Tutorials/Defeating a village raid

This tutorial will show you how to defeat a village raid.

Raid basics
Raids are events where, s, , s (which can summon ) and invade a village in an attempt to kill as many  as possible. They can be very difficult to tackle early-game and can result in many villager deaths if not properly handled.

Defending a raid will require strong equipment and proper planning to ensure no villagers are killed. A successful defense of a raid has many benefits such as the status effect, which gives players a temporary discount while trading with villagers.

Necessary equipment
To defeat a raid, you will need strong equipment, such as:


 * An iron, diamond or netherite sword, enchanted with Sharpness and Unbreaking (if possible)
 * A full set of iron, diamond or netherite armor enchanted with Protection and Unbreaking (if possible)
 * A shield, enchanted with Unbreaking (optional)
 * A bow, enchanted with Power and Unbreaking
 * , A few crossbows, enchanted with Piercing or Multishot, Quick Charge to make your crossbow load quicker and Unbreaking, along with fireworks to deal splash damage
 * Food to regenerate health and restore hunger (to defeate a village raid may have to run a lot)

Optional equipment
This equipment is not necessary, but can aid in defending a raid:

Note: You can defeat a raid with only iron gear, but better gear is recommended.
 * , preferably with Riptide, for possible quick escapes.
 * , to remove any negative status effects obtained.
 * , to inflict status effects such as or  on a group of raiders.
 * , to tank enemy attacks and to quickly heal (or enchanted ones)
 * , to either barricade the village or protect oneself
 * , to cause fire damage and to temporarily segment off particular areas
 * , to slow down and trap enemies
 * and, to create if necessary (As of 1.14.3, villagers, when panicked, summon iron golems.)
 * Several
 * , to remove the poison status effect, and to use as a food source.

Preparing the village
Before the raid starts, a good idea is to prepare the village before the raiders attack. There are multiple ways to do so:

Walling off the village
A solid strategy is to wall off the perimeter of the village using a strong block, such as cobblestone or wood. As there are no ways for raiders to destroy solid blocks, they will not be able to penetrate the wall, and will, therefore, be stuck attempting to pathfind around it. Once you have walled off your village, you can use ladders to scale the wall and shoot the raiders with a bow. You can alternatively use walls or fences to border your village.

Setting traps
Once you have walled off your village, you can set traps outside of the perimeter to deal damage. Lava traps and cobweb traps can slow down and damage the raiders, and iron golems can dispatch of them rather quickly. Holes surrounding the outside of the wall can also be used to trap the raiders and prevent them from progressing any further. A moat is also helpful with water, lava or just a deep ditch. Raiders will not walk off edges so an easy way to get them in a hole is to make steps down. Raiders will path-find into the hole but not walk out.(to deal damage your can add magma, lava, wither roses, or sweet berries)

Blocking villager doorways
A very effective strategy is to wall off entrances to villager houses; this way, there is no way for the raiders (other than Vexes) to access the villagers inside the houses, effectively keeping them safe while you deal with the raiders. An easy way to get the villagers into their houses to begin with is to ring a bell. Have some villagers hidden underground. If possible, have a dispenser that splashes them with invisibility. Give those villagers some armor.

Finding a captain
The only way to trigger a raid is through the effect, which is obtained after killing a raid captain. Raid captains wear ominous banners on their head and spawn as part of patrols, spawn in pillager outposts in numbers of 1 to 3, or spawn in woodland mansions.

Once a raid captain is killed, the afflicting player will receive 100:00, or 1:40:00 (five full Minecraft days) of the Bad Omen status effect. The Bad Omen status effect can only be removed through waiting or drinking a Milk Bucket to clear the status effect.

$$, if multiple raid captains are killed, the Bad Omen effect will stack, increasing the difficulty of the raid.

Triggering the raid
Once you have the Bad Omen status effect, walk into a village, and the raid will start. A raid bar will appear at the top of the screen and slowly fill up as raiders spawn. Note that player-made villages will also trigger raids. Villages in The Nether cannot trigger raids, and can be safely visited even with Bad Omen.

When the raid starts, a group of raiders will spawn within 64 blocks of the village; this depends on the render distance as well.

Defeating the raid
Once the raid starts, your immediate priority should be to locate the raiders and swiftly kill them.

If there is a village bell, it can be right-clicked and will attempt to affect any nearby raiders with the status effect and produce a resonating sound if successful.

Prioritize ravagers and evokers (BE), ravagers, evokers, and witches (JE). Ravagers deal heavy damage and destroy leaves and crops. Witches heal other raiders. Evokers spawn vexes which deal heavy damage and can pass through walls.

Once the current wave has been defeated, the next one will start shortly. This process will repeat until every wave has been defeated.

Post-raid
Once the raid has been defeated, any player in the village boundary will be awarded the Hero of the Village advancement and be affected with the Hero of the Village status effect for 60:00.

Villagers will throw gifts at nearby players once the raid has been defeated.

Wave numbers
In the Java Edition, the number of waves depends on the difficulty, with additional waves if the Bad Omen level is greater than one.

There are three waves in Easy, five waves in Normal, and seven waves in Hard.

Bedrock Edition
In Bedrock Edition, the number of waves only depends on difficulty and not the level of Bad Omen.

How to defeat the raid (Step-by-Step)
Wave 1:

There are only pillagers. If you have walled the village, you should shoot them from far away, or block and hit them. You can use crossbow techniques, such as the Machine Gunner, to kill pillagers and get the "Who's the Pillager Now" advancement.

The machine gunner is loading the hotbar with loaded crossbows, and rapidly fire one, select the next hotbar slot and fire another crossbow.

Wave 2:

There are pillagers and vindicators. If you walled the village, target the pillagers first. If the village is not protected, target the vindicators first and make sure they don't break down doors.

Wave 3:

There is a ravager and some pillagers + vindicators. Kill the ravager before it destroys too much. Kill the other mobs.

Wave 4:

There are witches, pillagers, and vindicators. Kill the witches first by shooting them or spam clicking. Kill the pillagers/vindicators using one of the above methods.

Wave 5:

There are pillagers, vindicators, an evoker, and a pillager riding ravager. In BE there is no pillager but an ravager. Kill the evoker first, as it will summon vexes. Kill everything else.

Wave 6:

There is only one evoker. There are a lot of pillagers and vindicators. Kill the evoker and deal with everything else. Don't let the evoker summon vexes.

Wave 7:

There are pillagers, vindicators, evokers, and mounted illagers. Kill the evokers first, then kill the ravagers. Kill everything else.