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Enchanting is an important part of Minecraft, especially in Survival Mode. Earning enchantments on your weapons and armor allows you to traverse the realms more freely, with less fear of death and damage. Some enchantments allow you to have infinite arrows on a bow, to use a tool endlessly without it breaking, or even to walk on water! In this article, we’ll discuss the Minecraft channeling enchantment, from what it actually does to how you can get it.
What is channeling?
Channeling is a trident enchantment that lets you summon a lightning bolt to attack a mob. It was introduced to the game in Aquatic Update 1.13. Channeling is a powerful enchantment in Minecraft, but it has some drawbacks.
Advantages and disadvantages
The main advantage of this Minecraft enchantment is its power. Most monsters you hit will end up dead within a maximum of two hits with a Channeling Trident. This is also one of the only ways to force Charged Creepers to spawn in Survival Minecraft. But it has its limits.
You can only use this enchantment during thunderstorms and you must be outdoors. You cannot use it underground because of this. You also cannot use it in water. Even with these limitations, channeling is still a great enchantment.
Obtain a trident for channeling
Before you can even consider using this enchantment, you must first obtain a Trident. Tridents are a non-craftable item in Minecraft and they also cannot be found in chests or villagers. The only way to get a Trident without using controls or turning on creative mode is to drown.
Only drowned holding a Trident can drop a Trident, and according to the Minecraft wiki, only 15% of drowned in Bedrock Edition (reduced to 6.25% in Java) spawn with a Trident in hand. From there, there’s only an 8.5% chance the drowned will drop the Trident when killed, meaning the chance of getting one is extremely low. You can, however, increase the odds a bit by using a Looting III enchanted sword when you kill them, which increases the chance of the Trident being dropped by an additional 3%.
If you’re looking to create a drowned farm, this is another way to even out the odds of getting a trident a bit. Drowned can be found in all bodies of water, especially oceans and rivers. It is recommended when creating a drowned farm to do them in rivers, as it is a smaller radius with faster spawns.
How to Get the Channeling Enchantment
Once you have your trident, it’s time to enchant it! You can get channeling in different ways. Since it’s an enchantment, you can get it simply by placing a trident on a full 15-shelf enchantment table setup.
You may need to recycle enchantments a few times before the channel appears, that’s where having a grindstone comes in handy, you can disenchant the Trident and get some XP in the process, but it really all depends on luck.
If you’re patient with it, you’ll eventually get it as an option. You can also get it from minecart and dungeon chests, as well as buy it from librarian villagers. You can find it in other non-village chests scattered around the Overworld.
Uses for channeling
There are a few different uses for channeling. The main use is to attack other monsters, so it is used as an offensive attack. If you have lightning rods placed and aim a channeling trident at them, the lighting will still be summoned.
However, channeling has different effects on different monsters. Depending on the mob you hit with the enchantment, you can drastically alter the physiology of the mob:
- Pigs with it will turn into Zombified Piglins
- Villagers will turn into witches
- Mooshrooms will turn into their opposite color (red to brown and vice versa)
- Creepers will transform into Charged Creepers
Channeling is one of those enchantments that you can really play with and experiment with to see what kind of effects it will have on the world around you!
What enchantments work well with channeling?
As with all enchantments in the game, channeling can be combined with other enchantments to make it even more powerful.
The best enchantments that work well with channeling are Mending, which lets you repair your tool with XP so it doesn’t break, Unbreaking, which extends tool durability and takes longer to break, Loyalty , which causes the trident to come back to you like a boomerang, and Impaling, which causes the trident to do extra damage.
When you combine these enchantments together, you will be equipped with a very good weapon in your arsenal. It’s important to note though that if you have the Riptide enchantment on your trident, you can’t combine it with Channeling.
It’s like having the Infinity enchantment on a bow and not being able to use Mending. Having limitations on enchantment combinations keeps the game fair, and while these enchantments make it easier to play, it’s still a challenge to play…and that makes it fun!
Conclusion
Overall, the Minecraft Channeling enchantment, while limited in where and when it can be used, is a pretty good enchantment to have if you have a Trident in your inventory. It’s one of those enchantments that lets you have fun with your surroundings, while protecting you from hostile mobs.
Because thunderstorms are so rare in the world of Minecraft, it gives you something to look forward to when one appears.
Be careful when throwing channeling tridents at Creepers and make sure that if you do, you have good armor, otherwise you might regret it…or you might enjoy it, depending on your playstyle!
More Minecraft Enchantment Guides
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