Select enchantments and their desired levels, then calculate the optimal anvil combining order to minimize XP cost.
Plan the best anvil merge order for Minecraft armor, tools, and weapons to reduce XP cost and avoid the Too Expensive limit.
This is every enchantment Minecraft allows on the Helmet — 11 in total.
| Enchantment | Level |
|---|---|
 Blast Protection | |
| Fire Protection | |
| Projectile Protection | |
| Protection | |
| Aqua Affinity | |
| Curse of Binding | |
| Mending | |
| Respiration | |
| Thorns | |
| Unbreaking | |
| Curse of Vanishing |
Every anvil operation adds level cost and increases prior-work penalty. This planner evaluates possible merge trees and returns the optimal sequence based on your chosen objective.
Weight is the anvil cost multiplier tied to each enchantment. Higher-weight enchantments usually increase level cost more than lower-weight ones.
Each anvil operation increases an item's prior-work penalty. Future merges become more expensive as this value grows.
In survival mode, a single anvil operation above 39 levels is blocked. Planning the merge order helps keep each step below this limit.
For best optimization, start from books that have not been pre-combined in an anvil whenever possible.
Some enchantments are mutually exclusive. On a sword you can use only one of Sharpness, Smite or Bane of Arthropods; armor takes just one of Protection, Blast Protection, Fire Protection or Projectile Protection; and a bow cannot have both Infinity and Mending. The planner already limits the list to what the chosen item can take, and disables an enchantment as soon as you pick one it conflicts with. "Allow incompatible" lifts only that conflict block — it never adds an enchantment the item cannot hold.
Maximum levels depend on the enchantment. Some reach level 5 (such as Sharpness, Efficiency and Power), others cap at 4 (such as Protection and Feather Falling) or 3 (such as Unbreaking, Fortune and Looting), and a few are single-level only (Mending, Infinity and Silk Touch). The planner limits each enchantment to the highest level the game allows.
Each anvil merge costs experience levels from the enchantments being added (their level times an enchantment-specific multiplier), plus a prior-work penalty that doubles every time an item has been used in an anvil (1, 3, 7, 15, and so on), plus any rename cost. The planner adds these up for every possible merge order and returns the sequence with the lowest total.
Yes. Because the prior-work penalty grows each time an item passes through the anvil, the order you combine books and items in can change the total XP dramatically. Sometimes it is the difference between an affordable result and 'Too Expensive', so finding the cheapest order is exactly what this planner does for you.