Piercing

Piercing
Maximum level	IV
Primary items
Secondary items	None
Enchantment weight	10
Incompatible with	Multishot

Piercing is an enchantment applied to crossbows that causes fired arrows to pierce entities, allowing a single arrow to hit multiple mobs and allowing arrows to be picked up again after hitting a target.

Obtaining

Piercing 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

Arrows shot from a Piercing crossbow can pass through the number of entities equal to the enchantment level (for a total of level + 1 entities damaged). The shot arrows can still be retrieved after piercing a mob, allowing for infinite use of all arrow types, including spectral arrows and tipped arrows. Arrows do not change direction upon piercing a mob, meaning they hit only mobs in the line of flight.

Piercing ignores shields even when they are blocking.

Piercing does not ignore:

The shell of a closed shulker
The wither's 'wither armor' when it reaches half-health
A breeze's wind armor

In all these cases, the arrow bounces off like normal.

Piercing has no effect on firework rockets fired from a crossbow.

If commands are used to increase the enchantment level beyond 127, the piercing effect stops working and hits only one mob instead.

Piercing also affects arrows shot from a bow if applied using commands or an anvil in Creative mode.

Arrows shot from a Piercing crossbow cannot hit the same mob twice, and will pass through previously hit mobs.

Incompatibilities

Piercing and Multishot are mutually exclusive. However, if combined using commands, both enchantments function as normal, with the two arrows added by the Multishot enchantment getting the effect as well.

Advancements

Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
Arbalistic	Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot	Armor Stand also counts for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
Enchanter	Enchant an item at an Enchanting Table	Insert an item in an enchanting table, then apply an enchantment.
Two Birds, One Arrow	Kill two Phantoms with a piercing Arrow	Use a crossbow enchanted with to kill two phantoms with a single arrow shot.

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Translation key
Piercing	`piercing`	`enchantment.minecraft.piercing`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Piercing	`piercing`	`34`	`enchantment.crossbowPiercing`

History

Java Edition
September 29, 2018		Announced the Piercing enchantment as the "SUPER SECRET ENCHANTMENT" at MINECON Earth 2018.
1.14	18w43a	Added Piercing enchantment.
1.20.5	24w09a	Piercing now works on bows if placed onto the weapon using data manipulation or a change to the `enchantable/*` tags.
Bedrock Edition
1.8.0 Experiment Experimental Gameplay	beta 1.8.0.10	Added the Piercing enchantment, which is currently behind Experimental Gameplay.
1.10.0	beta 1.10.0.3	The Piercing enchantment is available outside of Experimental Gameplay.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90		Added the Piercing enchantment.

Issues

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