Piercing is an enchantment applied to a crossbow that causes arrows to pierce through entities.
Usage[]
Arrows shot from a Piercing crossbow can pass through the number of entities equal to the enchantment level (for a total of level + 1 entities damaged). The shot arrows can still be retrieved after piercing a mob, allowing for infinite use of all arrow types, including spectral arrows and tipped arrows. Piercing ignores shields even when they are blocking. Arrows do not change direction upon piercing a mob, meaning they hit only mobs in the line of flight.
Piercing has no effect on firework rockets fired from a crossbow.
If commands are used to increase the enchantment level beyond 127, the piercing effect will stop working and will hit only one mob instead.
Incompatibilities[]
Piercing and Multishot are mutually exclusive. However, if combined using commands, both enchantments function as normal, with the two arrows added by the Multishot enchantment getting the effect as well.
Advancements[]
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
  | Enchanter | Enchant an item at an Enchanting Table | Diamonds! | Insert an item in an enchanting table, then apply an enchantment. | story/enchant_item
|
 | 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
|
| 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
|
Data values[]
ID[]
| Name | Identifier | Translation key |
|---|---|---|
| Piercing | piercing | enchantment.minecraft.piercing |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piercing | piercing | 34 | enchantment.crossbowPiercing |
History[]
| MINECON 2018 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minecon 2018 | Announced the Piercing enchantment as the "SUPER SECRET ENCHANTMENT". | ||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | Added Piercing enchantment. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.8.0 | beta 1.8.0.10 | Added Piercing enchantment. | |||
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Piercing" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.