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Background

Protection, Fire Protection, Blast Protection, and Projectile Protection are all mutually exclusive enchantments in survival Minecraft. I just need some clarification of some comments in the official wiki to understand what happens when these are mixed and matched in multiple pieces of armor.

Conflict

In the wiki it states under each of these 4 enchantments

If multiple pieces have the enchantment, only the highest level's reduction is used.

The way I read the wiki it sounds like it is a waste to have 2 of the same protection enchantments.

However multiple posts claim that protection stacks with multiple pieces of armor. Example from minecraft wiki. Example from Stack Exchange.

Is the wiki wrong? Are the blog posts just old and no longer true? Am I misunderstanding the statement in the wiki?

Question

As protection reduces damage by 4% per level which of these is true?

  1. Protection IV on 2 pieces of armor will reduce the incoming damage by 16%
  2. Protection IV on 2 pieces of armor will reduce the incoming damage by 32%
  3. Neither, please explain my error in understanding.

I am asking in the context of Bedrock edition (Windows 10, Pocket Edition, Xbox). Though would be interested in hearing how it differs in java if at all.

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11
  • 2
    never trust a wiki
    – iVhagar
    Commented Jan 26, 2019 at 20:33
  • 1
    @Niffler Exactly, never trust a community-made wiki where anyone can write anything, despite it being carefully and thoroughly moderated. Instead, trust a community-made Q&A site where anyone can write anything, but at least it's carefully and thoroughly moderated! Wait…
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Jan 26, 2019 at 21:42
  • 2
    @FabianRöling The difference between this and a wiki is that here we are trying to help people and our rep, while wiki some people join to endlessly have fun ruining information. Here, everyone is checking the information we share, while a wiki is rarely edited or corrected back quickly enough for the false info not to hurt.
    – user173558
    Commented Jan 26, 2019 at 22:20
  • 1
    @FabianRöling I agree that multiple percent reductions may be progressive but they can also be raw additive. Retail often has issues with this kind of thing with coupons. Do you add the sale and coupon percentages or take the greater then the lesser slurpy reducing the total discount? The protection 4 is indeed 16% additive according to the wiki. However what I am looking for is will 2 protection 4s be 16%, 32% or 30.4% using your logic.
    – danielson317
    Commented Jan 27, 2019 at 5:26
  • 2
    A simple plugin that shows the final received damage (instead of X hearts) should help obtain very accurate data on the damage reduction details. Planning to work on that tomorrow.
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 27, 2019 at 17:10

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
7

The test

I hit my friend with different weapons, who is equipped with full diamond armor, but with different enchantment combinations. (e.g. Only Helmet is enchanted; Helmet and Chestplate; Only Leggings; etc.) I also wrote a tiny plugin that outputs the raw, adjusted damage received by a person and conducted multiple tests to determine the effects of enchantments on armor.

This is the plugin deployed on a Minecraft Java version server running on PaperSpigot 1.10.2 with API version 1.10.2.-R0.1-SNAPSHOT.

package com.fivefourdee.damagenotifier;

import org.bukkit.Bukkit;
import org.bukkit.event.EventHandler;
import org.bukkit.event.Listener;
import org.bukkit.event.entity.EntityDamageEvent;
import org.bukkit.plugin.java.JavaPlugin;

public class DamageNotifier extends JavaPlugin implements Listener{
    @Override
    public void onEnable(){
        Bukkit.getPluginManager().registerEvents(this,this);
    }
    @EventHandler
    public void onEntityDamage(EntityDamageEvent event) {
        event.getEntity().sendMessage(event.getCause().toString()+" > "+event.getFinalDamage());
    }   
}

The results

A Diamond Sword is used for the tests below.

Test 1.0: Base damage test

Gear                                            Raw damage / damage compared to base

Helmet
Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 1.8899998664855957  /  100.00%

Test 1.1: Multiple armor pieces owning the same Enchantment

Gear                                            Raw damage / damage compared to base

Protection IV Helmet
Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 1.5875999927520752  /  84.000%

Protection IV Helmet
Protection IV Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 1.2851998805999756  /  68.000%

Protection IV Helmet
Protection IV Chestplate
Protection IV Leggings
Boots                                                 0.9827998876571655  /  52.000%

Protection IV Helmet
Protection IV Chestplate
Protection IV Leggings
Protection IV Boots                                   0.6803998947143555  /  36.000%

Test 1.2: Same armor pieces owning different levels of same Enchantment

Gear                                            Raw damage / damage compared to base

Protection IV Helmet
Protection I Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 1.5119999647140503  /  80.000%

Protection IV Helmet
Protection II Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 1.4363999366760254  /  76.000%

Protection IV Helmet
Protection III Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 1.3607999086360005  /  72.000%

A Bow with minimum pull before release is used for the tests below. Minimum pull is used due to fluctuation of data if maximum pull is used instead, as seen below:

enter image description here

Test 2.0: Base damage test

Gear                                            Raw damage / damage compared to base

Helmet
Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 0.20999997854232788 /  100.00%

Test 2.1: Multiple armor pieces owning the same Enchantment

Gear                                            Raw damage / damage compared to base

Projectile Protection II Helmet
Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 0.17639999091625214 /  84.000%

Projectile Protection II Helmet
Projectile Protection II Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 0.1427999883890152  /  68.000%

Projectile Protection II Helmet
Projectile Protection II Chestplate
Projectile Protection II Leggings
Boots                                                 0.10919998586177826 /  52.000%

Projectile Protection II Helmet
Projectile Protection II Chestplate
Projectile Protection II Leggings
Projectile Protection II Boots                        0.07559999823570251 /  36.000%

Test 2.2: Same armor piece owning different levels of same Enchantment

Gear                                            Raw damage / damage compared to base

Protection II Helmet
Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 0.1931999772787094  /  92.000%

Protection II Helmet
Projectile Protection I Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 0.17639999091625214 /  84.000%

Protection II Helmet
Projectile Protection II Chestplate
Leggings
Boots                                                 0.15959997475147247 /  76.000%

The conclusion

In Java version, Protection Enchantments stack, and the mechanism is less complicated than you think. For each Protection Enchantment, the added damage reduction is linearly added to the total percentage (+4%). For each specific damage type Protection Enchantment, the added damage reduction is also linearly added to the total percentage (+8%).

Feel free to come up with more "what if" situations so I can directly test it and update the results here.

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9
  • This is brilliant. And proves the wiki is wrong. What about mixing protection with say projectile protection? Do they stack the same if you shoot someone with a bow?
    – danielson317
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:06
  • I’m going to go ahead and mark this as the answer. I would still like to see if bedrock is different but this is just too good to turn down.
    – danielson317
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:07
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    Considering the only big difference between Bedrock edition and Java edition in terms of combat is that Bedrock did not receive the combat update (i.e. spam click is possible in Bedrock), I doubt any differences exist, but since I cannot verify it with a credible source, I did not put that in my answer. I will add a test for bow soon.
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:18
  • I’m working on updating the wiki and I’m wondering if the statement in question does actually apply to fire protection and was errantly applied to the rest of the protection statements. Thoughts? I’d love to help with testing but I’ve never really modded Minecraft. So thanks for the hard work.
    – danielson317
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:24
  • Unfortunately, I have no idea on what the statement actually means. I always ignore those general conclusions and head for formulas as they are the most accurate.
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:40
-4

No, all enchanted books do not stack.

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2
  • 4
    Can you provide source? Also, the question asks if armor enchants stack, not enchantment books.
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 27, 2019 at 2:05
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    I think he is saying that enchanted books do not stack in your inventory. Which is not what the question asked but is true. You should probably delete this answer and get your reputation back as you appear to have misunderstood the question.
    – danielson317
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:09

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