The Mace in Minecraft: How to Craft It and Use the Smash Attack

 

    The mace is a melee weapon whose defining trick is turning a fall into damage: it performs a smash attack that deals more damage the farther the user fell before hitting an entity, and a successful smash attack lets the user land without taking any fall damage that had built up before the hit. This guide covers what minecraft.wiki documents about the mace — crafting, normal-attack stats and durability, the smash attack's trigger and damage math, and its enchantments and wind-charge synergy — flagging anything the source doesn't specify rather than guessing at it.

 

Crafting the Mace: Heavy Core and Breeze Rod

 

 

    The mace is crafted from two ingredients placed in a vertical column: a Heavy Core in the top crafting slot and a Breeze Rod directly below it, producing one mace. Both ingredients are hard to get. The Breeze Rod comes from breezes. The Heavy Core is a rare block obtainable only from ominous vaults found in trial chambers, dropping there at a 7.5% chance — so a player should expect roughly 1 heavy core per 13–14 vaults opened on average (1 ÷ 0.075 ≈ 13.3), though each vault is an independent roll.

 

Normal Attacks, Attack Speed, and Durability

 

 

    On a normal (non-smash) attack at full cooldown, the mace deals 6 damage (♥×3). In Java Edition it has the slowest documented attack speed in our source, 0.6, a 1.667-second cooldown between full swings. That works out to 6 ÷ 1.667 ≈ 3.6 DPS, and with a critical hit's multiplier applied, 3.6 × 1.5 = 5.4 DPS — matching the source's own stated figures. Bedrock Edition maces have no attack cooldown at all. Attack range is 3 blocks in either edition.

 

    Durability is 500 in Java Edition and 501 in Bedrock Edition. Every attack, standard or smash, costs exactly 1 durability — there's no separate, higher cost for triggering a smash.

 

The Smash Attack: Trigger and Damage Scaling

 

 

    An attack becomes a smash attack when used after falling 1.5 blocks or more, regardless of the mace's own cooldown progress. The player must not be grounded, and — Java only — must not be in elytra flight. A connecting smash knocks back every entity within 2.5 blocks, is usually a critical hit, and cannot happen at all under the Slow Falling effect.

 

    Extra smash damage scales in three tiers: +4 damage per block (♥×2 each) for the first 3 blocks fallen, +2 per block (♥ each) for the next 5 blocks, and +1 per block (♥×0.5 each) for every block after that — with no documented ceiling, since the source calls the accumulation theoretically unlimited.

 

    Worked example for a 10-block fall: blocks 1–3 add 3 × 4 = 12; blocks 4–8 add 5 × 2 = 10; blocks 9–10 add 2 × 1 = 2. Total extra = 12 + 10 + 2 = 24, plus the 6 base damage = 30 total before crits — and since smashes are usually critical, 30 × 1.5 = 45 total with the bonus applied.

 

    A successful smash without touching the ground also resets the player's fall height to the point of impact, which is what nullifies fall damage built up to that point. Keep falling afterward, and damage starts accumulating again from that reset point.

 

Enchantments and Wind Charge Synergy

 

    Nine enchantments are documented for the mace. Density (max V) adds 0.5 smash damage per block fallen, per level. Breach (max IV) cuts target armor effectiveness by 15% per level. Wind Burst (max III) launches the attacker upward on a successful smash, chaining smashes together, with strength rising per level. Smite/Bane of Arthropods (both max V) boost damage to undead/arthropods respectively. Fire Aspect (max II) ignites hit targets. Unbreaking (max III) can negate durability loss; Mending (max I) repairs from experience; Curse of Vanishing (max I) makes the mace vanish rather than drop on death.

 

    Density, Breach, and Wind Burst are exclusive to the mace in our source. Within that group, Density, Breach, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods are mutually exclusive with each other.

 

    Wind Burst's launch scales at 8 blocks per level, max level 3: level 1 = 8, level 2 = 16, level 3 = 8 × 3 = 24 blocks. Unlike a thrown wind charge, Wind Burst alone doesn't negate fall damage.

 

    Wind charges tie back into ground-level smashing: thrown straight down, one launches the thrower ~6 blocks upward — enough to clear the 1.5-block threshold on the way back down. Fall damage only resumes once the player drops below the Y-level the burst originally hit. Wind charges are crafted from breeze rods at 1 rod = 4 charges, and burst into wind on impact, knocking nearby entities airborne.

 

Practical tips

• Craft from a Heavy Core (top slot) + Breeze Rod (bottom slot). The Heavy Core is the bottleneck: a 7.5% drop from ominous vaults.
• A smash needs a 1.5+ block fall, not grounded, (Java) not gliding, and fails outright under Slow Falling.
• Damage tiers: +4/block (blocks 1–3), +2/block (blocks 4–8), +1/block (beyond), no stated cap.
• A landed smash resets your fall height, wiping fall damage taken up to that point.
• Wind Burst (mace-exclusive, max III) launches 8 blocks per level — up to 24 at level 3 — for chained smashes.
• A downward wind charge throw launches ~6 blocks, enough to trigger a ground-level smash on the way down.

 

Running your own Minecraft server

 

    Testing mace builds — chaining Wind Burst smashes or comparing Java's cooldown against Bedrock's cooldown-free swings — is easier on a dedicated server the whole group can log into. Admin and console commands make it fast to spawn a Heavy Core or Breeze Rod to test an enchantment before farming the real drops, and server.properties/launch-argument settings let you tune render distance for testing tall smash-attack drops. Migrating an existing world onto a server works the same as always.

 

Conclusion

 

    The mace is crafted from a Heavy Core (a 7.5% drop from ominous vaults) and a Breeze Rod, deals 6 base damage at the slowest documented attack speed in the game (Java: 0.6, 1.667s cooldown, 3.6 DPS / 5.4 crit; Bedrock: no cooldown), and carries 500 (Java) or 501 (Bedrock) durability at 1 point per attack. Its smash attack needs a 1.5-block-or-greater fall and scales +4/block, then +2/block, then +1/block, with no documented cap, while wiping accumulated fall damage on a hit. Nine enchantments are documented, three of them mace-exclusive, and Wind Burst's 8-blocks-per-level launch pairs with wind charges to chain smashes from the ground.

 

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