ENCHANTED DIAMOND BOOTS

Boots carry more piece-specific enchantments than any other slot on a player's body. Feather Falling, Depth Strider, Frost Walker and Soul Speed can only ever land on a boot, which means a disappointing roll here still has more ways to turn out useful than the same disappointing roll on a helmet or a chestplate would.

They are also the cheapest of the four pieces, 13 to 27 emeralds against everything else on the Armorer's diamond shelf, and the earliest one you can reach alongside the leggings. That combination, more ways to roll something worth having and the lowest floor to buy in at, makes boots the piece most worth a speculative purchase before you have settled on a build.

Whatever comes out of the roll, it arrives finished and ready to wear, no anvil and no enchanting table required.

Only the Armorer sells them, from expert onward, for 13 to 27 emeralds, the lowest floor of any piece on his diamond shelf. Nothing crafts a pre-enchanted boot and no other profession comes near diamond gear, so his price is the only price there is.

Enchanted Diamond Boots sells for anywhere between 13 and 27 emeralds, from the Armorer at the Expert tier, and 9 of the other 13 cost less. That is a rolled price rather than a fixed one, so the Armorer you happen to find matters more than the tier does.

The Armorer at its expert tier asks 13 emeralds for enchanted diamond boots, on its cheapest roll. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

13 diamonds against 312 paper for the same 13 emeralds, 24 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Shepherd at 8.1 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted.

Any unemployed villager with a blast furnace next to him becomes the Armorer. Boots open up at expert, which still takes real trades through every tier below it, but it is one of the two cheapest tiers to reach on his whole ladder.

The roll is fixed the moment he restocks, so a better enchantment means finding a different villager rather than reopening the same one's trade window and hoping. Break his blast furnace before your first purchase and the roll resets; after it, the boots you were offered are the boots you get, permanently. How re-rolling works.

Each purchase pays 15 experience toward the tiers above, and 7 of them alone would cover the climb, on top of whatever the rest of his sheet earns him.

3 pairs and the slot is spent, and the Armorer will not refill it for another 2 real minutes. A Minecraft day is 20 real minutes long, room for exactly two of those refills, so two full slots is the ceiling for a single villager regardless of how long you camp him.

A full day of buying costs somewhere between 78 and 162 emeralds for 6 pairs, the cheapest full-day total on his diamond shelf. If you are gathering spares to hand out or to gamble on a specific movement enchantment, boots are the least expensive way to buy several tries at once.

Pay for it with something the Armorer wants back: he buys a single lava bucket for an emerald, which covers this trade faster than farming for someone else's shelf.

Since boots are the cheapest piece he sells, buying a second or third pair on the same visit is a reasonable way to fish for a specific movement enchantment. While you are there, his sheet also carries enchanted diamond helmet, enchanted diamond chestplate, coal, iron leggings, iron boots and iron helmet.

Boots carry effects no other piece can: Feather Falling cuts fall damage sharply, Depth Strider makes you walk normally under water, and Frost Walker freezes the surface you cross. None of those exist on a helmet or a chestplate.

Feather Falling is the one worth paying for, because falling is what kills experienced players. Depth Strider and Frost Walker cannot both sit on the same boots, so a roll that gives you one has ruled out the other unless you keep a second pair.

Soul Speed only exists on boots and cannot be got from an enchanting table at all. It comes from piglin bartering or from a chest in the nether, and it makes soul sand and soul soil faster to walk on rather than slower.

It also wears the boots out as you use it, which is the only enchantment in the game that costs durability by being switched on.

Frost Walker is the other boots-only oddity, and it will not sit with Depth Strider. One walks on water, the other walks through it, and you have to pick.