
Balanced Weapons
Buffs Smite and Bane of Arthropods to be viable compared to Sharpness.
About this Mod
There are three primary enchantments you can put on swords and axes: Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods. In practice, however, only Sharpness is ever used, with the occasional Smite for use in wither skeleton or wither farming.
To rectify this, this datapack/mod adds the following features:
- Hitting an entity with a Smite weapon grants Haste 1 for 2-6 seconds (scaling with level), which increases your attack speed by 10%.
- Hitting an entity with a Bane of Arthropods weapon grants Speed 1 for 1-3 seconds (scaling with level).
The goal here is to provide some uses cases for these enchantments, in addition to their existing effects - for example, Smite axes will do a lot more damage as they have high damage but low attack speed, while a Bane of Arthropods sword has plenty of use in chasing down fleeing players or kiting them with while bowing them down.
This datapack isn't perfect (I made it in one night), so feel free to go inside and edit the values for the buffs as you see fit.
Available Versions
How to Install Balanced Weapons on Your Server
Order Server
Order a Minecraft Java server with at least 3 GB RAM (4 GB recommended).
Set datapack Loader
In the panel under "Egg", select the datapack loader and matching Minecraft version (1.20.4).
Install Mod
Open the mod browser in the dashboard and search for "Balanced Weapons". Click "Install" – done! Alternatively, upload the .jar via SFTP to the /mods folder.
Compatibility
Mod Loaders
Minecraft Versions
1.20.4, 1.20.3, 1.20.2 (+12 more)
Server-side
✓ RequiredRecommended RAM
4 GB(min. 3 GB)Frequently Asked Questions
Balanced Weapons server crashes on startup – what to do?
Most common cause: wrong datapack version or insufficient RAM. Check the server log (latest.log) for "OutOfMemoryError" or "Mixin" errors. With Mado Hosting: ensure at least 3 GB RAM is allocated and the loader matches the mod version (1.20.4). You can switch loaders with one click in the panel.
Is Balanced Weapons compatible with datapack and fabric and forge and neoforge and quilt?
Balanced Weapons officially supports datapack, fabric, forge, neoforge, quilt for Minecraft 1.20.4, 1.20.3, 1.20.2. Note: Forge and Fabric mods are NOT cross-compatible – pick one loader and stick with it. The Mado dashboard automatically detects incompatible loader combinations.
Server lagging with Balanced Weapons – how to optimize performance?
Recommended RAM: 4 GB (per 8 players). Use /spark profiler to check if Balanced Weapons consumes the most tick time. Common fixes: reduce server view-distance to 8-10, install "performant" or "starlight" as supplementary mods on Forge. With Mado Hosting, your server runs on NVMe SSDs with dedicated CPU cores for minimal latency.
Similar Mods
Rent Modded Server
Install Balanced Weapons with just one click on your server.
Details
- License
- Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International
- Server-side
- Required