What is Swift Sneak?

The Swift Sneak enchantment is one that simply increases the player’s crouching speed in Minecraft. Normally, the player crouches at 30% of the player’s walking speed, but Swift Sneak will increase this. It goes up by 15% per level, meaning that Swift Sneak III (which is the maximum level and third tier of the enchantment) will allow the player to go at 75% the standard walking speed when crouching.

This enchantment is unique to leggings and can only be applied to them. It can be applied to any tier of leggings, making it a great enchantment to have for your main armor piece.

The enchantment was introduced in 22w12a, along with many other important things that came with ancient cities. The enchantment is currently available on both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition. This means that the enchantment is supported on platforms that have those versions, such as PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, etc.

Crawling

It’s important to note that though the main function of the enchantment is crouching, it also increases the player’s crawling speed by the same amount. This is especially notable because when crawling, it’s at the same 30% speed as crouching.

How can I obtain Swift Sneak?

Unlike many enchantments, this enchantment can only be obtained in a very specific location. This means that it’s an incredibly rare enchantment, but can usually be found by seeking the listed location.

Ancient Cities

The swift sneak enchantment only appears in ancient city chest loot. You can typically find these by looking for deep dark biomes, usually located under giant mountains, but they can also be found when caving.

Each chest typically has roughly a 23.2% chance of spawning with a random level of the enchantment. This remains the same between the Java Edition and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft.

Applying the enchantment

Once you receive the enchanted book with the enchantment, you can use an anvil to apply the enchantment to your leggings. It can be applied to both unenchanted items and items with enchantments on them, including the previous tier of the enchantment. If you have two instances of Swift Sneak II on either your armor or books, you can combine them to make Swift Sneak III through an anvil as well.

Game Commands

You can also achieve swift sneak through game commands. By using the command “/enchant @p swift_sneak 3” and replacing 3 with any number between 1 and 5, you can give yourself the enchantment. This is the only method of obtaining Swift Sneak IV and V in vanilla Minecraft. Which makes the speed of the enchantment go up to 90% and 100%, respectively. Any level of the enchantment above 5 typically will not increase it further; the maximum will be 100%, which puts you at normal walking speed.

Uses for Swift Sneak

Exploration

Swift Sneak is an amazing enchantment for Minecraft players who are interested in exploration, especially in ancient cities. This allows you to get around ancient cities much faster without potentially spawns a warden.

Combat

This enchantment excels in combat for multiple reasons. The first notable one is for repositioning. Since it allows you to sneak faster, you can catch your enemies off guard with a repositioning that they wouldn’t be able to hear.

This enchantment is also great for speed-bridging safely. Since crouching is already important for bridging to not fall off easily, this enchantment allows you to bridge much faster while retaining that safety. This is especially useful for some of the more popular Minecraft gamemodes, such as Bed Wars.