Pillager

Pillagers are illagers armed with crossbows that patrol the Overworld, guard their outposts, and participate in raids, sometimes spawning on ravagers in later waves of a raid. They are the weakest and most common of the illagers.

Patrols
$$, the number of pillagers spawning in each patrol depends on the local difficulty, with one spawning as a patrol captain. Patrols occur after 5$$ in-game days, any time and independently of structures, which means they still spawn in a world without generated structures. A patrol spawns 24 to 48 blocks away from a random player, on the highest solid block. The individual pillagers of a patrol can spawn only at block light level 7 or lower, regardless of sky light.

$$, each patrol spawns 2 to 5 pillagers on Easy and Normal difficulty, whereas on Hard difficulty, 80% of illagers spawned are pillagers and 20% are vindicators. One of these illagers is a patrol captain. After 5$1/2$ in-game days, patrols appear 24 to 48 blocks away from the player, at a light level of 7 and below on Easy or any light level on Normal and Hard difficulty.

Outposts


Pillagers continually spawn in a 72×54×72 block volume centered on the top floor. They may spawn on any valid opaque block as long as the sky light level is 11 or lower, and the block light level is 8 or lower, but can also spawn on grass or sand blocks regardless of block light level. There can be unlimited pillagers that spawn in outposts naturally, limited only by the natural spawning rules.

$$, pillagers continually spawn at or below a particular location in the outpost, choosing the highest opaque block with a non-solid block on top and spawning on the northwest corner. There can only be a maximum of 8 pillagers spawned naturally in an outpost.

Raids
In a raid, pillagers are more common in the earlier waves, and decrease in number as the waves progress, except during the bonus wave. Despite this, they still constitute the majority of raiders in total. The pillager is also the most common raiding mob in a raid. One pillager spawns riding a ravager in the fifth wave. $1/2$, one of the ravagers is ridden by a pillager instead of a vindicator on the seventh wave.

The pillager has the biggest chance of being the raid captain in the first wave, but in second waves and on vindicators have a greater chance than pillagers of being the raid captain.

Java Edition
In Java Edition, a pillager spawned by the player using a spawn egg or command can be a raid captain, meaning it has an Ominous banner sticking out of its head.

Behavior
Pillagers are hostile toward players, iron golems, wandering traders and villagers, but not toward baby villagers. $$, pillagers are also hostile toward snow golems. They attack by shooting arrows from their crossbows every 3 seconds up to 8 blocks away, and pursue their targets for up to 64 blocksor 16 blocks. Taking into account their fast walking pace, they are extremely difficult to shake off.

Pillagers move slowly around when idle and loading crossbows in Java Edition. In Bedrock Edition, pillagers move from one place to another as fast as when they're provoked, although they stop and look around, pointing their crossbows along.

If the pillagers are part of a patrol then they do not attack immediately. The patrol members' heads turn to follow the player's or of the villager-like mob who attracted their attention. If the player or villager-like mob attacks or approaches within 10 blocks of the patrol members, then this provokes them into loading their crossbows and attacking. This is intended behavior.

If raiding pillagers kill all the villagers in a village, they celebrate their victory by jumping and laughing. $$, pillagers wave their arms while holding their crossbow in their main hand when cheering. Even unarmed pillagers also cheer.

When the player is in creative mode or applied with the invisibility effect, going near or looking at the pillager still causes the pillager stare and point its crossbow at the player. If a pillager notices a target while staring at the player, the pillager stops staring and attacks the target. If a player with the invisibility effect attacks a pillager, the pillager still retaliates.

In Bedrock Edition, a pillager that accidently shoots a vindicator or evoker makes it retaliate and attack the pillager, as this never happens in Java Edition. In Java Edition, the pillager does not retaliate on the vindicator or evoker that attacks it, even when attacked.

Java Edition
When the pillagers finds a target, it chases the target first, When they lock the target in their shot range, then load their crossbow.

Pillagers, unlike evokers or vindicators, attack on sight, not regarding distance, although attacking a pillager, vindicator, or evoker far away causes the hit illager and the same type of illagers around the attacked illager to attack the player, regardless of distance.

Pillagers never retaliate against other pillagers or illagers. They always seek an assailant regardless of distance, unlike most other mobs.

Pillager's crossbow eventually breaks with repeated use, unlike weapons wielded by other mobs. Unarmed pillagers are passive toward the player, iron golems, and villagers, but they still frighten villagers, and iron golems are still hostile toward them. This also includes pillagers that don't have a crossbow, which means any pillagers with a sword or any weapon other than a crossbow are still passive.

Unlike other illagers, pillagers always aid for other pillager hit by other mobs like zombified piglins or other neutral mobs.

Pillager can use their crossbow in their off-hand, but the loading animation still uses the main-hand loading.

Non-raider pillagers are not attracted to ominous banners.

Bedrock Edition
Pillagers uses the outdated attacking AI in Bedrock Editions, which have been fixed in Java Editions.

When the pillagers finds their target, they loaded their crossbow first, then dash to player and close-up shooting. Pillagers are not hostile to player before their crossbow loaded, so sometimes they don't look at player or run away while loading their crossbow.

A dispenser can equip a pillager with armors. However, armors are invisible on pillagers.

If player summon a pillager without crossbow by spawn event command. Unarmed pillager still shoot arrows to attack player or other targeted mobs like other ranged mobs. It is because in the pillager.json and ranged piglin.json file, the  have both   and , if the mob without crossbow, the "charge_held_item" group cannot be trigger and make it shoot arrows from air because of the "ranged_attack" behavior.

Pillagers use melee attacks while underwater, unlike the Java Edition that pillagers still try to shoot arrows underwater, although the arrows are slower underwater and sink after a short distance.

Pillagers "reload" their crossbows upon spawning, or if their crossbow is unloaded. This allows them to have it ready to fire at their next target.

Pillagers cannot use a crossbow in their off-hand, as mobs cannot use weapons in the off-hand just like players in Bedrock Editions.

Pillagers can pick up and equip Illager Banner within 3 blocks.

Pillagers with Multishot or Piercing crossbows don't have the enchanted effects, this bug fixed in Java Editions.

Drops
$$, pillagers spawned in raids drop:
 * 8.5% chance for a (loaded or unloaded, depending on the crossbow's state when the pillager dies) when killed by a player or tamed wolf; drop chance increases by 1% per level of Looting. The crossbow is of a random durability and has up to a 10% chance of being enchanted at level 5-19, depending on regional difficulty. Duplicate or conflicting enchantments are possible but extremely rare.
 * and an additional per naturally-spawned equipment when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
 * 1 Illager Banner.png ominous banner/illager banner, if spawned as a captain.
 * 0–1

$$, raiding pillagers also have a 65% chance on Easy and Normal, or 80% chance on Hard difficulty, to drop these:
 * 0–1 ($$ or 25.6%)
 * 2–3 ($$ or 12.8%)
 * 4–5 ($10/39$ or 5.1%)
 * 1 ($20/78$ or 5.1%)
 * 1 ($5/39$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($10/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($2/39$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($4/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($2/39$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($4/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($5/78$ or 6.4%)
 * 1 ($5/78$ or 6.4%)

Pillagers do not drop extra raid loot in Java Edition. Instead, they drop their normal loot. They also do not drop emeralds upon death in Java Edition.

Notes:
 * Iron equipment drops have a 50% chance to be enchanted at level 5-19. Said equipment may also have enchantment combinations that cannot be normally obtained, such as Blast Protection and Fire Protection on the same pair of boots.
 * Iron equipment drops are always of 30 to 90% durability.
 * These drops are affected by the Looting enchantment.
 * Enchanted books have level 30 enchantments, which can also be treasure enchantments.

Bad Omen
If the player kills a pillager captain, which wears an ominous banner (or Illager banner ) on its head, they receive the  status effect. The effect lasts for 100 minutes (5 in-game days) and can be removed by drinking milk. When a player afflicted with Bad Omen enters a village, a raid commences in that village, bringing about waves of illagers that seek and try to eliminate all villagers in the village.

Each patrol spawn one captain, while outposts can continually spawn pillager captains, both of which beset the player with one level of Bad Omen upon death. Note that raid captains do not inflict Bad Omen when defeated in a raid. $5/78$, killing multiple captains in succession raises the Bad Omen level to a maximum of V, increasing the chance of pillagers and vindicators in the resulting raid wielding enchanted weapons. As long as the Bad Omen level is higher than I, the resulting raid includes an additional wave with a raider composition identical to that of the last wave.

ID




Entity data
Pillagers have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Trivia

 * Alongside crossbows, pillagers were taken from Minecraft Dungeons, even though they were added in the base game first.
 * The Pillager was added to Village and Pillage as a means to give the villagers a "true" adversary in order to balance the new village mechanics.
 * $5/78$, an unarmed pillager walks at random similarly to passive mobs, but always faces any player in its field of view or any mob that attacks it.
 * Pillagers point their crossbows at the player or any mob they are looking at whether their crossbow is loaded or unloaded.
 * $5/78$, due to a bug, unarmed pillagers can still shoot arrows rapidly, about 1 every 0.75 second.
 * The command:  summons a passive pillager that does not attack anything.
 * Unarmed pillagers or pillagers without a crossbow still prevent a player from sleeping, even if they don't attack, because pillagers are considered monsters in their files.
 * They are the only illagers that do not fold their arms, even when unarmed.
 * An original design of the pillager appeared like a pirate wearing an orange vest. However, Mojang Studios' mob designers changed the mob's design to look more like brigandine armor because they thought this design looked better.
 * $5/78$, Pillagers run animation runs differently than other illagers because of the mob that was modeled as a player.
 * Summoning an unarmed pillager in Java Edition that is invulnerable ( } do not cause villagers to run away from the pillager.
 * Typing  in Bedrock Edition does not cause the summoned pillager to attack the player.
 * A pillager has a 1/16,000 chance of dropping a crossbow enchanted with two piercing I enchants, a 1/409,000 chance of dropping one with piercing I and multishot, and 1/3.5mill chance of dropping one with piercing I, multishot, unbreaking III, and quick charge I. (These probabilities were calculated with pillagers spawned from patrols or pilager outposts, because pillagers spawned from higher levels of raids have an increased chance of dropping enchanted crossbows. Also with maximum local difficulty, as this affects the chance of a dropped crossbow being enchanted).