A vindicator is an illager equipped with an iron axe. Vindicators appear in woodland mansions and participate in raids, as well as pillager patrols.[BE only]
Spawning
On Normal difficulty and Hard difficulty, vindicators sometimes spawn with a randomly enchanted iron axe: the chance is 0–25%, and is higher when the regional difficulty is higher.
Woodland mansions
Vindicators spawn during the generation of mansions, in groups of 1–3 inside particular rooms, sometimes accompanied by an Evoker. Rarely, vidincators can spawn in the corridors and hallways.
They do not respawn after initially spawning. Vindicators generated with mansions do not naturally despawn unless the world is switched to Peaceful difficulty.
Vindicators are sometimes neutral if naturally spawned in a woodland mansion, which means that the vindicator does not attack the player on sight. Only when the vindicator is attacked it will fight back.
Patrols
Patrols consist of 2–5 Illagers, with all Illagers always being Pillagers on Easy difficulty and Normal difficulty. On Hard difficulty, 80% of them are pillagers and 20% of them are vindicators.[BE only]
Raids
Vindicators can spawn during raids. They appear more frequently during later waves and at higher difficulties.
Vindicators can spawn riding Ravagers.[JE only]
Java Edition
In Java Edition, if a player spawns a vindicator with a spawn egg or using a command, the vindicator has a chance of becoming a illager captain, with a Ominous banner attached above its back.
Drops
A vindicator drops loot only when killed by a player or tamed wolf:
- 5 and an additional 1–3 per naturally-spawned equipment.
- 0–1 emeralds 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 iron axe, which increases by 1 percentage point per level of Looting.
- 1
Ominous banner(in Java Edition), or illager banner in Bedrock Edition if they spawn as a raid captain.
In Bedrock Edition, if a vindicator spawns as part of a raid, it drops:
- 0-1 Emerald
Additionally, in Bedrock Edition, vindicators have a 65% chance of dropping the following on Easy and Normal difficulties, and an 80% chance of dropping them on Hard difficulty:
- 0-1 Emerald (10⁄39 chance)
- 2-3 Emerald (5⁄39 chance)
- 4-5 Emerald (2⁄39 chance)
- 1 Enchanted Book (2⁄39 chance)
- 1 Iron Axe (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Pickaxe (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Shovel (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Sword (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Helmet (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Chestplate (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Leggings (5⁄78 chance)
- 1 Iron Boots (5⁄78 chance)
Notes:
- 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
A vindicator chasing a Villager.
Vindicators are hostile toward players, iron golems, adult villagers, baby villagers [JE only], wandering traders, and snow golems.[BE only]
Vindicators attack the player regardless of distance, unlike most other illagers, who attack the player on sight. The vindicator can stare at a player from a long distance away. This also applies for other mobs, if the vindicator was named "Johnny".
When attacking, a vindicator raises its main hand brandishing an iron axe. It sprints, moving faster than villagers. When not attacking, a vindicator crosses its arms similar to a villager and does hold its axe. A vindicator follows from up to 12 blocks away.
If the vindicator has no weapons (its axe), it still attacks players, iron golems, villagers, wandering traders and snow golems, except the axe doesn't appear in the vindicator's hand when the vindicator raises its hand. A vindicator's axe can break, just like pillager crossbows.
When idle, the vindicator prefers to stand in dark corners, moving around occasionally.
A mob hitting a vindicator would provoke not only that vindicator, but also all vindicators nearby, similar to piglins, piglin brutes, or zombified piglins.
During raids, vindicators can open doors, just as villagers do.[JE only] They break wooden doors on Normal and Hard difficulties when attacking.
A vindicator disables the player's shield for 5 seconds with its iron axe attack, even when riding a mob.[JE only] For this reason, 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 by cheering.
Like shulkers, and evokers, vindicators are passive in Peaceful difficulty.[Bedrock Edition only]
Like most hostile mobs, vindicators despawn in Peaceful difficulty in Java Edition.
In Bedrock Edition, if a pillager arrow accidentally strikes a vindicator, the vindicator retaliates against the pillager and the pillager fights back. This does not occur in Java Edition, as all illagers are friendly to each other, even when accidently hit.
Sometimes a vindicator is neutral if naturally spawned in a woodland mansion, causing it to not attack the player when the player looks at it or when it sees the player. When a player attacks the neutral vindicator, it attacks the player like a normal vindicator.
Vindicators look at the player in creative mode like villagers do, but they might break the line of sight with the player after looking for a while or when it sees a target.
Vindicators are tied with Piglin Brutes for being the mob that does the single highest amount of raw melee damage in the game, dealing an alarming 19 hearts of damage, on hard difficulty. This makes them pose a serious threat, even to well-prepared and heavily armoured players. Strong armour (at least diamond) and a strong weapon is mandatory to quickly deal with Vindicators, as even one of them is a massive threat to players. Due to the fact they spawn in large amounts as well, they make mansions extremely dangerous, even for seasoned players.
"Johnny"
A vindicator named Johnny (using a name tag, named spawn egg, etc., or has its Johnny tag set to 1b) is hostile to every mob except:
- Illagers
- Evokers
- Illusioners [Java Edition only]
- Pillagers
- Ravagers [Bedrock Edition only] [verify]
- Other Vindicators
- Ghasts [1]
- Players in Creative or Spectator [Java Edition only] mode
The hostility even extends to armor stands[Bedrock Edition only], baby villagers, Vexes and Ravagers.[JE only][2][3][4]
All hostile or neutral mobs, except for Endermites, Elder Guardians, Phantoms, Guardians, Slimes, Magma cubes and Ravagers try to attack the Johnny vindicator in return.
The Johnny tag overrides its name; the player can give the vindicator any other name and set the Johnny tag to 1b and it remains hostile in the same way as described. Conversely, the player can name the vindicator Johnny and set the Johnny tag to 0b, causing the vindicator to act as a normal vindicator.
Naming a vindicator spawn egg "Johnny" and using it on a spawner has no effect; normal vindicators spawn rather than vindicators named Johnny.[BE only]
Sounds
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vindicator mutters | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Vindicator cheers | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Vindicator dies | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Vindicator hurts | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 |
Data values
ID
| Name | Identifier | Entity tags (JE) | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vindicator | vindicator | raiders | entity.minecraft.vindicator |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vindicator | vindicator | 57 | entity.vindicator.name |
Entity data
Vindicators have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.
- Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- Tags common to all mobs spawnable in raids
- Johnny: 1 or 0 (true/false) - if true, causes the vindicator to exhibit Johnny behavior. Setting to false prevents the vindicator exhibiting Johnny behavior, even if named Johnny. Optional.
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Monster Hunter | Attack and destroy a monster. | Kill a hostile mob or one of the following neutral mobs: an enderman, a piglin, a zombified piglin, a spider, or a cave spider. | 15G | Bronze | ||
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Adventure | Adventure, exploration and combat | — | Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity. | adventure/root
|
![]() | Monster Hunter | Kill any hostile monster | Adventure | Kill one of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_a_mob
|
![]() | Monsters Hunted | Kill one of every hostile monster | Monster Hunter | Kill each of these 34 mobs:
| adventure/kill_all_mobs
|
History
The specific instructions are: Unarmed vindicator attacking in bedrock edition
| Java Edition | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.11 | 16w39a | ||||
| 16w40a | The vindicators' axes are now one of their HandItems, whereas before it was a visual effect. This means their attack now disables shields.
| ||||
| Vindicators have been heavily buffed - their attack damage on Easy has been increased from 3 | |||||
| "Johnny" vindicators are now activated by a custom tag in addition to a custom name. | |||||
| 1.13 | pre5 | The entity ID for vindicators has been changed from vindication_illager to vindicator. | |||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | ||||
| 18w45a | Vindicators can now spawn in illager patrols. | ||||
| Vindicators can now sometimes spawn as a patrol leader in illager patrols. | |||||
| 18w47a | Vindicators can now spawn as part of raids. | ||||
| Vindicators can now break doors. | |||||
| 18w47b | |||||
| 19w05a | Vindicators are now hostile toward the new wandering traders. | ||||
| 19w13a | |||||
| 1.14.3 | Pre-Release 2 | Vindicators no longer spawn as part of illager patrols. | |||
| 1.15 | 19w41a | Vindicators now have a fifth idle sound (known as "idle5"). The sound had been in the game files since 1.11, but was never heard in-game until this update. | |||
| 1.16.2 | 20w29a | ||||
| Pocket Edition | |||||
| 1.1.0 | alpha 1.1.0.0 | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | ||||
| Vindicators are now hostile toward the new wandering traders. | |||||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.1 | Vindicators can now spawn as part of illager patrols and raids. | |||
| Vindicators can now spawn as raid captains. | |||||
| Vindicators no longer attack baby villagers. | |||||
| beta 1.11.0.4 | Vindicators that spawn from raids now have special drops upon death. | ||||
| beta 1.11.0.7 | Vindicators can now break wooden doors. | ||||
| 1.13.0 | beta 1.13.0.9 | ||||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.15.0.55 | Vindicators in woodland mansions are no longer neutral toward the player. They are now hostile toward the player again. | |||
| 1.16.20 | beta 1.16.20.54 | ||||
| 1.16.100 | beta 1.16.100.50 | Vindicators now despawn in peaceful mode. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU54 | CU44 | 1.52 | Patch 24 | 1.0.4 | |
| Vindicators deal 6 | |||||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 1.9.19 | |||||
Issues
Issues relating to "Vindicator" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia
- Naming a vindicator "Johnny" with a name tag causes the vindicator to become hostile toward most mobs, except other illagers and ghasts; a reference to The Shining.
- Vindicators have blue eyes,[JE only] unlike other illagers, who have green eyes. During the Texture Update, the eyes of vindicators and illusioners were changed to green, but in 18w47b, the color of the vindicator's eyes were changed back to blue.
- The eyes on Bedrock Edition remain green.
- Vindicators have an unused hat layer in their texture file, similar to the illusioner's hat.
Gallery
Screenshots
A vindicator in a mineshaft.
- Vindicator Captain.PNG
Raid captain vindicator.
A vindicator riding a ravager.
In other media
- ExplorationUpdateFull.jpeg
A Vindicator in promotional artwork for the Exploration Update.
Vindicators in promotional artwork for the Village and Pillage Update.
- Vindicator Mobestiary.jpeg
The Vindicator page from the Mobestiary.
Lego Minecraft Vindicator.








