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20

The Fundamental Flaw of the Infinity Bow

I'll keep this as short as I can: The Infinity enchantment is flawed.

When repairing a tool/weapon/piece of armor, repairing the item with itself costs an exponential increase of about 50-60% per repair, but after a certain point becomes too expensive to repair.

That's the point of mending, to ensure that repairing your tools doesn't become too expensive, but here's the problem: Infinity and Mending can't be put onto the same bow.

By having nothing but Infinity on your bow, the experience required to repair it goes through this pattern: 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - Too Expensive. This means that you can only repair your Infinity bow 5 times before needing a brand new infinity bow.

But what about other enchantments? A fully enchanted bow, one that contains Infinity, Unbreaking III, Power V, and Flame costs:

17 - 33 - Too Expensive

This means that you can only repair a fully enchanted Infinity Bow 2 times!

The viable solution to this problem would just be to allow both the Infinity and Mending enchantments to be put on the same bow. The counter argument for this tends to be "But if you had Mending and Infinity on the same bow that would allow you to repair it infinitely with XP." What about Mending on an item such as a Sword, Axe, or Trident? Those can be infinitely repaired with experience, that's the whole point of the Mending enchantment.

In short, something is going to have to change about the Infinity Bows. Having them become too expensive to repair renders the enchantment pointless.

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    Registered User commented
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    Totally agree with this post.

    It just doesn't make sense to not have infinity with mending.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Having just recently returned to this game and finding custom games no longer an option my whole view of playing has changed somewhat but I also understand a lot more about the why of certain mechanics.  Anyway, after just recently fishing up an infinity bow with about 15% health on it, yes I agree with you about the repair costs and should allow mending. 

    However, it is at the end of the day, a survival game which means nothing should last forever.  As much as I want my awesome loot and crafted items to last forever that completely goes against the whole spirit of a survival game.  If its was an MMORPG or FPS then yes loot should last forever but a game like this no.  The idea being do I use my really good stuff and wear it down or use the not so good stuff, that I can replace a lot quicker and easier and save the top tier stuff?

    Just my thoughts on the matter.  As much as I would love to have infinity and mending on a bow, kinda breaks the survival side.

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    Registered User commented
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    I have a fully enchanted bow with infinity, punch II, flame, power V, and unbreaking III. The repair first cost will be 9 levels. I used a web app to find the optimal enchantment order. I do think the infinity enchantment name is kind of gimmicky because it can only be used infinitely up until your bow becomes too expensive to repair. It would be more interesting and logical if you have to enchant the single arrow with infinity (would not work on stacks), then enchant your bow with mending.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    I agree, Mojang should fix this.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    It makes sense to me

    Either shoot infinitely until your bow breaks or

    shoot until you have no arrows left