Armor can be farmed via random drops from mobs such as zombies or skeletons, or by trading with villagers. While generally, large amounts of armor aren't required and can be crafted, a farm can be useful for creating decorative armor stands or for visitors in a multiplayer survival world.
Villager Trading Method[]
An efficient way of farming armor is to trade with villagers. Armorer villagers and leatherworker villagers both will trade the player armor in return for emeralds. The leatherworker is not recommended because it only trades for leather armor, which is one of the lowest-tiered armor in the game.
Getting emeralds[]
In order to get enough emeralds to trade for armor, you are going to need to have an efficient way of getting emeralds. There are two different ways of doing this. One is making a redstone farm, and trading the items you receive to the villagers. Another one is to construct a raid farm, which gets automatic emeralds through ongoing, simulated raids.
Redstone farm & trade method[]
The first way of getting large quantities of emeralds is to build a redstone farm which a villager will buy for cheap, and continuously trade that same item to multiple villagers of that profession. To do this you will need to trap multiple villagers inside of an area with a profession block in front of them (whichever villager trades the item you are making a redstone farm for) so that their profession changes to the villager of your choosing. Once you have an ample amount of them (4-6) you will also want to gather 4-6 armorer villagers so that you can farm the armor more easily. The armorer's profession block is a blast furnace. Once you have done this, start working on contructing a redstone farm. Some farms that are very profitable in emeralds are:
- Melon & pumpkin farm - Farmer
- Sugarcane farm (turn to paper) - Librarian, Cartographer
- TNT wood farm (turn to sticks) - Fletcher
- Bamboo farm (turn to sticks) - Fletcher
- Iron Farm - Toolsmith, Weaponsmith, Armorer
Raid farm method[]
The raid farm method is where you construct a raid farm to farm emeralds, as well as various other items, including totems of undying. This can be a wonderful method because you only have to set up a raid farm, instead of set up a redstone farm, and trade to the villagers, going back and forth. Here are some links to tutorials to get started:
- Rays Works Raid Farm - 3500 per hour
- Shulkercraft Raid Farm - 3300 per hour
- IanXO4 Raid Farm - 3000+ per hour
- Wattles Raid Farm - Easy, XP, Loot & Efficient
Trading[]
Once you have got enough emeralds, and once you have got all of your armorer villagers in place you must start to trade. The reason you want multiple of the armorer villagers is because a singular villager can only have a maximum of 10 trades, so to get every single option of armor, you will want multiple villagers with different trades. You will see that immediately there are some iron armor trades and you can trade for as many of those as you want. Once you upgrade the villagers to apprentice you may start to see trades for chainmail armor. Then finally, at expert and master you will see enchanted diamond armor trades. To upgrade a villager simply trade with them enough for the bar at the top to fill all the way up. Once it fills completely the villager will upgrade with new trades. You must be strategic with what you trade, because villagers can only trade 4 times for a certain trade at a time until they restock. Villagers can restock up to two times per game day.
Enchanting[]
The most efficient way to get the best set of armor is to put enchanted books on armor in the anvil. You can stack up to six enchanted books on an item in survival mode, or up to 12 if you combine two books together and then put them on the armor piece. To get the best enchantments on your armor you will need to gather the enchanted books, gather the armor, and get levels and an anvil to combine them.
Gathering enchanted books[]
To gather the perfect enchanted books for your armor there are many ways you can do it. You can trade with librarian villagers, put books in an enchanting table, or find them throughout the minecraft world. Enchanted books are crucial for this process.
Trade with Villagers[]
One way to get the enchanted books you need is to trade with librarian villagers. To do this you will need to gather a very large amount of villagers by constructing a villager breeder, and you will have to craft 12-16 lectern blocks (Those are the profession blocks for librarian villagers). Move the villages into an 1x1x2 space and place a lectern in front of them to convert them to librarians. If they do not have the enchanted book trade you like, you can break and re-place the lectern block over and over again to get the enchanted books you want. Next you will have to gather emeralds to trade with the villagers. Refer to the 'Getting Emeralds' section above for ways to get lots of emeralds.
Books in enchanting table[]
One more strong way of getting enchanted books in minecraft is to craft books and place them in an enchanting table along with levels & lapus lazuli to create some enchanted books. For better enchantments place bookshelves around the enchantment table. This is a relatively easy way to get enchanted books, but does require lapus lazuli, an enchanting table, lots of levels, and bookshelves, whereas the other method just requires villagers and emeralds.
Finding in loot[]
The final way to find enchanted books throughout your world is to explore the world for the various different naturally generating structures in minecraft, and searching for loot chests that can sometimes spawn enchanted books in. These structures include:
- Jungle Temple
- Stronghold
- Dungeon
- Mineshaft
- Desert Temple
- Pillager Outpost
- Underwater Ruins
- Woodland Mansion
- Bastion Remnants
Gathering Armor, Anvils, and Levels[]
To complete this method of combining books and your armor in an anvil you are going to need the following: Armor, Anvil, Levels. These items are pretty simple to gather and do not require much work.
Armor[]
First you must choose what type of armor you want to enchant. You can choose leather, chainmail, iron, diamond, or netherite. It is recommended to use diamond armor, as you can get it easily, and upgrade those same pieces of armor to netherite later down the line.
Anvil[]
An anvil is crafted using three iron blocks and 4 iron totaling up to exactly 31 iron. In order to get this amount of iron you can mine for iron using a stone pickaxe or above, or you can make an iron farm. It is recommended to mine 31 iron ore, then smelt it in a furnace, or a blast furnace. Once you have done this, in a crafting table place one iron in each slot of the table to make an iron block. Repeat this two more times. Then in the crafting table place the three iron blocks on the top three slots, on iron in the middle slot, and the three remaining iron in the bottom three slots. Then you can craft the Anvil. You may have to do this multiple times, just in case the anvil breaks from a lot of combining enchanted books and armor.
Obtaining Levels[]
The final step is to obtain the correct amount of levels required to put the armor and the enchanted books together. There are many methods to do this effectively. Mining coal underground is a great method of levels, and so is mining for nether quartz in the nether. You can also wait for nightfall, and kill some hostile mobs for levels too. You can even make a mob farm, or similar farms for experience.
Combining Books[]
Once you have all of the materials is is time to put them all together in an anvil. First place the piece of armor in the first slot of the anvil. Next, place the enchanted book in the second slot of the anvil, and in the third slot there will appear the piece of armor you will get after enchanting. The anvil will also show you how many levels it will cost you to put them together. Do not enchant yet. You are going to want to have all of the enchantments lined up and ready to enchant. Also, to get the most enchantments on a piece of armor, or any tool, you must put the enchantments with the higher number first. For example, if you were putting a unbreaking III enchantment on the armor, but you also wanted to put protection IV on the armor, you should put the protection IV first so you can fit more enchantments on tools and armor.
Zombie Armor Farm (Bedrock version)[]
The only things required are a zombie spawner, water, a hopper, and a chest. In order to farm the armor, you will have to first make a zombie farm, with the use of a zombie spawner dungeon. Once you have found it, surround the dungeon (with the zombie spawner) completely with walls. Then, place water on one side so it creates a stream that runs to the other side. Where the water stops flowing, dig a 4 block deep hole in the ground. Place water so it fills the bottom two blocks of the hole. Dig two more blocks down and place a chest at the bottom and then a hopper above it. Finally, dig out a room with that chest in it so you can access the chest much easier. When a zombie spawns with armor or something in its hand, it will walk towards you while you are in that room. If you placed the water stream in the right place, it will fall into the stream and be pushed down into the hole. It will stay at the bottom and after a few moments, it will turn into a drowned. It then instantly drops all of the items that it is attached to and the armor will have full durability. It should drop into the hopper and be moved into the chest, where you can grab it. You may also want to make a way that you can collect the armor in person because the armor sometimes floats up to the top of the water and avoids getting sucked up by the hopper. Occasionally, another drowned will pick up the armor, but will drop it when it dies, however it will not have full durability. Alternatively, you can use villagers to farm armor and tools. Master level tool smiths and armorers trade diamond tools and armor with enchantments.