A raid is an exciting mechanic in Minecraft. An in game event triggered by a player who is cursed with the bad omen effect upon entering a village, a raid is a good way to get a hold of a lot of loot and levels.
On the other hand it can be a very dangerous and damaging event for all involved. A raid has the potential to kill all villagers inside a village.
If the players themselves are not well equipped with strong weapons and prepared you are bound to also die and lose your items, gear, and already acquired levels.
So unless you want to end the raid the old fashioned way by fighting through it, there’s luckily plenty of other ways to end a raid, sometimes even before it begins.
Stopping a Raid From Being Triggered
To trigger a raid you have to be affected by the bad omen status effect. You know you are affected if you look into your character menu as well as by the green particles flying around you.
Bad omen can be picked up by a player that kills an illager captain anywhere in the world. wolves can also be affected by bad omen if they are tamed and killed the captain for their Player.
For as long as the player (or their dog) have this status effect on them they risk triggering a raid if they enter a village. Sometimes coming just too close to a village can trigger it.
To be sure you won’t trigger a raid the easiest thing is to not go near villages. This includes any village builds.
However, sometimes this isn’t so easy, so getting rid of the bad omen as soon as possible is preferred. Especially when you consider that this status effect lasts 1 hour and 40 minutes.
The easiest way to remove the effect is by drinking a bucket of milk, which can be acquired by using an empty bucket on a cow. Milk clears any and every status effect in Minecraft. Honey removes poison effects, but in this case it won’t work.
The only other way to remove bad omen if you do not have milk is dying.
If you really cannot get milk and you have to die it would be good to know how to find where you died in Minecraft so you can get your items back.
Fighting A Raid in Minecraft
Once a player with the bad omen status effect enters a village they will trigger the start of the raid. A “health bar” will appear on the top of the screen of every present player with the name “Raid”.
This is the collective health bar of all mobs that are taking part in the raid.
Now, the difficulty and length of the raid depends on both the difficulty of your game as well as the level of the bad omen status effect.
The raid will be coming in waves, with each wave having more and stronger Mobs. On Easy difficulty the raid will last 3 waves, with the possibility of an additional 4th wave.
With every additional difficulty level, there’s an extra 2 waves added, with each difficulty having the possibility of one more extra wave.
This means that on Normal mode you can fight 5 or 6 waves and on Hard and Hardcore you fight 7 or 8.
Each wave has multiple illager type mobs that will be spawning and attacking both the players and the village. All illagers have a chance to have enchanted weapons as well, with the chances rising higher depending on the difficulty.
The most important thing when you think you might be faced with a raid is to be well geared up. Anything from iron armor and sword to even diamond or netherite.
Enchanting your armor and weapons will be very helpful too. Knowing how to get the Infinity Enchantment on your bow can certainly help you gain an upper hand in the raid.
Additionally, a raid can also expire if more than 40 real life minutes pass, but this does not despawn the illagers.
Losing a Raid
A raid will automatically end if you have lost the raid.
A raid will not be lost with the death of the player. The raid will be considered lost if all villagers in the village die or if every bed claimed by a villager is destroyed.
When that happens the raid health bar will say “Raid – Defeat” and all the illagers can be seen celebrating by jumping up and down.
Wining a Raid
To win a Raid the Player or Players have to kill all the mobs that spawn in each wave. Once the illagers from one wave are killed you will see the health bar come back to full as the next wave spawns.
You may have to kill anywhere between 17 and 102 Mobs in total, depending on the difficulty and number of waves you will face.
Raid Rewards in Minecraft
Of course, as hard as a raid may be to fight, there are large benefits in fighting through one.
The first and most obvious reward would be the experience gained. For each illager mob you kill in the raid they will drop their regular amount of experience.
If you’re on Java Edition, aside from experience, each mob has the chance of dropping its regular loot. This means crossbows and arrows from pillagers, saddles from ravagers, glowstone dust and glass bottles from witches and more.
Additionally, once you have won the raid you will earn a benefit with the surviving villagers in the village you have defended. You will be given loot as gifts as well as a discount on all trades.
In Bedrock Edition you can also gain additional loot from killing the illagers, such as emeralds, enchantment books, and iron armor pieces.
Getting Villagers Back
Even if you win a raid, it is going to be very likely a good portion of your villagers perish if it does end up getting triggered.
This means that you can lose on quite a bit of your trades. When this happens, you can luckily spawn villagers back or breed them to repopulate your village.
