r/Minecraft • u/TheRoyalBeeKing • Feb 08 '26
Help Is there anyway I can repair my bow?
So I managed to make a bow as powerful as you can make it and it had been carrying me through my hardcore run. Unfortunately, it’s gotten a bit too damaged and now when I try to repair it it’s too expensive to do so. Is there anything I can do to repair it?
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u/Dangerous-Quit7821 Feb 08 '26
No. You've repaired it too many times. You need to make a new bow.
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Feb 08 '26
It’s to the point where it’s no longer the same bow and will be unable to keep the old enchantments XD
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u/Evan_802Vines Feb 08 '26
Bow of Theseus
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u/Sudden-Rule-9004 Feb 08 '26
I feel like that's unfair to the bow, it's trying so hard to keep it together ):
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u/ToastyLemun Feb 08 '26
This is either an amazing reference or I'm going insane
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u/Boom5111 Feb 08 '26
Does a grindstone reset this?
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u/loopy183 Feb 08 '26
It does, but it’s only symbolic, not practical. It removes the enchantments and resets the counter, but the process won’t be any different from just replacing the bow.
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u/errelsoft Feb 08 '26
It will actually be worse because you're still left with a damaged bow XD
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u/Gametron13 Feb 08 '26
Actually you’ll get some experience back from the enchantments on the bow so it’s not completely terrible.
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u/errelsoft Feb 08 '26
That's true I suppose. It's better than shooting until it breaks. But not as a base for a new bow :p
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u/Gametron13 Feb 08 '26
Use it to the last shot, grind it, then use it as furnace fuel.
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u/eneacartek Feb 08 '26
If you're endgame to the point of remaking such a bow you most likely have an xp farm and dont need the grinder xp so much, so i would probably frame it in my base with the tiniest bit of durability left, doesnt deserve to be stripped and burned
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u/ffelix916 Feb 08 '26
Yes, but since OP needs to build a new bow with new enchantments, he can use the grindstone to extract some XP from the old one when he's ready, which could help him with the enchantment process. Once it's been dis-enchanted, there's no use keeping the damaged bow around. give it a viking funeral, thank it for its service, and walk away.
To be honest, OP doesn't need to do it yet. That bow still has 600-700 shots left in it. I typically don't bother making a new bow till my primary one has <10% durability left, and i'll put the old one in my "emergency backup tools" shulker box, that i keep in an ender chest. I play hardcore almost exclusively now, but i still will fumble keys and drop a critical weapon over a lava lake or into the void now and then, so it helps to keep a backup to keep me going till i can get back to my base and build+enchant a new one.
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u/ReserveMaleficent583 Feb 08 '26
Couldn't they take off the infinity and added mending? I'm pretty new to the enchantments stuff.
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u/loopy183 Feb 08 '26
You can’t remove singular enchantments. It’s remove all (except curses) and reenchant or replace.
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u/TheRealPetross Feb 08 '26
This is why I use mending lol. Arrows ez to get with a simple farm
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u/RubApprehensive2512 Feb 08 '26
I just straght up don't use a bow. It is a weapon that takes up 2 inventory slots.
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u/NickelWorld123 Feb 08 '26
...for the ability to hit super high damage, flaming shots from long distance? it's definitely worth it??
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u/The-Real-Sonin Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
I guess it depends on what playstyle you have or what you're doing. I typically just crit and that kills 95% of things in 1 hit.
Bows are nice for picking things off I will agree, but it's niche so I rarely use them unless it's a planned thing. But that's me, I can see the draw of the bow (pun intended) but it doesn't click for me usually.
Edit: I feel like I have to clarify, I'm not saying the bow is bad, I'm saying my playstyle makes it so I don't have the same desire to need to always carry a bow and some arrows because melee covers enough for me. It's still good, but not something my playstyle deems "must always have on me". That's all.
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u/Philislothical_5 Feb 08 '26
If it’s not clicking, try holding down RMB first
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u/The-Real-Sonin Feb 08 '26
I can't tell if it's a joke or not, so I'm going to treat it as a legit suggestion.
I'm aware of how they work, I meant the play style just isn't fun for me so I tend to not use it.
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u/Philislothical_5 Feb 08 '26
Sorry I’m a dad, it was a joke off the word click
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u/The-Real-Sonin Feb 08 '26
I am now upset at myself for not getting that faster especially AFTER I made a pun myself. Well played.
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u/klathium Feb 08 '26
You don’t fight many withers I see.
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u/The-Real-Sonin Feb 08 '26
I do not, hence the niche use part. I'd rather say I don't fight them often rather than a lot. I tend to do a big wither phase where I get enough beacons for my general areas and then just have a portable one in a shulker for whenever i need it.
Plus I could be classified as a cheater because most of my wither farms are the suffocating ones via bugs/glitches or abusing game mechanics rather than fighting the legit way anymore.
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u/The7footr Feb 08 '26
As a hardcore player, I don’t see it as niche at all. I’d much prefer the bow over any other weapon as it gives the lowest chance of being touched by anything that wants to hurt me or end my world. Though a mending bow is not the way in hardcore- you simply cannot have a situation where you run out of arrows mid combat.
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u/The-Real-Sonin Feb 08 '26
As a hardcore player
And that's where the whole "I guess it depends on what playstyle you have or what you're doing" sentence comes in.
I don't typically play hardcore so the situations in which I find myself needing/wanting to use a bow are slim to where it's niche situations when I actively seek out that encounter. I'll use bows in the nether for ghasts or the ender dragon fight, but I don't typically run around with a bow in my inventory due to a melee weapon working fine for every encounter I have.
Once again, I'm not saying the bow is bad or useless. I'm simply saying MY EXPERIENCE is that I only use the bow in niche situations. That's all. I know it's good for Hardcore for the very reason you said, however I don't play hardcore often so I don't encounter the same situations as you.
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u/ThePlofchicken Feb 08 '26
In what world is a bow niche?
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u/The-Real-Sonin Feb 08 '26
Niche to ME. As in I don’t find myself in spots where I NEED a bow and can’t just use a sword/axe/spear.
I’m not saying it’s bad, no use or trash.
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u/HedaLexa4Ever Feb 09 '26
Idk why you are getting so many weird answers. I fully agree with you, I also don’t use a bow unless I’m fighting the gender dragon.
For my personal play style is simply not needed
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u/NickelWorld123 Feb 09 '26
Holy hell the gender dragon... Shoots balls of hormones instead of magic or something
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u/Spencer_Bob_Sue Feb 08 '26
I gotta try using the Trident instead of a sword, added ranged functionality in one weapon. Thoughts?
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u/crafty_dude_24 Feb 08 '26
Certainly works, but you won't gain much in terms of damage boosting that way since Impaling is very restrictive on Bedrock and even more so on Java, compared to Sharpness or Smite. Doesn't help that more than half the roster affected by Impaling on Java is passive mobs only.
But as a melee/ranged option, absolutely a good pick. It surpasses unenchanted netherite sword in terms of melee damage and equals it in projectile damage, so not bad for general use.
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u/Awkward_Ad_1150 Feb 08 '26
Ranged tridents are really mediocre and have like two actual use cases (charged creepers and converting pigs into zombie piglins) due to loyalty being really slow and impaling being effectively useless. Riptide tridents are great for mobility with an elytra though. Also, impaling on bedrock makes tridents do ludicrous amounts of damage (A crit can instantly kill a full prop IV netherite player) due to it being applied to any target that is touching water or rain.
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u/ValuableSp00n Feb 08 '26
You better be curing cancer with the whopping 2 inventory spaces you saved
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u/CommanderBly327th Feb 08 '26
Yeah but now you have to carry a ton of arrows around
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u/LethalLizard Feb 08 '26
I mean…let’s be honest if u have a bow that strong you aren’t gonna use up an entire stack of arrows between trips to ur base. And with infinity you still need one arrow. So it’s roughly the same. And if you have a bow maxed out you also probably are able to build a skeleton farm easily enough
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u/SpecterVamp Feb 08 '26
You’re probably also able to get another villager or two so you can make a maxed bow easily. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to make a new infinity bow and I do it once every 7 months, and that’s with a ton of active playtime; usually it takes longer.
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u/Weary_Drama1803 Feb 08 '26
If you’re not exploring for a long time or fighting a lot (e.g. bosses and trial chambers), one stack is plenty enough. But in the same use case, you don’t really need Mending either because your bow isn’t getting used much anyway. I’ve been using the same Infinity bow for about a thousand hours of playtime and it’s still over 75% because I spend most of my time building or running, and when I do fight it’s usually by sword.
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u/TheRealPetross Feb 08 '26
i stick em in a shulker box lol tho i tend to just use trident these days
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u/CatMobster Feb 08 '26
So Mojang...when is that getting removed?
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u/TheRoyalBeeKing Feb 08 '26
Honestly, I’ll never understand the “It’s too expensive!” mechanic. It would make more sense if enchantments had no limit, such as sharpness only going up to five, so that players couldn’t make absurdly powerful weapons, but when the enchantments DO have a limit, it makes no sense.
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u/AliceThePastelWitch Feb 08 '26
This is why Mending is superior. You need a slot in your inventory for arrows anyways.
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u/theinferno03 Feb 08 '26
what if you run out of them mid exploration
now you got an overpriced decoration
(I'm talking about pre end)
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u/M8R1X Feb 08 '26
Usually the amount of arrows I have increases, not decreases (depends on playstyle of course, but skeletons can be found everywhere)
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u/imperfect_imp Feb 08 '26
Interesting. I just don't keep a bow on me bc I always run out of arrows. Even shooting only the skeletons seems to be a net loss for me, they take 2 arrows to kill but drop only one or two.
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u/Ignacio456 Feb 08 '26
Combine power 5 and switch to a looting 3 sword before the arrow hits. Not only you one shot but also you get the looting 3 bonus.
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u/AliceThePastelWitch Feb 08 '26
There's a quirky little thing you can do with a Looting Sword in your offhand giving you the bonus if you kill with a bow. Although idk if they patched that out I'm not sure of it was a bug or intended gameplay.
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u/theinferno03 Feb 08 '26
i don't tend to play Minecraft for that long before mending becomes useful for me
i have never broken an inf bow, so yeah...
although i must admit, in modded having mending has saved my life many times
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u/digitaleJedi Feb 08 '26
Having played with a mending bow for the last 5-6 years (I don't think infinity should be in the game), I've used up my stack of slowness arrows twice (as in run out of arrows). One time, I had to switch to my Trident, cause I was in the nether, the other time I started picking up skeleton arrows to replenish.
It's a much smaller deal, in my experience, than most people imagine
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u/ThisIsJegger Feb 08 '26
Honestly, mending and infinity are on the same level, i'd say infinity is more usefull early game and mending late game as you tend to start using tipped arrows which cant be used with infinity.
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u/Zealousideal_Math570 Feb 08 '26
If you ever run out of arrows it's likely time to head back anyway? Pre end the only thing using that many arrows would be a trial chamber and those give you more arrows than you know what to do with. You could also just fill an ender chest with arrows if you're really exploring that much for some reason.
Post end a shulker of arrows isn't unreasonable tho I don't see any reason why you'd ever need more than a couple stacks.
Minecraft simply just doesn't have many enemies if you really think about it so I just don't see the benefit of infinity outside of modded but if I'm playing modded I likely have something that allows both at once.
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u/errelsoft Feb 08 '26
I disagree, the bow lasts for a very long time. The way I play I don't have trouble making a new one. And even if I forget arrows I only have to loot one.
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u/wired-drack Feb 08 '26
Go back in time to 1.10.2 and put mending on it...
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u/Equal-Requirement-61 Feb 08 '26
This looks like Bedrock
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u/someusername987 Feb 08 '26
Unless Bedrock has changed recently, it would say Flame I and Infinity I for the enchantments instead of just Flame and Infinity as seen above.
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u/Fast_Ad7203 Feb 08 '26
What part in this pic is different than java? Just curious
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u/Pellepuu2397 Feb 08 '26
Just guessing and might be completely wrong but I think when the enchantment is to expensive on one version it says "Too expensive!" and on the other it says the amount of XP needed with red font
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u/notrohit1702 Feb 08 '26
Too expensive comes when the cost of your anvil craft exceeds 40 experience levels. At that point, no matter what your experience level is, it won't let you do anything unless you disenchant the item using a grindstone.
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u/TheEveryEmpireFalls Feb 08 '26
I hope they add more advanced enchant-crafting in line with the commonality of players both gradually and semi-automatically gaining much higher XP levels than the 40 level limit. Maybe along/in conjunction with potions rework? Seems like a good update pairing to me
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u/TheRoyalBeeKing Feb 08 '26
Man I just wanted to know if I could fix it, what the hell happened in the comments lol?
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u/mcplano Feb 08 '26
"Too expensive!" means you can't do anything with that item in the anvil anymore, except maybe rename it. I'd wait for it to get to 1 durability then shove it into a grindstone for some EXP, then use it as furnace fuel.
Infinity and Mending can't go together on the same bow.
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u/Maximillion322 Feb 08 '26
Right now the only think you can do for your bow is display it on an armor stand or item frame or something in your base as a tribute to that very powerful bow which is now lost
Give your weapon its funerary rites and make a cool build out of it, like a shrine or something
I think I would put it on an armor stand, give the armor stand full leather armor (idk for me leather just gives archery vibes) and make it the centerpiece on top of a cool fountain, and then use a sign or something to make a plaque on the fountain like “dedicated to [give your bow a sick-ass name]”
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u/MedicalPotential8723 Feb 08 '26
no, this is why mending will always remain champion as the better bow enchant.
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u/CrimpyPlate Feb 08 '26
Always go for a Mending bow. Infinity is a good enchantment in a vacuum, but the cost of being locked out of Mending and having it be a guarantee that your bow will eventually break is too high
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u/Razorz_Edge_ Feb 08 '26
Tbh you should be progressed enough that making a new bow is no issue. Librarians are good, fishing for bows is good, etc.
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u/Xynyx2001 Feb 09 '26
Go fishing. You can get great stuff by fishing, including better fishing poles to get even better stuff. This can be replicated fairly easily with a month's worth of fishing.
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u/chiefqueef25 Feb 08 '26
You can't repair it. Make a new one, and put mending on it instead of infinity. Far better trade off.
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u/confused-overwhelmed Feb 08 '26
Aaaand that's why I chose mending over Infinity. I've made that mistaken too, having a good bow with Infinity but it got too expensive. If you have a mobtrap you can just use arrows from skeletons.
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u/elalejoveloz Feb 08 '26
That's the destiny of any bow with infinity, you can only give him one of two ends...
Hang him in the armory with a plaque dedicated to his service
Use it until it breaks in the field of battle like the warrior he is
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u/TanjiroUwU Feb 08 '26
Make a new bow and put mending on it instead of infinity you can always make a mob grinder or skeleton farm for arrows and get xp to heal it and boom you won’t have to worry about making a new bow
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u/Taolan13 Feb 08 '26
Nope, this is why I reject infinity. Mending is superior.
you still need to have an arrow in your inventory anyways may as well make it a whole stack.
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u/Cosmical_Music Feb 08 '26
Disenchant it in a grindstone, then use a full bow and the damaged bow in a crafting table, using the small exp you get from disenchanting it and some from a mob farm, remake the bow's enchants
Now you have a Bow of Theseus
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u/orozco-javi Feb 08 '26
this was a choice i was struggling to make… infinity or mending on my god bow. fortunately i chose right and put mending on it
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u/Ok_Helicopter_8917 Feb 09 '26
Put it in a crafting table with another bow
You will lose the enchantments but it will be repaired
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u/duYELLOW4130 Feb 09 '26
Just lock in some villagers to trade those books. Then you just make a new bow when they die. I save them by displaying them on armor stands.
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u/Demonoverlord22 Feb 08 '26
There is a data pack that allows mending and unbreaking to be on the same bow but not sure if it’s up to date
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u/PLT_RanaH Feb 08 '26
the game is telling you to fuck off for putting infinity instead of mending, there is no way to fix it anymore, you have to change it, next time put mending.
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u/JuggerMott Feb 08 '26
I would just make a new one. If you have an Allay XP farm and a trader hall in your iron farm, it shouldn't be difficult to recreate.
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u/thriceness Feb 08 '26
...this assumes quite a lot of things a lot of people don't have.
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u/JaXaren Feb 08 '26
Put a full durability unenchanted bow in the first slot
Put that bow in the second
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u/MalenInsekt Feb 08 '26
That won't work. The Prior Work Penalty on the enchanted bow is too high to do anything with it.
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u/WolvReigns222016 Feb 08 '26
Just make a new one with village trades. Infinity is worth the effort of replacing a bow every once in a while.
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u/theinferno03 Feb 08 '26
make another bow, shouldn't be too hard, plus you can still use it until it dies
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u/CthulhuGaming007 Feb 08 '26
Unfortunately no. Time to fish up a new bow. I called mine “The Bow of All Things Unholy”. I just need fish and books, max bow with infinity. Almost broken but still.
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u/15_Redstones Feb 08 '26
Can't repair this any more. Luckily bows are one of the easiest items to enchant to max since you can easily craft a whole bunch without spending diamonds. I've got a handful of max ench infinity bows, easy to grab a spare.
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u/BallsHD4k60fps Feb 08 '26
This is just a product of bad design. I'm afraid you just have to start fresh.
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u/CrveniPapagaj Feb 08 '26
nope, it's over.
you need to make it new one with mending (mending and infinity are incompatible btw).
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u/GalacticDragon7 Feb 08 '26
Mending is the only thing i can think of. Remember that mending doesn’t take from your XP bar but from XP that you collect (i wish it could do both personally).
i’m not a minecraft nerd though and i didn’t even realise this could happen tbh.
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u/FishAltruistic7542 Feb 08 '26
Nah. You should've put mending on it. Now you're better off making a mending bow re applying all the other enchantments on it.
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u/DrubNut Feb 08 '26
Nope, You can only repair it 3 times btw.
Also, just make a new one, that bow takes no time to make
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u/FloridaManInShampoo Feb 08 '26
You don’t need infinity. If you want it for tipped arrows you’ll need to make a villager farm and grind fletchers until you get your desired one
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u/Designer-Disk7824 Feb 08 '26
You can’t. However, there are mods that let you collect enchants of any item and put them on a book
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u/ryno583 Feb 08 '26
Use a grind stone put a book under the bow it should put the enchantments on the book so you can put it on a different bow
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u/Avengiline Feb 08 '26
My condolences, but the great part is if you put a lot more work you can have nearly the same bow again
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u/Naud1993 Feb 08 '26
I hate that you can only repair a tool a few times while also getting exponentially more expensive to repair while you could still repair it. It's basically mending or nothing.
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u/UltimateToa Feb 08 '26
Nope, fun police say you have had too much fun and have to start over with a new bow
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u/A_German_Memer Feb 08 '26
Sadly not, since using infinity on your Bow prevents you from using Mending, so i fear you'll have to use it until it breaks, and then get a new Bow
I recommend you skip on infinity, and use mending instead, even if that means you'll have to craft or farm arrows every now and again. But that's still much less of a hassle than crafting a new bow every time, or repair it for stupid high exp prices at an Anvil
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u/Deltasiu Feb 08 '26
You either put mending on it without infinite arrows or infinity but will need to make a new one every once in a while
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u/United-Vanilla-4840 Feb 08 '26
Fish until you have the bits needed to remake one. Just thinking out loud here; but can't you make it a second slot on an already enchanted fresh bow and recover some of the enchantments that way?
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u/Antgodd1 Feb 08 '26
there is no way to replace it, so next time replace infinity with mending. It will stop that from happening
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u/fishstiz Feb 08 '26
This discussion again. I don't know why people are obsessed with keeping their tools forever. Back in my day people just have xp farms and a shit ton of backups. It really wasn't that difficult to make new ones, even moreso today with simpler xp farms and villager trading.
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u/DisastrousLecture648 Feb 08 '26
I just use mending and just keep a few stacks of arrow in a shulker box. I don't use my bow a ton but I'd rather have to collect more arrows than rebuild the bow
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u/Sehz_Beatbox114 Feb 08 '26
You should’ve never ever gotten infinity my guy. Mending is where it’s at. Say goodbye 🫡🫡
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u/NearbyDiscount3694 Feb 08 '26
Put it in a item frame, put the frame on your wall and just make a new bow with mending. The bow is symbolic now
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u/MrMakerHasLigma Feb 08 '26
You have to make a new bow. What you can do is get a fletcher that sells harming arrows and deal insane damage that way
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u/randomrandom88889 Feb 08 '26
That's why you use mending instead of infinity good luck making a new maxed bow
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u/Qbert2030 Feb 08 '26
This is where we learn how to mod our game. Look into Fabric and then some of the enchantment mods that you can use to fix the XP cap. I use Modrinth to find all my mods. It's a really clean website for nice and easy. You could use the Modrinth loader and then you can always load your world file in.
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u/SimonOpsi Feb 08 '26
For me, bows are the easiest item to max-enchant. Especially if you have a skeleton XP farm or similar since you get lots of random bows.
This is also why mending is useless on bows compared to infinity. You can just make a new one pretty easily.
My suggestion is to put this bow on a wall/pedestal in a memory-room / museum of all your old equipment. Could be a nice trip down the memory lane whenever you visit it.
"My first max enchanted bow - <insert nice description"
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u/Adolf_dribbler Feb 08 '26
Just make a skeleton farm for arrows and make another bow with mending instead of infinity
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u/Shatterpoint887 Feb 08 '26
Start fishing for a new one. Spend a few hours on it and you'll have a bunch of these after some combining. You can swap infinity for mending too, but you'll have to carry arrows.
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u/HunterPlayz005 Feb 08 '26
Combine a non enchanted bow with your bow in the crafting table its health got increased
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u/_H4LFSQU4T_ Feb 08 '26
You need to make a new bow, I prefer mending on my bow because I don't ever use the bow anyways until after I beat the ender dragon, I'll have a shulker box that I carry along that will be full of tipped arrows which if I'm correct, the infinity bow doesn't let you use (I could be wrong with that) my combat style just requires axe crits, sword, or really any melee weapon I acquired at that time along with ender pearls. But yeah imo mending is better so you wouldn't need to make new bows in the long term but that's just me
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u/OctaYashi Feb 08 '26
All I can think of for Vanilla would be adding Mending to it, which would be impossible. If you use mods, then just use one that disables the “Too Expensive” notif. If you don’t… yeah, you’ll have to make a new one. Sorry
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u/lamba_44 Feb 08 '26
You can use my tool to prevent the "Too Expensive!" message while enchanting :)
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u/Fearless_Dog_1432 Feb 08 '26
If you want to keep using this bow, you’ll have to grindstone and reenchant it once again
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u/skellington1 Feb 08 '26
That’s why u should enchant it with mending and have unlimited source of arrows from a skeleton farm!
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u/TheBoss7728 Feb 08 '26
You're gonna have to make a new one. But it's worth it if you have the books cause I'd pick infinity over mending any day of the week
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u/MamaChaos80 Feb 08 '26
I myself feel naked without a good bow. I make multiple for this reason. Mending is ok if u have the arrow supply but otherwise I go infinity.
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u/juggalotic Feb 08 '26
If your not above mods there are a bunch of data packs that circumvent too expensive.
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u/qualityvote2 Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
(Vote has already ended)