How To Make Bows And Arrows In Minecraft

A ranged weapon like a bow is great to kill different mobs, like Creepers, Ravagers, and the Ender Dragon.

Although the bow is a simple and easily craftable weapon, the arrows vary. So, let’s take a look at how to craft a bow and arrows, along with some upgrades you can use on them.

Making a Bow and Arrows in Minecraft

Crafting a bow is easy, and you can also do so in the game’s early stages. All you’ll need is a string and some sticks to prepare a bow.

Collect three sticks and three pieces of string.
Open your crafting table and place three strings on the third column. The strings should take one space each.
Place one stick on the top and the middle space of the middle row and one on the middle of the first row.
You can then grab the bow from the right side.

Once you craft the bow, you will also need to make arrows. You will have to do a little bit of leg work as sticks are not the only resources you need.

Find gravel and mine them until you get an adequate amount of flint.
Look for chickens and kill them to grab the feathers. You can set up a chicken farm to get access to feathers easily.
Once you have enough sticks, feathers, and flints, head to the crafting table and open the crafting GUI.
Place the flint on top, the stick in the middle, and the feather on the bottom. You can then take the arrows and place them in your inventory.

You will get four arrows when you use one of each item. The more resources you use, the more arrows you can craft simultaneously.

Enchantments for a Bow in Minecraft

There are many enchantments you can add to your bow in Minecraft. But since there are so many, it can get confusing as to what you can or cannot add to your weapon. You can check out the list of enchants for a bow in the game and their description below.

Unbreaking: Unbreaking is a useful item that you can add to the bow (and other tools/armors) do increase its durability. It has three levels in total, and each level gives your item more durability than the other.
Mending: When added to your bow, Mending lets you mend it by using XP you gain. You can hold it off-hand while mining to use the XP to restore the item. The XP they drop can also repair your bow if you are using it while killing the mobs.
Infinity: In a nutshell, the Infinity enchant lets you shoot an infinite number of arrows. You need at least one arrow of any type in your inventory (not in the hot bar particularly), and your bow will continue to shoot the same kind of arrow numerous times until your bow breaks and disappears.
Flame: When you add this enchant to your bow, your bow will shoot flaming arrows every time. This flame adds the element of fire to even different types of tipped arrows.
Power: Power enchant on your bow increases the damage dealt on the mob. It has five enchantment levels; level 1 adds 50% damage, and each level increases the damages by 25%.
Punch: With this enchantment, you can add the knockback effect on the arrows you shoot from your bow. Knockback is the ability to push the enemy back. The first level lets you knock back the mobs by three blocks. The knockback distance increases by three blocks with each level upgrade.
Curse of Vanishing: Curse of vanishing is not very player-friendly as it makes the item disappear when the player dies. So if you have a cursed bow, you will lose the bow forever once you die.

Keep in mind that you cannot enchant the same bow with mending and infinity. The two enchants are not compatible with one another, and thus, you can only add one to a single bow.

What is a Spectral Arrow

Spectral arrows are gold-colored arrows made from glowstone dust. When you shoot a mob with this arrow, it gives them a glowing effect lasting ten seconds. This effect creates a white line around the mob, which you can see from behind any solid objects.

To craft a spectral arrow, you will need four glowstone dust and an arrow:

Place an arrow in the middle of the crafting table GUI.
Place the glowstone dust on every side of the arrow (top, bottom, left, right).
You can then grab the spectral arrow from the product section of the GUI.

Tipped Arrows in Minecraft

The special types of arrows in Minecraft instilled with different potions are called tipped arrows. You can craft them using various potions and arrows. There are 16 different types of tipped arrows in the game. They are:

Arrow of Harming
Arrow of Healing
Arrow of Leaping
Arrow of Poison
Arrow of Regeneration
Arrow of Strength
Arrow of Slowness
Arrow of Weakness
Arrow of Night Vision
Arrow of Fire Resistance
Arrow of Invisibility
Arrow of Water Breathing
Arrow of Turtle Master
Arrow of Swiftness
Arrow of Slow Falling (Java Edition Exclusive)
Arrow of Decay (Bedrock Edition Exclusive)

An important aspect of the tipped arrows is that they deplete your inventory even if your bow has infinity enchantment. Furthermore, you cannot craft arrows Slow falling and Luck in Bedrock and Java edition, respectively.

You cannot find the tipped arrows in the recipe book in survival mode. However, you can easily get them from the creative game mode’s GUI.

How to craft Tipped Arrows in Minecraft?

To craft tipped arrows, it’s important to prepare the potion for the type of effect you want. For an easier illustration, let us look at how to craft an arrow of Harming. We can divide the process into two parts. The first one is to prepare the lingering potion of Harming.

Craft Lingering Potion of Harming

First, brew your potion of harming the desired level using a fermented spider eye.
Brew it further to a splash potion of harming.
Use dragon’s breath on the input of the brewing stand and wait until the white bar is full. The dragon’s breath disappears once your splash potion turns into a lingering potion.

Crafting Arrow of Harming (Instant Damage)

Arrow of Harming does instant damage to whatever mob it hits. To craft it, simply follow these steps:

Fill all the spaces of the crafting table GUI except the middle space with normal arrows.
Place the lingering potion of harming in the middle of the arrows.
It will yield you eight arrows with the tipped effect called the arrow of Harming.

You can use this process to craft different lingering potions and use them to get tipped arrows of the same character as the potions. Additionally, it is best to remember that there are no recipes for tipped arrows in-game. Hence, you need to experiment by yourself or look them up online.