Raids in Minecraft: All You Need to Know

One of the most iconic Minecraft updates of all time was the 1.14 Village and Pillage update. It not only overhauled the villagers, but it also introduced a rather relevant game mechanic called illager raids. They offer a challenging, exciting, and fun combat feature that offers OP loot, advancements, and a fun experience. We will do a deep dive into exploring raids in Minecraft and share everything you need to know about them. With that said, let’s begin!

What are Raids in Minecraft

Raid is an illager attack on a village. During this event, illager mobs will spawn in waves near a targeted village. They will then start attacking and killing all the villagers inside it. Your job is to save the villagers by defeating the illagers.

A boss bar will be displayed at the top indicating how many mobs are left from a raid wave. Illagers will continue to spawn until you defeat the final wave and reach the end of the raid.

How to Start a Raid in Minecraft

To start the raid, you’ll first need to obtain Bad Omen status effect. It’s a special effect that you can only get by killing an illager captain. You’ll also get it if your tamed wolf kills the captain. This Minecraft mob will always have an ominous banner above their head.

Pillager captains spawn as a part of a pillager patrol and at a pillager outpost structure. Pillager patrol is a group of pillagers that occasionally spawns in an area around the player and roams around. Furthermore, you can also encounter a different illager captain in a woodland mansion structure.

Once you get the Bad Omen effect, the next step is to get close to a village. The village implies at least one villager and a claimed bed. In Java edition, a village also includes a villager and a claimed bell or job site block. Once you enter a chunk (16 x 16 block area) with these requirements or any of the 8 chunks surrounding it in a square, the Bad Omen effect will disappear completely, and you’ll summon a raid.

In Jaba Edition, if you kill more illager captains, the Bad Omen effect will stack until you reach the Bad Omen V effect. By killing a captain at a pillager outpost, you will get one level of Bad Omen effect. However, if you kill a patrol captain, you can get a 1-5 level of the Bad Omen effect. In the Bedrock edition, the Bad Omen effect cannot stack.

Minecraft Raid Mechanics: How It Works?

Beginning of the Raid

Now, let’s explain the raid mechanics in detail. The first thing you will notice upon starting a raid is a charging red raid bar at the top of the screen. In the Java edition, it’s divided into sections and represents the health of all illagers in a raid wave in total. In the Bedrock edition, the bar has no sections and represents the number of all the wave mobs.

If there are fewer than three illagers left in a wave, the raid bar will also display a text saying: Mobs remaining: <number>. The raid bar is visible in a 96-block radius around the raid center in Java edition, whereas in Bedrock edition, it’s visible in a 128×88×128 region around the village center.

Before the bar has filled up, villagers will start to sweat and try to reach the village bell and ring it, warning all other villagers in an area of the attack.

Once the raid bar is fully charged up, you’ll hear a horn sound coming from the direction of the spawned illagers, which will be played at the beginning of each wave. These hostile mobs will then charge toward the village.

Mobs & Waves

We’ve mentioned illagers a lot already, so let’s now see what mobs they include. The raid includes:

• Pillagers – Ranged crossbow-wielding illagers;
• Vindicators – Melee iron axe-wielding illagers;
• Evokers – Spell-casting illagers that can summon spikes from the ground and evil fairy-like creatures called Vexes;
• Witches – Support mobs that heal other illagers with splash potions of health and regeneration in Java edition, but do still harm players and iron golems in Bedrock edition by throwing harming potions;
• Ravagers – Tank mobs with a lot of HP and strong melee attacks.

Some of the illager mobs have special behavior during a raid. Vindicators start opening and closing doors in order to locate villagers. They’ll also occasionally break wooden doors on normal and hard difficulties if they cannot open them.

Evokers gain increased movement speed, which makes them pretty difficult to target. Furthermore, in the Java edition, illagers will actively try to pick up the ominous banner that was dropped by a previous captain. Upon killing one of these raid captains, you won’t get a new Bad Omen effect.

All these mobs are part of the raid-spawning mobs. However, they don’t all spawn in all the waves. The initial waves are generally easier than the last, which include more and stronger illagers. The difficulty affects the raids greatly, as it determines the number of waves in a raid. Not only that, but the Bad Omen level in the Java edition is relevant as well.

Raid Difficulty (Java Edition)

Bad Omen I produces a default raid for that difficulty, whereas the raid has one additional wave from levels 2-5, which is as difficult as the last one. Moreover, every level of the Bad Omen effect increases the chance of illagers spawning with enchanted items. This chance is 10% for Bad Omen II and 75% for Bad Omen V.

Raid on an easy difficulty has three waves if triggered with Bad Omen I and the illagers have no enchanted weapons. Bad Omen with levels 2-5 produce one extra wave and increase the chance of illagers spawning with low-level enchantments.

Raids on Easy Difficulty

Raids on Normal Difficulty

Raid on a normal difficulty contains more pillagers and vindicators and also includes witches, evokers, and even a pillager riding a ravager. It has 5 waves by default, but if triggered with Bad Omen II or higher, it’ll have 6 waves.

Raids on Hard Difficulty in Hardcore Mode

Raids on hard difficulty and in the hardcore mode have 7 waves if triggered with Bad Omen I and 8 waves if triggered with any other level of this effect. You’ll fight plenty of vindicators and pillagers and will have to deal with 8 evokers in total. Solo ravager spawns only in wave 3, but it has riders in waves 5, 7, and the extra wave.

Raid Difficulty (Bedrock Edition)

Raids in Bedrock edition are simpler than in Java. The Bad Omen level can only be 1, so there are no extra waves. The easy difficulty has 3 waves, normal has 5, and hard has 7. There is a fixed number of mobs that spawn per wave.

Raids on Easy Difficulty

Raids on Normal Difficulty

Raids on Hard Difficulty

How Other illagers Can Join the Raid

In Java edition, all the illager mobs that are not part of an ongoing raid, but are in the range of that raid will join the other illagers to take over the village. This can include pillager patrols, pillagers from a nearby pillager outpost, and naturally spawned witches. This is why you probably shouldn’t bring a raid to a village that’s close to a pillager outpost, or you might have lots of pillagers to deal with.

This joining mechanic also works vice versa. If the illagers from a raid get too far away (about 112 blocks) from the raid center, they will no longer count as the raiders.

End of the Raid in Minecraft

Raids can end in victory or defeat for the player. If the attacked village no longer registers as a village, which means if there are no villagers or claimed beds left, then the raid will end in defeat with the raid bar text being: “Raid – Defeat”.

Illagers will also start to celebrate their victory. They will make celebration sounds and will do celebration animations, by either jumping up and down or having their hands raised.

Whereas, if you defeat the illagers in the raid, you’ll win the raid and the raid bar will display “Raid – Victory” at the top. Villagers will set off fireworks and in the Java Edition, you’ll also get Hero of the Village status effect that’ll be the same level as the Bad Omen effect you started the raid with. This effect makes villagers throw items related to their profession at you, as a gift for saving them.

In the case you cannot find a raider, or perhaps just want to leave the raid, this event will simply stop if it lasts more than 40 minutes. But keep in mind that all the illagers still remain until they’re killed.

Raid Loot in Minecraft

Killing the illagers during a raid yields the usual drops that the mob has (see table below). The only unique item you can get is the ominous banner that is dropped by the raid captains. In the Bedrock edition, it’s also possible to get extra loot from killing illagers. This loot includes:

• Extra Emeralds
• Enchanted Books
• Iron Tools and Weapons
• Iron Armor

The iron equipment can be enchanted and it’s always damaged. In addition, you can affect only the emerald drops with looting enchantment. On the Java edition, illagers don’t drop extra loot, but the villagers provide you with gifts, which does not happen on the Bedrock edition.

The hero of the Village effect lasts for about 40 minutes. During this time, villagers from any village will have massive discounts on their trades and throw items related to their profession at you. These items can include cooked food items, chainmail armor, arrows, redstone dust, leather, books, clay blocks, wool blocks, stone tools, and more. Once it wears off, you’ll no longer receive gifts.

How to Beat a Raid in Minecraft

Raid can be quite a difficult challenge in the game, especially if you’re dealing with it on your own. But, with the right preparation and help, you can defeat it easily. First of all, make sure the villagers in a targeted village are safe. You can block them inside their houses or put them in a box.

Alternatively, you can build a wall around the village and also add watch towers to transform it into a realistic defensive structure.

Then, you’ll need good weapons and armor. A bow with the best enchantments will make the battle a lot easier, as you can take out the illagers from a distance. Enchanted diamond armor will be good enough, but you could go a step further and make netherite armor.

As for the potential help, you can make lots of iron golems that will take care of most illagers and make this task pretty easy. Though for this, you’ll need a lot of iron, in fact, 36 iron ingots per iron golem. Also, try setting up some traps around the village if you want to have fun with the raid. You can place lava pools and place open trapdoors on their edges to lure the illagers in.

Moreover, you can also fill dispensers with arrows and harming potions, so when illagers pass over the pressure plates they’ll activate the traps. You could simply surround the village with water and the illagers will be slowed down quite a bit. This will allow you to snipe and kill them from afar. So, without a doubt, having an elytra will make you fairly mobile, so you can quickly get out of harm’s way.

During the raid, illagers may get stuck in some awkward places, like caves. For that reason, you can right-click the village bell and all the raid illagers will get highlighted, showing you exactly what their current location is. Furthermore, if a wave contains evokers, try to target them first, since vexes will be rather annoying and tricky to get rid of.

How to Avoid a Raid in Minecraft

You don’t need to start a raid at all if you don’t want to. If you already have the Bad Omen effect, you can easily get rid of it by drinking milk. By doing so, all effects, both good and bad, will be removed. Because of this, keeping a milk bucket or two in your ender chest is always a good idea.

If you don’t have milk and cannot acquire it, then steer clear of any villages in the area until the Bad Omen effect wears off. Remember, villages not only imply naturally generated villages but also those made by players. If there’s at least one villager and a claimed bed and in Java edition claimed bell or job site block, then that also counts as a village.

The easiest way to avoid a raid however is simply by not obtaining the Bad Omen effect at all. This is possible if you don’t kill the illager captain yourself, but use the environment. So, you can light them on fire using flint and steel, push them off of a high place, or just dig a hole under them where they can sit until they despawn.

And we’ve reached the end of this extensive guide. Congrats! Now you know everything about raids in Minecraft. They are quite a complex event and one of the most unique. Because of all the strong illager mobs and the loot they provide, raid farms and one of the best farms in-game.

With that said, are you ready to defeat a raid in your survival world? Tell us in the comments below!