Vindicator

"Here's Johnny!"

- Marsh Davies

Vindicators are dangerous illager mobs that spawn in mansions, illager patrols, and raids. They are equipped with iron axes and do the second-highest melee damage of all the non-boss mobs, first being the Iron Golem and third being the Ravager.

Woodland mansions
Vindicators spawn during the generation of mansions, in particular rooms. Some rooms will contain 1, others will contain 3, some can rarely spawn in the corridors and some will contain 2 accompanied by an evoker. They will not respawn after their initial spawn. Vindicators that are generated with mansions do not naturally despawn.

Some vindicators may spawn with an enchanted iron axe, depending on the difficulty set: the chances go up as the difficulty goes up.

Illager patrols
In Java Edition, Illager patrols spawn a maximum of five pillagers (weight 55) or vindicators (weight 27) 200 blocks away from villages on grass or sand with a block light level of 0–8 and a sky light level of 10–15.

In Bedrock Edition, Illager patrols consist of 2-5 illagers, with all illagers always being a pillager on easy and normal difficulties, and on hard 80% of them will be pillagers and 20% of them will be vindicators.

Raids
Vindicators are able to spawn as part of raids. They appear less frequently during earlier waves and at easier difficulties but are more common in later waves and at higher difficulties.

Drops
Vindicators only drop loot when killed by a player or tamed wolf. They will drop when they die:
 * 0–1  when killed by the player. The maximum increases by 1 for every level of Looting, for a maximum of 4 with Looting III.
 * 8.5% chance of dropping their, which increases by 1 percentage point per level of Looting.
 * 1 Illager Banner.png Ominous banner, if they spawn as a raid captain.

In Bedrock Edition, if vindicators spawn from raids can drops: And an additionally drop depend on difficulty, 65% chance of dropping on easy and normal, while 80% chance of dropping on hard They can drop one of the following: Note:
 * 0-1
 * 0-1 ($10/39$ chance)
 * 2-3 ($20/78$ chance)
 * 4-5 ($5/39$ chance)
 * 1 ($10/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($2/39$ chance)
 * 1 ($4/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($2/39$ chance)
 * 1 ($4/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * Iron equipment from raider drops has 50% chance of being enchanted with random enchantment.
 * Iron equipment from raider drops will be badly damaged.
 * These drop also affected by Looting enchantment.
 * Emerald is both a regular raider drop and an additional raider drop.
 * With Looting III enchantment, a vindicator spawn from raid can drop up to 16 emeralds upon death, but the chance is 3.328% on easy or normal, and 4.096% on hard.
 * It is possible for a vindicator spawn from raid to drop both its naturally-spawned iron axe and a second iron axe from its additional raid drops (in easy and normal difficulty 0.3536% chance, 0.3952% chance with Looting I, 0.4368% chance with Looting II, and 0.4784% chance with Looting III)(while in hard difficulty 0.4352% chance, 0.4864% chance with Looting I, 0.5376% chance with Looting II, and 0.5888% chance with Looting III).

Behavior
Vindicators are hostile towards players, iron golems, villagers or adult villagers, wandering traders, and snow golems. They will try to attack them, raising their main hand and brandishing an iron axe. When in pursuit of their target they will sprint toward them, slightly faster than the player's walking speed. When not attacking, they cross their arms similar to a villager, and don't show the axe in their hand.

If a vindicator is named Johnny (using a name tag, named spawn egg, etc., or has its  tag set to  ), it will be hostile to every mob, except for evokers, illusioners, pillagers, ghasts, and other vindicators. It will even be hostile to vexes and ravagers. All hostile or neutral mobs, except for endermites, phantoms, guardians, slimes, magma cubes and ravagers, will try to attack the vindicator in return. The  tag overrides its name; the player can give the vindicator any other name and set the   tag to   and it will still be hostile in the same way as described. Conversely, the player can name the vindicator Johnny and set the  tag to , and the vindicator will not be hostile as described; it will act as a normal vindicator.

Naming a vindicator spawn egg "Johnny" and it on a spawner will make the spawner spawn normal vindicators, not vindicators named Johnny.

During raids, vindicators can break doors. If raiding vindicators killed all the villagers in the village or the beds were destroyed, vindicators will celebrate their victory by laughing and raising their arms.

Vindicators are able to spawn reinforcements if one of them is attacked by an invisible player or visible mob that they don't naturally attack and there are not any villagers or iron golems or visible players.

Data values
Vindicators have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

Trivia

 * According to Jeb, naming a vindicator "Johnny" will cause the vindicator to become hostile towards every mob, except other illagers; a reference to The Shining.