What Does Aqua Affinity Do in Minecraft? – Aqua Affinity Explained

It may not have missed your notice that in deep water, mining and breaking blocks in Minecraft gets to be a bit more difficult. Venturing down into the deep blue to challenge the Temples gets to be near impossible with both the mobs there slowing you down and the water resistance fighting you. In addition to taking breathing into account, there’s another Enchantment you should look into before going diving.

Related: How to Read the Minecraft Enchanting Table Language

What is Aqua Affinity in Minecraft?

There is an encyclopedia of Enchantments in Minecraft with all kinds of effects. To best prepare yourself for adventuring, battling, and spelunking, you can use these Enchantments to ante-up your armor. There are some, like Aqua Affinity, that can only be added onto helmets because of their peculiar use. Like Respiration, Aqua Affinity is meant to help out with underwater effects that can drastically change a player’s ability to do normal actions once their head is under. 

Aqua Affinity neutralizes the effects that water can have on a player, once again restoring their pace with mining and breaking blocks. With Aqua Affinity on a helmet, you won’t have to worry about being slowed down when digging or spelunking for treasures in the Underwater Temples. However, being underwater will negate being slowed when mining, but if you are floating, then you will still have your pace reduced. Aqua Affinity does not play when the player is floating, but as long as you are settled on a block, you can continue mining as normal

How to Get Aqua Affinity in Minecraft

Helmets don’t come preinstalled with Aqua Affinity, so here are a few ways to get the Enchantment and the bare minimum experience levels you need when using an Enchanting Table.

Enchanting Table

As a standard Enchantment, you don’t need to max your Enchanting Table in order to get Aqua Affinity on your Helmet. Even providing the bare minimum of one bookshelf to your Enchanting Table is enough to pull up Aqua Affinity on the Enchanting Menu. Depending on your Enchantment Table, chances of pulling up Aqua Affinity can be quite difficult as it is randomized what kind of Enchantment will pull up in the Table. You can either use a ton of Helmets trying to get Aqua Affinity, or use a method of putting Enchantments on Books instead.

I found it to be much easier to go through books instead of Helmets. If you don’t see Aqua Affinity pull up for one or two level cost, then you can remove the Enchanting Table and place it back down again. This should reset your chances of what type of Enchantments you should get. Or, you can go through a few books since it never hurts to stockpile Enchantments for later. I found it much easier to pull up the Enchantment with one Bookshelf and recommend it to players to set your Enchanting Table with a single Bookshelf to keep Level Cost low and Aqua Affinity chances high.

Villager Trading

As a higher advanced Enchantment, you’ll likely need to level up your Villager before being able to find one that will trade Aqua Affinity. At around Level 4, you can Trade with the Librarian, the Armorer, and the Leatherworker to try and get a helmet with Aqua Affinity.

Related: Best Ways to Get the Mending Enchantment in Minecraft

Spelunking

As always, treasure is a great way to find Enchanted Items. Treasure chests can be found just about anywhere in places like Strongholds, Dungeons, Temples, and Mineshafts. While the types of items that can be found are just as randomized as Enchantments, you may find that it could be easier to find enchanted books while seeking out Treasure and Resources. And yes, even in Underwater Temples.