Pillager

Pillagers are illagers armed with crossbows that patrol the Overworld, guard their outposts and participate in raids.

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 will spawn 24 to 48 blocks away from a random player, on the highest solid block. The individual pillagers of a patrol can only spawn 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.

$$, 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.

Raids
In a raid, pillagers are more common in the earlier waves, and decrease in number as the waves progress. 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.

Java Edition
In Java Edition, a pillager spawned by the player using a spawn egg or command can be a illager captain, meaning they have the Ominous banner sticking out of their back.

Behavior
Pillagers are hostile toward players, iron golems, wandering traders and villagers. $$, pillagers are also hostile toward snow golems, but not toward baby villagers. They attack by shooting arrows from their crossbows every 3 seconds up to 8 blocks away, and pursue their targets for up to 64 blocks. Taking into account their fast walking pace, they are extremely difficult to shake off. Pillagers never retaliate against other pillagers or illagers. They always seek an assailant regardless of distance, unlike most other mobs. In Bedrock Edition, a pillager that accidently shoots a vindicator, evoker, or witch makes it retaliate, as this never happens in Java Edition. The pillager does not retaliate on the vindicator, evoker, or witch that attacks it, even when attacked.

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.

$$, a pillager's crossbow eventually breaks with repeated use, unlike weapons wielded by other mobs. Unarmed pillagers $$ are passive, but still frighten villagers, and iron golems are hostile toward them. Unarmed pillagers in Bedrock Edition still uses melee attacks to attack the player and other mobs.

$$, pillagers use melee attacks while underwater. When the player is in creative mode or applied with the invisibility effect, going near the pillager or looking at the pillager makes the pillager stare and point its crossbow at the player. Pillagers that don't have a crossbow stares at the player instead. When a pillager sees a target while staring at the player, the pillager goes to kill its target instead of staring at the player. Attacking a pillager with the invisibility effect also causes the pillager to attack the player like the player doesn't have the effect.

Pillagers reload their crossbows immediately after they first spawned in Bedrock Edition only, or when their crossbow is unloaded. This helps the pillager "back-up" their crossbow, in case they see a target so they can shoot it immediately since a crossbow takes a long time to reload and they have a one second delay before shooting in Java Edition. Pillagers holding another crossbow in their offhand does not reload that crossbow, as mobs cannot use weapons in the offhand just like players.

Drops
$$, pillagers spawned in raids drop:
 * 8.5% chance for a (loaded or unloaded) 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.
 * 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.
 * 0–2 s . Each level of Looting increases the maximum number of arrows dropped, up to 5.
 * 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%)

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.

Trivia

 * 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.
 * $5/78$, 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.
 * In the Buzzy Bees trailer, a hidden pillager can be seen watching over the villagers. In the same trailer, a pillager comically flees from the bees.
 * Pillagers are the first mobs to wield a crossbow, the second being Piglins.
 * Pillagers are slightly taller than their other illagers and other villager like mobs. (Excluding Witches, who have a hat).
 * They are the only illagers that do not fold their arms.
 * 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.
 * $5/78$, Pillagers run animation runs differently than other illagers because of the mob that was modeled as a player.
 * Pillagers have the highest chance of being the raid's head coach.