Minecraft Standard vs Ominous Trial Spawner: What’s the Difference?

Trial chambers are special structures whose primary goal is to provide players with lots of combat challenges. They are full of dangerous rooms that contain the trial spawners. But, that’s not the only spawner present in this structure. In these copper arenas in Minecraft 1.21, you’ll also have a chance to encounter an ominous trial spawner.

So, let’s understand the difference between these two trial spawners — Standard and Ominous trial spawner, along with how to activate and complete them and what rewards you get.

Trial Spawner Explained

The trial spawner is a darker blue see-through block with faces on its side textures. The top side of the spawner has a spiral with corners colored orange when the spawner is in an active state. This block generates naturally inside trial chambers.

Want to know how to find the trial chambers in Minecraft? Follow our handy guide linked here. You cannot obtain or move the trial spawner block, but you can break it after a long time of mining.

Trial Spawner: Mob Spawning

Similarly to a normal mob spawner, the trial spawner summons mobs in its active phase. There is a mob model inside this block indicating what you can expect from it. Moreover, the blocks that you see surrounding this block also hint at the mobs that the trial spawner summons.

Each trial chamber has three categories of mobs – melee, small melee, and ranged. There are several mobs in each of the categories and the chosen ones will be consistent throughout the structure.

This means the ranged mob you face in the first room upon activating the first spawner will spawn in the entire chamber, without the presence of any other ranged mobs. This is the case for the other two categories as well. However, there is also the Breeze, a special hostile mob that has its own trial spawners in every trial chamber. The light surrounding the trial spawner doesn’t affect it, so you cannot disable it like a regular one.

Here are all the mobs trial spawner can summon in Minecraft 1.21 and what the indicative blocks are:

• Melee
  • Zombie (mossy cobblestone)
  • Husk (chiseled sandstone)
  • Spider (stone and cobweb on top)
• Small Melee
  • Silverfish (stone bricks)
  • Baby Zombie (cobblestone and mossy cobblestone)
  • Slime (moss block)
  • Cave Spider (stone and cobweb on top and podzol with a red mushroom)
• Ranged
  • Stray (packed ice)
  • Skeleton (bone block)
  • Bogged (bone block and podzol with a red mushroom)
• Breeze (chiseled tuff)

The trial spawner will spawn these mobs once you trigger it. You can do so simply by approaching it. Then, it will do a little animation and display lots of flame particles inside it to indicate it’s triggered. Also, the mob model will rotate much more quickly.

What makes the trial spawner different from a regular mob spawner found in dungeons is that it’s meant to provide you with an exciting battle experience, not a consistent farm. So, trial spawners only spawn a set number of mobs at a time. If you are playing in a single-player world, each spawner will summon six mobs, with three being present at any given time.

Once you kill one mob, the spawner will summon one more to take its place. This will go on until you kill three mobs, which leaves no more mobs “in reserve”. The only exception is the Breeze trial spawner, which only spawns two Breezes, one at a time for you to defeat.

Though, that’s the case only in the single-player worlds. In the multiplayer mode, the trial spawner will adjust its challenge according to the number of players detected nearby. Each additional player will add two mobs to the total count. So, for two players nearby, the trial spawner will spawn a total of 8 mobs. The Breeze spawner will add 1 additional Breeze for every new player.

Trial Spawner Loot

When you defeat all mobs summoned by the trial spawner, this block will perform a little animation and start ejecting rewards for every player from its top side. Here’s a table showing what items you may get from the trial spawner and also what their chances are:

Note: Mobs spawned by the trial spawner are persistent. This means they will not naturally despawn, so you have to kill them to get the rewards.

After the rewards have been dispensed, the trial spawner will enter an inactive state, which lasts for 30 real-life minutes or 1.5 full Minecraft days. It will not spawn mobs at all during cooldown, which makes it perfectly safe to move around. This state is indicated by the corner pixels that are now gray instead of orange.

Also, there is no mob model displayed inside the spawner during cooldown and smoke particles will replace the flames. After this period, the spawner will become active again so you can have another round of battles.

Ominous Trial Spawner Explained

Now that you know everything about the standard trial spawner, let’s talk about the ominous trial spawner. It is also a dark blue see-through block with faces on the sides. The faces have red glowy eyes instead of orange and the corner pixels are blue during the active phase.

Unlike the standard trial spawner, the ominous version does not spawn naturally in your Minecraft world. Instead, you need to approach a trial spawner with the Bad Omen or Trial Omen effect applied, and it will transform into an ominous spawner. The Bad Omen effect can be obtained after drinking ominous bottles dropped by the pillager captains.

Ominous Trial Spawner: Mob Spawning

Once you get close to a trial spawner, so you are in its line of sight, it will perform an animation and turn into an ominous trial spawner in Minecraft. The Bad Omen will then instantly become the Trial Omen effect and will last depending on the Bad Omen level. This will happen if:

• The trial spawner is not in the cooldown state;
• Or if it is in the cooldown state, but the previous active phase was not an ominous one.

This ominous event is called ominous trials. Once activated, the ominous trial spawner will emit blue flame particles and it will provide a more difficult challenge than the standard one does by:

• Spawning melee mobs with swords, if they can hold them;
• Often spawning mobs with enchanted weapons and armor;
• Spawning more mobs if they cannot hold weapons and armor;
• Spawning potions and projectiles above the players and mobs.

The mobs will match the indicative blocks around the ominous trial spawner, but they will be much harder to kill due to their gear. The weapons melee mobs spawn with can be iron or diamond sword and they might have low level Minecraft enchantments like sharpness I or knockback I. The ranged mobs will have a bow with no enchantments or with power I or punch I.

The armor can be chainmail, iron, or diamond helmet, or chestplate and it has armor trims applied to it. The armor enchantments include fire protection IV, projectile protection IV, and protection IV. So, they are all pretty tanky mobs. With that said, it’s not possible to obtain these items though.

The number of total mobs is not affected for most mobs. But, if the mob cannot wear armor, such as spiders, they will spawn in greater quantities, even double the normal count. On the other hand, the projectiles will occasionally appear above the player and mobs and shoot downward. Those include:

• Regular arrows
• Poison arrows
• Slowness IV arrows
• Fire charges
• Wind charges

In addition to projectiles, the ominous trial spawner will summon lingering potions above players and the mobs that will shoot downward and affect a large area. The lingering potion effects include:

• Wind charged
• Oozing
• Weaving
• Infested
• Strength
• Speed
• Slow falling

The spawner will choose a player 50% of the time to summon these potions and projectiles above.

Ominous Trial Spawner Loot

Once you kill all the spawned mobs, the ominous trial spawner will spawn no more projectiles and mobs, so it becomes inactive in Minecraft 1.21. It will display an animation and eject some precious rewards for you and your friends. These items include:

The cooldown state of the ominous trial spawner also lasts for 30 minutes and cannot be canceled, like the regular trial spawner. The blue corner will become dark gray and the faces’ eyes to indicate this safe phase.

After the cooldown, the ominous trial spawner will turn back into a standard trial spawner, so you will need the Bad Omen effect to activate it again. Moreover, you cannot obtain the ominous trial spawner nor move it, but you can break it.

So now, you know everything about the standard and ominous trial spawners in the Minecraft 1.21 update. These two blocks provide an adventure you won’t experience anywhere else. So, gear up for completing as many trial spawner challenges as they let you open vaults and ominous vaults so you can get even stronger and cooler equipment like the Mace weapon.