Trident

"If you don't want to throw it away permanently, then you should invest in Loyalty. This common enchantment makes your trident come back to you. Riptide, which makes you lunge with your trident when you throw it (as long as you're in water, or it's raining) is also well worth seeking out!"

- Tom Stone

A trident is a spear-like weapon that can be used in melee or ranged combat.

Obtaining
Tridents are not craftable. They must be picked up as a drop from a killed drowned or using the command.

Drowned
15% of drowned $$, and 6.25% $$, spawn with a trident of random durability as their natural weapon, and they have an 8.5% chance of dropping the trident (increasing by 1% with each level of Looting). $$, drowned can also drop a trident as one of its normal drops. The trident has a 11% chance, 13% chance with Looting I, 15% chance with Looting II, and 17% chance with Looting III of dropping itself.

$$, a zombie converted to a drowned has a chance of carrying a trident that can be dropped. $$, only naturally-spawned drowned can spawn with a trident or have a chance of dropping one.

A trident dropped by a drowned can be enchanted.

Thrown tridents
Tridents thrown onto the ground by a player can be picked up. However, tridents thrown by drowned cannot be picked up.

Drowned
15% of drowned $$, and 6.25% $$, spawn with a trident as its natural weapon. It throws the trident at its opponent every 1.5 seconds, dealing damage in normal difficulty. A drowned can throw unlimited tridents, and these tridents cannot be picked up by the player.

A villager can be turned into a zombie villager if it is killed by a trident thrown by a drowned: the chance of conversion is 0% on Easy difficulty, 50% on Normal and 100% on Hard and Hardcore.

$$, a drowned can use the trident's melee attack if its target is within three blocks. The melee attack deals damage.

Melee attack
Pressing while holding a trident deals damage to both mobs and players. $$, tridents deal more base melee damage than an unenchanted diamond sword. $$, tridents deal more base melee damage.

Ranged attack
Pressing and holding while holding a trident charges the trident. When released at full charge, the trident is thrown and deals damage to any entity that it hits. It flies on a ballistic trajectory similar to that of an arrow, but at 80% strength. If the trident hits a block, it sticks to the block, and if it hits an entity, it bounces and lands nearby. It is also blocked by shields and can be retrieved once it lands in the ground. Thrown tridents can press wooden buttons and pressure plates. A trident can be thrown at a chorus flower to break it, which causes the chorus flower to be dropped as an item.

$$, tridents can be used as ammunition in dispensers.

Tridents enchanted with Loyalty return to the thrower after hitting a mob or a block. Higher levels of the enchantment result in shorter recovery times. $$, throwing a trident enchanted with Loyalty into the void destroys it, although $$ it returns to the player. If a trident enchanted with Loyalty attempts to return to a player with no available inventory space, the trident floats near the player until inventory space becomes available.

Tridents enchanted with Riptide cannot be thrown unless the player is standing in water or it is raining or snowing. If the player charges it, but walks in a nearby dry area, the attack will be canceled.

Unlike other projectiles, the trident does not slow down when thrown through water or lava.

$$, the Impaling enchantment affects all water mobs. $$, it deals extra damage to players and mobs in water or rain.

Similar to arrows, thrown tridents despawn after 1 minute.

Using Riptide, nearby players or mobs will deal splash damage within an 8.25×8.25×4.25 cubical area. It stacks with the Impaling enchantment and Strength effect. Critical hits don't increase splash damage, but affect the target mob.
 * Magical damage

Oddly enough, $$, tridents can damage the ender dragon while resting on the bedrock fountain.

Damage
Thrown tridents and splashes deal damage. The damage remains the same regardless of the trident's speed. It has a faster charging speed than a bow or crossbow without enchantments.

Java Edition
$$, tridents have an attack speed of 1.1 and take ~0.91 seconds to recover.

Legacy Console and Bedrock editions
$$, tridents have no attack cooldown and do the following damage:

Elytra
A trident with the Riptide enchantment can be used to propel the elytra, but only in rainy weather, during snowy weather in certain biomes or while the player is in a body of water.

Impaling damage
$$, the Impaling enchantment deals extra damage to all water mobs. $$, it deals extra damage to players and mobs in water or rain.

Enchantments
Tridents can receive the following enchantments:


 * Loyalty (Max III) &mdash; a thrown trident returns to the player after a few seconds. Incompatible with Riptide.
 * Channeling (Max I) &mdash; a thrown trident hitting a mob during a thunderstorm summons a lightning bolt. Incompatible with Riptide.
 * Riptide (Max III) &mdash; throwing a trident when in water or rain transports (throws) the player, also deal splash damage. Incompatible with Loyalty and Channeling.
 * Impaling (Max V) &mdash; deals extra melee or ranged damage to aquatic mobs (except drowned) or deal extra melee or ranged to any mobs in water or during rain
 * Unbreaking (Max III) &mdash; increases durability.
 * Mending (Max I) &mdash; when trident is held, XP orbs collected repair it rather than increase the player's XP.
 * Curse of Vanishing (Max I) &mdash; trident disappears upon player's death

Repairing
Tridents have the same durability as an iron sword. Whenever a trident deals damage, its durability decreases by 1.

Tridents can be repaired by:
 * combining two damaged tridents on a crafting table or the 2×2 inventory grid, which removes any enchantments.
 * combining two damaged tridents in the grindstone, which removes any enchantments.
 * combining a damaged trident with another trident on an anvil, which preserves enchantments.
 * the Mending enchantment.

Entity data
Tridents have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the entity.

Trivia

 * If a player throws a Loyalty-enchanted trident and the player's inventory subsequently fills, the trident hovers around or through the player's skin until an inventory slot opens, which it fills immediately. Multiple tridents can be 'queued' to re-enter the player's inventory in this manner.
 * $$ in Creative mode, sword enchantments can be applied to tridents. This includes Sharpness, Smite, Fire Aspect, and Looting. Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods increases their damage against their specific mobs, as well.
 * Dropped tridents use the in-flight model, rather than the inventory icon.
 * Tridents in item frames use the in-flight model, and are off center.