What Does Smite Do in Minecraft? Detailed Guide

Enchantments in Minecraft are complex, as they include a random factor, high-quality materials like diamonds, and a long list of buffs. That’s what Enchantments offer: magical upgrades for your gear.

Smite is one of these enchantments, and while it seems straightforward, it has a trick. It increases the damage you deal with swords and axes, but only to undead mobs.

Smite Enchantment

Smite is an Enchantment available to swords and axes. You can apply it to these types of weapons via the Enchanting Table, or by combining a sword or an ax with the Smite enchantment book on the anvil.

You can also trade the enchantment book with librarian villagers, fish it with a fishing rod, or find it in treasure chests.

The buff increases the damage you deal to undead mobs, and you can put it on swords and axes on both the Java and Bedrock editions.

Undead mobs include:

• Skeletons
• Zombies
• Zombie villagers
• Zombified piglins
• Zombie horses
• Skeleton horses
• Withers
• Wither skeletons
• Strays
• Husks
• Phantoms
• Drowned
• Zoglins
• Mummy
• Necromancer
• Undead dragon
• Zombie cowmen
• Crawler
• Drowned sapper
• Charred zombie
• Others…

Undead mobs are one of the two mob categories in-game that are affected by an enchantment. The other category is arthropods, which are affected by the Bane of the Arthropods.

Undeads (like zombies, phantoms, and all of their variants) appear at night and in places without sunlight. They burn in sunlight, they don’t have armor, they are always hostile, and they are very common in the game, especially in the Overworld.

Smite Damage

The enchantment has five levels. Each level increases the damage by 2.5 each level, generally. 

Here’s the damage it deals on Bedrock Edition, assuming that the target has no armor and without considering critical damage.

Enchantment level	Wooden sword	Gold sword	Stone sword	Iron sword	Diamond sword	Netherite sword
No enchantment	4	4	5	6	7	8
I	7.5	7.5	8.5	8.5	10.5	11.5
II	10	10	11	11	13	14
III	12.5	12.5	13.5	13.5	15.5	16.5
IV	15	15	17	17	18	19
V	17.5	17.5	19.5	19.5	20.5	21.5

Similarly, here’s the damage Smite adds to axes in Bedrock Edition:

Enchantment level	Wooden ax	Gold ax	Stone ax	Iron ax	Diamond ax	Netherite ax
No enchantment	3	3	4	5	6	7
I	6.5	6.5	7.5	8.5	9.5	10.5
II	9	9	10	11	12	13
III	11.5	11.5	12.5	13.5	14.5	15.5
IV	14	14	15	16	17	18
V	16.5	16.5	17.5	18.5	19.5	20.5

Now, let’s look at the damage Smite adds to Java. The base damage of swords in Java is different, but the overall buff is the same, which means Smite is more potent in this edition. 

That said, here’s what Smite adds to swords (without considering armor or critical damage):

Enchantment level	Wooden sword	Gold sword	Stone sword	Iron sword	Diamond sword	Netherite sword
No enchantment	4	4	5	5	7	8
I	6.5	6.5	7.5	8.5	9.5	10.5
II	9	9	10	11	12	13
III	11.5	11.5	12.5	13.5	14.5	15.5
IV	14	14	15	16	17	18
V	16.5	16.5	17.5	18.5	19.5	20.5

Lastly, here’s the damage Smite adds on axes in the Java Edition, where the difference is more notable compared to Bedrock.

Enchantment level	Wooden ax	Gold ax	Stone ax	Iron ax	Diamond ax	Netherite ax
No enchantment	7	7	9	9	9	10
I	9.5	9.5	11.5	11.5	11.5	12.5
II	12	12	14	14	14	15
III	14.5	14.5	16.5	16.5	16.5	17.5
IV	17	17	19	19	19	20
V	19.5	19.5	21.5	21.5	21.5	22.5

As you see, Smite is a massive buff. It can turn lowly wooden swords and axes into serious damage dealers. And because it’s quite easy to repair an Enchanted weapon (you can combine it with a regular version of the weapon on the anvil), getting that kind of damage is very cheap.

Smite Incompatibility

There’s another “but,” though. Smite is not compatible with Sharpness, which is the straight damage upgrade enchantment for swords and axes.

Still, the damage Sharpness adds is much lower, as, in general, it adds 1.5 points of damage every two levels. For instance, it raises the wooden sword’s damage from 4 to 7 (Sharpness 5) or the Netherite ax’s damage from 10 to 13 (Sharpness V).

Smite is also not compatible with Cleaver and Bane of Arthropods. Let’s check:

Enchantment	Gear	Max level	Description	Incompatible with
Smite	Swords and axes	V	Increases the damage you deal to undead mobs to appropriate weapons	Bane of Arthropods, Sharpness, Cleaving
Cleaving	Axes	III	Increases damage and shield stunning	Sharpness, Bane of Arthropods, Smite
Sharpness	Swords (axes as well in Bedrock Edition)	V	Increases damage with swords and shields	Smite, Bane of Arthropods, Cleaving

In particular, Bane of Arthropods adds a very similar buff as Smite, but it applies when fighting against arthropods. This group of mobs includes endermite, silverfish, bees, cave spiders, spiders, and similar.

Smite Compatibility

Lastly, you can also combine Smite with other sword and ax enchantments. Remember that you can put up to seven enchantments on any piece of gear. Here’re the ones you can combine:

Enchantment	Item	Description	Max level	Incompatible with
Curse of Vanishing	All items	The gear disappears when your character dies (most usable in multiplayer)	I
Efficiency	Shovels, axes, hoes, pickaxes	It increases mining speed as well as shield stun chance with axes	V
Fire Aspect	Swords	Your attacks set mobs on fire	II
Fortune	Hoes, Shovels, Axes, Pickaxes	Increases drop amount on certain blocks	III	Silk Touch
Knockback	Swords	Increases knockback	II
Looting	Swords	Increases loot mobs drop on death	III
Silk Touch	Shovels, Pickaxes, Axes, Hoes	You get the entire block rather than the usual loot when you mine or chop a block.	V	Fortune
Sweeping Edge (Java Edition only)	Swords	It increases sweeping attack damage	III
Unbreaking	All armor, weapon, and tool types	Increases the item’s durability	III
Mending	All armor, weapon, and tool types	It allows you to restore the item’s durability by picking up experience orbs	I	Unbreaking

You can put up to seven enchantments on an item on Bedrock Edition. On Java, you can put up to eight enchantments.