Knockback

Knockback
Maximum level	II
Primary items
Secondary items
Enchantment weight	5

Knockback is an enchantment applied to swords that increases melee knockback.

Obtaining

Knockback can be obtained from enchantment tables, drops from mobs that have spawned in a raid,‌ books obtained by fishing, monster room chests, librarian villagers, and non-village structure loot.

Usage

Any weapon enchanted with Knockback upon hitting an entity creates an additional knockback-like effect, along with regular knockback. This knockback-like effect horizontally pushes the entity in the direction the player is looking, rather then directly away from the player. This horizontal push starts at 1.552 blocks and increases by 2.586 blocks with each level of Knockback. Knockback also changes the amount entities are pushed vertically by a weapon swing from 0.8125 blocks to 1 block and unlike the horizontal push it also applies to entities damaged by sword's sweeping attack and takes neither the direction the player is looking at nor the player's position relative to the entity into account, it always pushes the entity along the Y coordinate, If the attack is blocked by a shield, the knockback effect doesn't apply.‌ The knockback effect still applies even if the attack is blocked by a shield.‌

When using commands to increase the Knockback level beyond two, the limit on the amount of knockback that a player can take is much less than the amount of knockback that any other entity can take.

In Java Edition, players can hit armor stands back with the Knockback enchantment, but not in Bedrock Edition.

Sprinting while using a sword enchanted with Knockback has the same effect as having a sword with 1 level higher Knockback, while sprinting using a weapon without Knockback enchantment has the same effect as having it enchanted with Knockback I.

As with regular knockback, entity isn't pushed at all if all the damage of an attack is negated by damage immunity.

By default in Minecraft, if the attacking players are sprinting, they deal more knockback to the damaged ones. This is the reason of PvP movement-related actions like W-tapping (sprint reset). Damaged players start receiving less knockback while they are in the air.

In a combat situation where two players are moving, the horizontal knockback received is multiplied by 0.6 (reduced by 40%) if the attacker send an attack packet and is moving forward. It does not stack.

Sword enchanted with Knockback wielded by a mob works as it would if player was wielding it.

Resistant mobs

Iron golems are unaffected by knockback from normal attacks, but are affected by knockback from enchantments.
Squids and glow squids are resistant to knockback when outside of water.
Wardens and shulkers are completely unaffected by knockback.
Agents and NPCs are invulnerable and completely unaffected by knockback.

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Translation key
Knockback	`knockback`	`enchantment.minecraft.knockback`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Knockback	`knockback`	`12`	`enchantment.knockback`

History

Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3				Added Knockback, which can be applied to swords.
1.9			15w45a				The Knockback is now correctly impacted by knockback resistance.
Java Edition Combat Tests
4							Knockback can now be applied to axes.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.12.1			build 1				Added Knockback.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU7	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added Knockback.

Issues

Issues relating to "Knockback" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

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