anvil repair with a diamond restores 25% of maximum durability, rounded down; anvil repair and combination preserve enchantments. Crafting-table or grindstone combination adds durability plus 5%, but enchantment preservation is not specified for those methods. Netherite upgrading increases durability and attack damage.
Limitations and tradeoffs
- Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods cannot be combined.
- Attacks made before Java recovery completes do not match the fully charged damage assumptions in the reference table.
- Using the sword to break non-instant blocks costs two durability.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Reading fully charged attack damage as the result of every rapid attack.
- Trying to combine Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods.
- Using the sword to mine blocks without accounting for its two-durability cost.