Vindicator

"The Evoker came first, but Jens wanted another, partly to increase the variety of attackers you’d be facing, deploying long and short range tactics. But also, Jens says, he wanted to give the sense of that the Illagers are a diverse bunch of individuals, each with their own set-up. And so the homicidal rush-mob, the Vindicator, was born - lurching at you from the dark recesses of the mansion, axe raised high."

- Marsh Davies

Vindicators are illagers equipped with iron axes.

Spawning
Vindicators sometimes spawn with a randomly enchanted iron axe, in normal or hard modes: the chances, 0-25%, go up as the regional difficulty goes up.

Woodland mansions
Vindicators spawn during the generation of mansions, inside particular rooms. Some rooms contain 1, others contain 3, some contain 2 accompanied by an evoker, and some can rarely spawn in the corridors.

They do not respawn after their initial spawn point. Vindicators generated with mansions do not naturally despawn (unless the world is switched to Peaceful mode ).

Patrols
Patrols consist of 2–5 illagers, with all illagers always being pillagers on Easy and Normal difficulties. On Hard difficulty, 80% of them are pillagers and 20% of them are vindicators.

Raids
Vindicators can spawn during raids. They appear less frequently during earlier waves and at easier difficulties but are more common in later waves and at higher difficulties.

Vindicators can spawn riding ravagers.

Drops
Vindicators drop loot only when killed by a player or tamed wolf. They drop when they die:
 * and an additional per naturally-spawned equipment.
 * 0–1 when killed by the player. The maximum increases by 1 for every level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-4 with Looting III.
 * 8.5% chance of dropping their normal or enchanted, which increases by 1 percentage point per level of Looting.


 * 1 Illager Banner.png Ominous banner, if they spawn as a raid captain.

$$, if a vindicator spawns as part of a raid, it drops:
 * 0-1

Additionally, vindicators have a 65% chance of dropping the following on Easy and Normal difficulties, and an 80% chance of dropping them on Hard difficulty:

Notes:
 * 0-1 ($10/39$ chance)
 * 2-3 ($5/39$ chance)
 * 4-5 ($2/39$ chance)
 * 1 ($2/39$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * 1 ($5/78$ chance)
 * Iron equipment from raid drops always has a 50% chance of being enchanted with a random enchantment at level 5-19.
 * Iron equipment from raid drops is always damaged.
 * These drops are also affected by the Looting enchantment.
 * The enchanted book has a level 30 enchantment, may be treasure enchantment.
 * Emeralds are both a regular raid drop and an additional raid drop.
 * With Looting III enchantment, a vindicator spawned from a 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 spawned from a 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 toward players, iron golems, adult villagers, wandering traders and snow golems.

Vindicators that spawn in woodland mansion are neutral to players.

When attacking, a vindicator raises its main hand brandishing an iron ax. It moves sprinting. While not attacking, a vindicator crosses its arms similar to a villager and does not show the ax in its hand. A vindicator follows from up to 12 blocks away.

A vindicator named Johnny (using a name tag, named spawn egg, etc., or has its  tag set to  ) is hostile to every mob except ghasts and illagers.

The hostility even extends to vexes and ravagers.

All hostile or neutral mobs, except for endermites, phantoms, guardians, slimes, magma cubes and ravagers try to attack the Johnny vindicator in return.

The  tag overrides its name; the player can give the vindicator any other name and set the   tag to   and it remains hostile in the same way as described. Conversely, the player can name the vindicator Johnny and set the  tag to , causing the vindicator to act as a normal vindicator.

Naming a vindicator spawn egg "Johnny" and it on a spawner has no effect; normal vindicators spawn rather than vindicators named Johnny.

During raids, vindicators can open doors, just as villagers do.

They break wooden doors in Normal and Hard modes whereas attacking.

A vindicator disables the player's shield with its iron ax attack, even when riding a mob. For example, a player may not survive trying to land a melee attack on a vindicator that rides a ravager during a raid in Hard difficulty.

If raiding vindicators kill all the villagers in the village or all the beds are destroyed, vindicators celebrate cheering.

If vindicators have no weapons, they still attack players, iron golems, villagers, wandering traders and snow golems.

Like shulkers and evokers, vindicators are passive on peaceful difficulty.

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

Trivia
"He just looks insane – and it made me think of The Shining, when Jack Nicholson breaks through the bathroom door, yelling, "Heeere's Johnny!" So I thought it was funny to add an Easter Egg in which you name him Johnny and he would constantly be in hostile mode and kill everything he sees!"

- Jens Bergensten


 * Naming a vindicator "Johnny" causes the vindicator to become hostile toward most mobs, except other illagers and ghasts; a reference to The Shining.
 * Vindicators have blue eyes, unlike other illagers, who have green eyes. In the Texture Update, vindicators and illusioners were changed to green eyes, but in 18w47b the color of the vindicator's eyes turned blue again.
 * They do the third-highest melee damage of all the non-boss mobs, first being the giant, second being the iron golem and fourth being the ravager.