What Does Quick Charge Do in Minecraft?

Quick Charge is one of the three enchantments exclusive to crossbows in vanilla Minecraft. Each enchantment level decreases the crossbow’s reloading time by 0.25 seconds, and you can have a maximum enchantment level of III. That adds up to a total of 0.75 seconds off the crossbow’s reloading time. Quick Charge is a great all-around crossbow enchantment, since it allows you to fire more shots in a specified time frame and it also works well with the other crossbow enchantments.

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What Benefits Does Quick Charge Give?

Quick Charge, as its name suggests, allows you to quickly reload your crossbow, increasing the speed per enchantment level. The crossbow in vanilla Minecraft is akin to the bow, albeit with more reloading time and higher damage and accuracy. The former is one of the weapon’s weaknesses, so being able to mitigate it can enhance your damage efficiency.

Quick Charge becomes even more impressive when it comes to its third enchantment level. At this point, Quick Charge III reduces a total of 0.75 seconds from your reloading time, dropping the original reloading time from 1.25 seconds to 0.5 seconds. This is faster than a full charge of the bow, which takes 1.1 seconds. When you take into account the fact that crossbows deal more damage than bows per shot, this can become a great increase in your DPS (damage per second).

Another thing is that while reloading, your speed is significantly reduced, which hampers your ability to reposition yourself to dodge enemy attacks. This puts you in a very vulnerable position while reloading. With reduced reloading times, you also reduce this time-window of weakness, putting you in a more advantageous position.

Another good thing with Quick Charge is the fact that it can coexist with the other two crossbow enchantments. Multishot and Piercing, the other two crossbow enchantments, are great enchantments by themselves, but both are mutually exclusive. That is to say that both can’t exist on a crossbow together. Meanwhile, Quick Charge can coexist with either Multishot and Piercing, which in turn enhances the crossbow even more.

Quick Charge as a crossbow enchantment does not directly increase your damage output. However, it improves the usability of your crossbow, allowing you to get a lot more out of your weapon, which makes it worth having on your crossbow.

Pairing with other Enchantments

Unlike Multishot which consumes more durability for less arrows used, and unlike Piercing whose effect does not apply to firework rockets, Quick Charge does not seem to have any weakness. However, the enchantment is admittedly weak on its own, but it becomes significantly better as a complementary enchantment to your other crossbow enchantments.

Multishot can be a perfect pair to Quick Charge, excelling in dealing damage to a large number of mobs. Since Multishot allows you to shoot more arrows per shot, pairing it with Quick Charge makes your crossbow a potent shooting weapon that can be very helpful when you’re surrounded by a lot of monsters.

Piercing also comes with its own merits when paired with Quick Charge. Piercing allows your shots to go through multiple targets, even enabling you to pierce through shields. With Quick Charge, you can make literal quick work of pesky skeleton mobs who rely too much on their wooden shields and even large mobs who happen to line up for your shot.

Downsides of Quick Charge

Although getting a lower reload time sounds like a great quality-of-life improvement for crossbow users, it ultimately becomes just that: an improvement to usability rather than a direct increase in damage. Quick Charge on lower enchantment levels does not stand out very well either, only getting the upper hand against bows on the third enchantment level. So if you’re not willing to dedicate enough time and resources to reach Quick Charge III, Quick Charge might not be worth it for you.

Additionally, the other crossbow enchantments might do you better in terms of fighting. Multishot drastically improves your damage against large mobs, and Piercing allows you to go through shields and thicker groups of mobs. Quick Charge does not provide any similar effect to the weapon, making it significantly weaker. Plus, you can gain tangible bonuses on those enchantments even on level 1.

Gain the Edge with Quick Charge

If your weapon of choice in the survival world of Minecraft is the crossbow, having Quick Charge on it would be a great enhancement to your fighting experience. If you find the base reload time of crossbows clunky to work around, or if you want to spend more time shooting and less time reloading, Quick Charge would be your go-to enchantment. Although the enchantment does not offer a lot on early levels, stacking it up and pairing it with the other enchantments would significantly improve your damage.