What does the Luck of the Sea Do?

Having Luck of the Sea on your fishing rod increases your luck while fishing.

The Luck of the Sea is an enchantment exclusive to the fishing rod. As the name suggests, a fishing rod with the Luck of the Sea enchantment gains increased “luck” of getting “treasure” loot from fishing. The enchantment maxes out at the Luck of the Sea III, which already gives you more than double the chances of getting valuable loot from fishing.

It should be noted that although the Luck of the Sea has the name “sea” in it, the enchantment works wherever you can fish.

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The Luck of the Sea

Luck of the Sea has a maximum level of III.

Fishing in Minecraft allows you to get any one item from these three main categories: fish, treasure, and junk. The chances of getting them are as follows: 85%, 5%, and 10%, respectively. You have twice the chance of getting junk items compared to treasure items, which is obviously not favorable.

With the Luck of the Sea, your chances of getting treasure items are increased by subsequently reducing the chances of getting junk items (also fish, but only by a small margin).

Specifically, each level of the Luck of the Sea increases the chance for treasure loot by about 2%, and decreases the chance for junk loot by about 2% and fish loot by about 0.15%.

If you are trying to take your chances at fishing for valuable items, the Luck of the Sea is the perfect enchantment to make your fishing sessions more efficient.

What are the Available Fishing Loot?

As stated above, there are three categories of items that you can get from fishing in vanilla Minecraft. The chances of getting some specific items are not static across other biomes, but they are more or less similar.

The categories of fishing loot are as follows:

Fish Loot

There are four fish loot that you can get while fishing.

Fish loot includes all fish that you can get as food items. These are raw cod, raw salmon, tropical fish, and raw pufferfish. Getting fish loot has the highest base chance, at 85%. Among the fish loot, tropical fish is the rarest to get, with a 1.7% overall chance of getting them.

Chances of fishing loot also don’t get significantly affected by the Luck of the Sea enchantment, staying relatively static at around 84.5% at Luck of the Sea III.

Junk Loot

There are a lot of junk loot that you can get from fishing.

Junk loot includes the following items:

Lily pad
Bowl
Fishing rod
Leather
Leather boots
Rotten flesh
Stick
String
Water bottle
Bone
Ink sac
Tripwire hook

With a base chance of 10%, it can be pretty likely for you to get some of these items in a fishing session. The chances of getting any one item from this list are also not equal among each other, with lily pad being the most likely to get and ink sac the least likely.

For items with durability, you usually get them with very low durability remaining and without enchantments, making them near useless.

The Luck of the Sea enchantment reduces the chances of getting any of these items, and although the chances of getting them are not equal, the chance reduction is spread out among all the items.

At Luck of the Sea III, the total chances of getting junk loot drops to around 4.2%, a reduction of more than 50%.

Treasure Loot

There are six treasure loot that you can get while fishing.

Treasure loot is the rarest to get at the base chances, with only 5% chance. There are only 6 items under this category, and all of them have equal chances:

Bow
Enchanted book
Fishing rod (enchanted)
Name tag
Nautilus shell
Saddle

The Luck of the Sea enchantment increases the chances of getting any of these items, and the increase is also spread out among all the items. At Luck of the Sea III, the total chances of getting treasure loot almost doubles at 11.3%.

Why Specifically Get Treasure Loot

Although they have low durability, you can get a bow with enchantments while fishing.

Although there are only six items under the treasure loot, what makes them special is that the bow and some fishing rods taken from fishing are always enchanted, with a random enchantment level from 22 to 30.

Fishing is also one of the few ways to get enchanted books, which can be hard to get and can become quite a grind. Although it is very reliant on luck and probability, Luck of the Sea eases that issue a bit and makes it more likely for you to get the loot that you want.

You cannot get a Frost Walker enchantment from the enchanting table.

Another thing is that some enchantments can only be taken from fishing. These enchantments are not available in enchanting tables, and can only be created from fishing and other similar probability-focused activities in Minecraft, making them quite rare.

These enchantments include: Frost Walker, Curse of Binding, and Soul Speed for armor; and the universally-applicable enchantments Mending and Curse of Vanishing.

Lure vs. Luck of the Sea

Fishing rods with Luck of the Sea and Lure are great for efficient fishing.

Lure is another enchantment exclusive to fishing rods. While Luck of the Sea affects the chances of getting loot, Lure affects the time it takes for you to get a bite when you fish.

Each level of Lure reduces the average time it takes for a bite to occur by five seconds, with a maximum level of Lure III and 15 seconds reduction.

In comparison, without Lure, it takes any time between 5-30 seconds for a bite to occur. With Lure I, you can already get a bite the moment you cast your rod. Lure III reduces your maximum fishing time to half.

Luckily, Lure and Luck of the Sea can coexist in the same fishing rod. This means that having both would greatly maximize the efficiency of your fishing sessions. Farming for treasure loot would be even better with these enchantments.