Tutorials/Defeating a village raid

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

Raid basics
Raids are events where, s, , s 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:


 * A, preferably diamond and enchanted with Sharpness and Unbreaking
 * , preferably iron or diamond armor enchanted with Protection and Unbreaking
 * A, preferably enchanted with Unbreaking III if possible
 * Either...
 * A, preferably enchanted with Power and Unbreaking
 * A, preferably enchanted with Piercing or Multishot, Quick Charge to make your crossbow load quicker and Unbreaking, along with to deal splash damage
 * to regenerate health when necessary

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


 * , 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
 * , 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.)

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 cobblestone 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.

Blocking villager doorways
A very effective strategy is to wall off entrances to villager houses; this way, there is no way for the raiders to access the villagers inside the houses, effectively keeping them safe while you deal with the raiders.

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 illager patrols, spawn in pillager outposts in numbers of 1 to 3, or spawn in woodland mansions.[Java Edition only]

Once a raid captain is killed, the afflicting player will receive 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 raider spawn. Note that player-made villages will also trigger raids.

When the raid starts, a group of raiders will spawn within 1024 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.

Your priority should be ravagers and witches, as ravagers can deal heavy damage and witches can heal other raiders; evokers are also important to target as they will spawn multiple vexes, which can cause distractions and rapid decreases in shield and armor durability.

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 amount of waves only depends on difficulty and not the level of Bad Omen.