Minecraft Spear Guide: Crafting, attack patterns, damage & enchantments

With the mace only just added, we players didn’t have to wait long for another new weapon. With “Mounts of Mayhem” you can now craft your own spear and use it in different ways against monsters and other players! It offers not only an excellent reach but also two attack patterns you can alternate between. At the same time, you can scale the damage dramatically and, with a bit of luck, defeat many ordinary mobs with a single strike. Today we’ll take a closer look at exactly how that works and what other surprises the spear has in store!

Minecraft spear: crafting, drops, and finding it in structures

You can obtain the spear in three different ways: craft it yourself, as loot from mobs, or in various structures in your world. Sooner or later you’ll come across one and be able to put it to use.

We even recommend making it right at the start of a new world, since it’s a wonderful weapon for beginners! The recipe works like a shovel, just diagonal. You can use any material, from wood, stone, iron, and copper to diamond. There’s also a netherite spear, but you’ll need a smithing table and the appropriate upgrade from the Nether.

Spears can also be dropped by mobs if they are holding one. Zombies sometimes carry iron spears, and Piglins carry gold spears. The chance to obtain one is normally 8.5% (with Looting 3 it’s 11.5%).

Finally, you can find spears of different tiers in structures:

• Stone spear in Ocean Ruins
• Iron spear in Buried Treasure or in the village smithy
• Copper spear also in smith chests in villages
• (Enchanted) diamond spear in bastion remnants in the Nether and enchanted in End Cities in the End

Spear attacks in Minecraft: thrust and charged attack explained

Now you’ve got a spear, but how do you fight with it? There are two options, because the spear is versatile and can be used in different combat situations. There’s a normal thrust attack and a charged attack with more damage.

Generally speaking, the spear is a great weapon for beginners thanks to its reach, which is considerably better than that of a sword or an axe. You can hit mobs from 4.5 blocks away and even keep Creepers from exploding! You can also poke through tall grass and even cobwebs, which is handy. But don’t let mobs get too close, or you’ll have a harder time landing hits.

Thrust attack with the spear: reach, speed, and cooldown

Let’s start with the normal attack you perform with a left-click. The spear makes a light forward jab and shows a short cooldown, similar to a sword. However, this cooldown is much shorter, making the spear perfect for quick strikes. The cooldown does increase with higher material tiers, from about half a second with wood to a little over one second with netherite.

Without enchantments or other upgrades, the thrust attack deals between 0.5 hearts and 2.5 hearts of damage, depending on the material. That’s lower than all other weapons, but you can use the reach to your advantage.

Use the charged attack precisely: scaling with speed

Holding right-click performs a different move: a charged attack. This gives a damage bonus that also scales with the material, from 0.7x with wood up to 1.2x with netherite.

But that’s not all that factors into the charged strike. It also depends on how long you can hold the spear up. After just a few seconds, your arm weakens and you’ll have to stop charging, which makes this attack inherently risky. You’ll notice it in the animation as the spear starts to wobble and the attack becomes inaccurate. You must also aim carefully, or the charged attack will miss.

The second key factor is the spear’s damage scaling with speed. And this is where you can squeeze out a lot of extra damage. The game combines your speed and your target’s speed to calculate the result. For optimizing this type of attack, our guide to moving fast in Minecraft can help (Minecraft: The 10 fastest travel methods – how to move at maximum speed) .

Take running speed as an example: with a netherite spear you can deal 3.5 hearts of damage. On a horse, this scales up to 5.5 hearts, and with the fastest horse even up to 8 hearts. The spear becomes far more effective with Elytra and rockets, letting you cover about 33 blocks and deal up to 20 hearts of damage with the spear. That kills almost all regular mobs in a single strike. For a detailed breakdown, there’s a great overview in the wiki and even a calculator. The bottom line: the faster you are, the more damage you deal.

Best spear enchantments in Minecraft: Lunge and more

Damage is also influenced by the enchantments you can apply to the spear. There’s even a new enchantment that lets you leap at enemies. Lunge makes you close the gap on your target with normal thrust attacks, effectively increasing your reach. You can use up to three levels, but using it drains both hunger and durability faster.

You can also use all the usual weapon enchantments, which in some cases makes the spear better than the axe:

• Mending
• Knockback II
• Fire Aspect II
• Looting III
• Lunge III
• Unbreaking V

Mutually exclusive damage enchantments are also possible, but you can only use one at a time:

• Sharpness V (general damage increase)
• Smite V (more damage against the undead)
• Bane of Arthropods V (more damage against insects)

Conclusion: Master the spear and deal maximum damage

A new weapon in Minecraft is always something to celebrate. With the spear, you can not only keep enemies at bay but also surprise them with a quick charged strike. Its scaling with your speed makes the spear both unique and deadly. Plus, the new enchantment is useful for more than just combat and almost feels like an aerial dash.

The spear is even more fun on your own server, which you can rent from us right away. With the right horse, it’s perfect for jousting with your friends. Duel each other and see who can handle the new weapon better.