This tutorial will show you how to defeat a village raid.
Raid basics
Raids are events during which pillagers, vindicators, ravagers, evokers (which can summon vexes) and witches invade a village to kill as many villagers as possible. They can be difficult to tackle early-game and can result in many villager deaths if not properly handled.
Equipment
- An iron sword at minimum. Sharpness and Fire Aspect allow quicker elimination of enemies, while Looting enables more spoils from the pillagers and vindicators [Bedrock Edition only].
- A full set of iron armor at minimum. Protection ensures better survivability and reduces damage from evocation fangs that would otherwise bypass armor and shields.
- A shield to guard against vex attacks, as well as vindicator blows as their attacks cannot disable shields [Bedrock Edition only]
- . A bow or crossbow as your ranged weapon to take out raiders from a distance. Power and Flame can quickly dispatch most raiders, if not one-shot them.
- Plenty of nutritious food, such as steak and bread, to regenerate health.
- A water bucket for getting up or down easily; necessary for all missions regardless of difficulty!
- A stack of expendable blocks to barricade village houses.
Optional equipment
- Some Ender pearls for quick escapes.
- Milk, to remove negative status effects that could affect your perfomance.
- Splash potions, to hinder groups of raiders.
- Regeneration or healing potions to recover quickly.
- Golden apples to tank enemy attacks and provide a swift healing cover.
- Cobwebs to trap raiders.
- A Lava Bucket for quickly eliminating Ravagers and other mobs.
Preparation
Preparing the village
Before the raid starts, a good idea is to prepare the village before the raiders attack. There are multiple ways to do so:
Walling off the village
A solid strategy is to wall off the perimeter of the village using a strong block, such as cobblestone or wood. As there are no ways for raiders to destroy solid blocks, they will not be able to penetrate the wall, and will, therefore, be stuck attempting to pathfind around it. Once you have walled off your village, you can use ladders to scale the wall and shoot the raiders with a bow. You can alternatively use walls or fences to border your village.
Setting traps
Once you have walled off your village, you can set traps outside of the perimeter to deal damage. Lava traps and cobweb traps can slow down and damage the raiders, and iron golems can dispatch of them rather quickly. Holes surrounding the outside of the wall can also be used to trap the raiders and prevent them from progressing any further. A moat is also helpful with water, lava or just a deep ditch. Raiders will not walk off edges so an easy way to get them in a hole is to make steps down. Raiders will path-find into the hole but not walk out.(to deal damage your can add magma, lava, wither roses, or sweet berries)
Blocking villager doorways
A very effective strategy is to wall off entrances to villager houses; this way, there is no way for the raiders (other than Vexes) to access the villagers inside the houses, effectively keeping them safe while you deal with the raiders. An easy way to get the villagers into their houses to begin with is to ring a bell. Have some villagers hidden underground. If possible, have a dispenser that splashes them with invisibility.
Starting the raid
The only way to trigger a raid is through the Bad Omen effect, which is obtained after killing an illager captain. Illager captains wear ominous banners on their heads and appear as part of patrols and pillager outposts, the latter of which can spawn several over time.
In Java Edition, if multiple raid captains are killed in succession, the Bad Omen level will stack to a maximum of V, increasing the likelihood of pillagers and vindicators wielding enchanted weapons. When the level of Bad Omen is higher than I, the resulting raid has an additional wave with a raider composition identical to that of the last wave.
To begin the raid, walk into a chunk comprising at least one villager and one claimed bed with the Bad Omen effect. Raiding illagers will then spawn within 64 blocks of the registered village; this depends on the render distance as well. Villages in the Nether cannot trigger raids, and can hence be safely visited even with Bad Omen.[1]
Defeating the raid
Once the raid starts, your immediate priority should be to locate the raiders and swiftly kill them.
Ring the village bell to afflict any nearby raiders with the Glowing status effect and determine their locations. [Java Edition only].
Prioritise ravagers, evokers and witches. Witches heal other raiders [Java Edition only], ravagers destroy crops, and evokers spawn vexes which deal heavy damage and pass through solid walls and floors.
Once the current wave has been eliminated, the next one will start shortly. This process will repeat until every wave has been defeated.
Post-raid
Once the raid has been defeated, any player in the village boundary will be awarded the Hero of the Village advancement and be affected with the Hero of the Village status effect for 60:00.
Villagers will throw gifts at nearby players once the raid has been defeated.[Java Edition only]
Waves
In Java Edition, the number of waves depends on the difficulty. If the Bad Omen level is higher than I, an additional wave spawns with an identical raider composition as the last wave.
There are three waves on Easy, five waves on Normal, and seven waves on Hard difficulty. Depending on the difficulty, up to 2 additional pillagers and vindicators may spawn per wave, and an additional witch may spawn on the third wave onwards.
In Bedrock Edition, as Bad Omen is not cumulative, there are no additional waves, and additional illagers do not spawn as well. Vindicators do not ride ravagers.
Wave 1: There are only pillagers. Simply charge up to them and dispatch them with your sword, or snipe at them from a distance if they are still grouped together.
Wave 2: There are pillagers and vindicators. Melee tactics are enough for now, but always fall back to ranged combat if you’re facing many illagers at once.
Wave 3: There is a ravager and some pillagers. You may need to use hit-and-run tactics against the ravager, as it can resist knockback. Alternatively, get to high ground and pelt it with arrows. Kill the pillagers as per normal.
Wave 4: There are witches, pillagers, and vindicators. Catch the witches by surprise and quickly strike them until they die, such that they do not throw harmful potions that make you vulnerable. Kill the pillagers and vindicators as per normal.
Wave 5: There are pillagers, vindicators, an evoker, and a pillager riding a ravager (In Bedrock Edition there is an additional ravager). Shoot the pillager mount from a distance before closing in on the ravager. Corner the evoker into a small space (while dodging its fangs) for melee combat, or snipe at it from a distance. Kill the other raiders as per normal.
Wave 6: There is only one evoker, but many pillagers and vindicators. Try to single out the evoker first as vexes can be troublesome to deal with. Kill the other raiders as per normal, but be especially careful to not get swarmed.
Wave 7: It’s a massive raiding party consisting of almost all raiding illager types, including an evoker and vindicator riding a ravager each. Vindicators constitute the majority of raiders. Be careful and try to single out illagers to reduce group sizes. Snipe at the mounted evoker first to make the ravager less of a threat and defeatable with melee strategies. As with the third wave, attack the witches quickly, and by surprise, to avoid potion chaos.
Notes
Tutorials/Defeating a pillager outpost