Villagers

Villagers are important since they provide food (golden carrots) and XP (via pumpkins and melons) from farmers, enchanted books from librarians, weapons, armor, and tools from weaponsmiths, armorers, and toolsmiths, tipped arrows from fletchers, shears, wool, beds, banners from shepards, and redstone, lapis, glowstone, and ender pearls from clerics.

Unemployed villagers search for an unclaimed job site block within a 48 block sphere any time of day that they are not sleeping. A provisional claim is released if the villager cannot reach the block within 60 seconds, however the villager may try again immediately. To fully claim the site and change profession, the villager must approach within a 2-block radius of the job site's center. Once a villager finds a job site block and converts to the corresponding profession they will lose that profession if the player goes 128 blocks away or if the job site block is destroyed. However, once traded with, their trades will lock in and cannot be changed. Use minecarts to transport them around or use job blocks like a composter or a lecturn to make a villager go where you want them to.

Note that you can smother or use lava on villagers without affecting their gossip discounts.

Sold out items are restocked when the villager works at a job site, up to twice per day.

Villager Breeding

A Minecraft day is 20 minutes. Per day, villagers spend 8:36 sleeping, 1:24 wandering/sharing, 4 minutes working, 2 minutes gathering/sharing, and another 1 minute wandering/sharing before bed. Since there is a 5 minute cooldown between breedings, there is room for two breedings per day so long as 2 beds are available for the breeders and 2 beds are available for children. If you are able to move the child so they can't pathfind to the bed, only 1 bed would be needed. Since during play time, children like to jump on beds, you could place an open trap door for them to think they could access the bed and fall down out of range. Employed villagers do not breed with each other during their work schedule. Nitwits and unemployed villagers do not follow this rule so they might be more beneficial in a villager breeder although food would need to be shared with them.

Villager Schedule

Ticks (time) Employed Unemployed/Nitwit Child
00010 (06:00:36) Wander/Share/Breed/Claim Wander
02000 (08:00:00) Work Wander/Share/Breed/Claim
03000 (09:00:00) Play
06000 (12:00:00) Wander
09000 (15:00:00) Gather/Share/Breed/Claim
10000 (16:00:00) Play
11000 (17:00:00) Wander/Share/Breed/Claim
12000 (18:00:00) Sleep

Curing Villagers

When a zombie kills a villager, it can turn the villager into a zombie villager, depending on the difficulty: 0% chance on Easy, 50% chance on Normal and 100% chance on Hard. After a curing, non-special items such as coal, paper, potatoes are reduced by 5 emeralds (often only costing 1 emerald) while special items such as tools, weapons, armor, books are discounted by 20 emeralds (20 emerald minimum for treasure enchantments like Mending). As of 1.20.2 villagers no longer offer additional permanent discounts if cured more than once. The chance for a zombie to convert a villager into a zombie villager is 100% for Hard difficulty, 50% for Normal, and 0% for Easy meaning in Easy difficulty you will have to pay full price for enchantments. Time to cure can be sped up but only by 4.2% if beds and iron bars are nearby so it isn't worth it. To make splash potions of weakness you will need to enter the Nether and find a Nether Fortress so you can kill Blazes for their Blaze Rods. Using Looting 3 increases drops from 0-1 to 0-4. A Blaze Rod gives 2 Blaze Powder and each Blaze Powder can brew 20 batches of potions and the Brewing Stand can hold 3 potions at a time so one Blaze Rod yields 13 Splash Potions of Weakness.

Things to note


Priorities

Cow/Lava Farm

As you feed the cows wheat (they will eat every 5 minutes), entity cramming will cause them to die and the hopper picks up the leather (for books -> lecturns) and beef (food). The dripping lava will fill the cauldron every 19 minutes (about 1 minecraft day) providing an infinite fuel source. A lava bucket's burn time is 1000 seconds compared to 80 for coal or 15 for planks. You can get pointed dripstone from the wandering trader (1.8% chance as of 1.21.4) or mine it with any tool in a dripstone cave. A smoker cooks twice as fast as a furnace.

Sugarcane Farm for Paper

Sugarcane needs to be planted next to water. It can be flowing water so a single water source block yields 30 (+2 for the ends) sugarcane. It is most commonly planted on dirt, grass, sand, podzol, mycelium, or mud. Plant it in rows for easy harvesting. Only break the top portion so it grows faster.

Iron Farm

If diamonds are a problem to find for tools and armor, you will want to make an iron farm to level up your toolsmiths, weaponsmiths, and armorers. You will need 3 villagers, 3 beds, 3 slabs, and a zombie. Be careful not to let sunlight hit the zombie or it will burn. It will despawn once you move far enough away from it so either give it something to hold or use a nametag on it.

1 chunk villager breeder, curing station, melon/pumpkin trading for XP

Closed trap doors are placed at head level above the gaps between the farm and the beds. Baby villagers can fit under the trap doors unlike adult villagers and they try to walk towards the beds due to the open trap doors and fall down into the water streams. Under the farm, some fence gates hold up a water source block so when the baby villagers grow up and become 2 blocks tall they will rise up through the water into a pen. You can take villagers out of the pen by placing a minecart down on the powered rails under the pen and it will pick up a villager due to the villager's hitbox colliding with the minecart's hitbox thanks to the fences which allow the villagers to be partially within the corner of the pen. There is a detector rail and activator rail which will drop the villager to the right of the minecart's direction of travel into a spot with a lecturn and a zombie. Once you get the trade you want from the job block, if you open the trap door and let the zombie attack the villager then you can put a minecart on the far side powered rail and press the button under the villager to make it pick them up, again due to the minecart hitbox on the curved track colliding with the villager's hitbox (you may have to push the villager into the far corner). Then you can bring them to a spot where you can splash potion of weakness on 4 of them at a time. There are fences around the top of the farm so you can trade melons and pumpkins with the farmer villagers in order to repair tools (trading pumpkins and melons with 8 villagers is about enough to fully repair a diamond tool). I suggest curing them so pumpkin and melon trades are 1 emerald. You can also trade with them for golden carrots for use as food. There is even a sticky piston can be used to smother villagers you don't want in the pen. The blocks above the pen keep the villagers from bobbing so the minecart can pick them up 100% of the time. Note that there must be a solid block that the powered rails are coming out of in order for them to accelerate the minecart. I've represented them with cobblestone here. For the farm, each farmer needs at least 12 carrots or 12 potatoes to start breeding. Although you only need 3 beds for each breeding pair, if you have 4 then you have a chance to get 2 babies per day. Note you may want a lightning rod because if lightning strikes within 4 blocks of a villager they will turn into a witch.

Melon farm

For melon collection, hoppers may be cheaper than rails but you can find rails in mineshafts. A minecart collection system may be less laggy but also makes noise and requires an extra level of height for the redstone blocks to power the powered rails. It can also be annoying to find out the optimal powered rail spacing and various things can interrupt the minecart such as spiders or not timing the redstone pulse that sets the minecart on its way again. A crafter can be used to craft the melon slices into melons. The rows of wheat can be any crop but they help the melons grow faster and although it is the farmland that causes the increased growth chance, the crop being there prevents the melon from growing into that spot and converting it to dirt.

View of the melon farm unloader/minecart launcher

Auto Melon Crafter

Optional Rays Works Fast Unloader

This unloader spits out all the contents of a hopper minecart into a water stream so you do not have to place 24 hopper minecarts inside of sand or gravel in order to quickly unload.

Villager Trading for XP for Mending

Villagers are the most important thing you will need to advance quickly. Once a villager finds a job site block and converts to that type of villager they will lose that type if you go 128 blocks away or if the job site block is destroyed. To lock the trade in so neither of these things reset it just trade once with the villager. All villager trades give 3-6 experience. If you hold a mending tool in your hand when you trade, it will be repaired by 2 for every 1 experience. Villagers can do 10 trades of each item per day so on average that is 90 durability per item trade. Since potatoes and carrots yield 2-5 each harvest (more if using a Fortune tool) and wheat and beetroot only produce 1 even though beetroot grows twice as fast but has no bonus for a fortune tool, carrots and potatoes grown in rows are the optimal trades. Potatoes have a 2% chance of also dropping a Poison Potato. Crop growth is significantly increase if you alternate crops in rows and if you place beehives on one side of the farm and flowers on the other as bees drop pollen particles that increment the growth stage. Bee Nests have a 5% chance to spawn on oak, birch, and cherry trees that are grown within 2 blocks of a flower on the same Y level so on average that is 1 bees nest every 14 trees. They have a 1% chance to spawn on mangrove trees without any flower needed. If you have a silk touch tool you can find them in a Meadow biome 100% of the time, plains, sunflower plains, or cherry grove 5%, flower forest 2%, mangrove swamp 1%, forest, birch forest, old growth birch forest 0.2%. Most crops reach maturity within 31 minutes (1.5 minecraft days) if planted in rows in hydrated soil which is half the non-row time to maturity. Not sure how much the pollen increases it beyond that. Once pumpkins have been unlocked trade those until melons get unlocked since they provide more villager XP and fewer are required. They can also be destroyed with a silk touch axe so you do not need to combine the melon slices. Once you get a farmer villager to Expert you have the best food source: golden carrots.

Farmer (Job Block: composter)
Level Slot Probability Item wanted Item given Villager XP
Novice 1 40% 20 × Wheat Emerald 2
40% 26 × Potato Emerald 2
40% 22 × Carrot Emerald 2
40% 15 × Beetroot Emerald 2
2 40% Emerald 6 × Bread 1
Apprentice (10XP) 3 67% 6 × Pumpkin Emerald 10
4 67% Emerald 4 × Pumpkin Pie 5
67% Emerald 4 × Apple 5
Journeyman (70XP) 5 100% 4 × Melon Emerald 20
6 100% 3 × Emerald 18 × Cookie 10
Expert (150XP) 7 29% Emerald Suspicious Stew (6 seconds of Blindness) 15
29% Emerald Suspicious Stew (8 seconds of Jump Boost) 15
29% Emerald Suspicious Stew (5 seconds of Night Vision) 15
29% Emerald Suspicious Stew (14 seconds of Poison) 15
29% Emerald Suspicious Stew (0.35 seconds of Saturation) 15
29% Emerald Suspicious Stew (7 seconds of Weakness) 15
8 29% Emerald Cake 15
Master (250XP) 9 100% 3 × Emerald 3 × Golden Carrot 30
100% 4 × Emerald 3 × Glistering Melon Slice 30

TypeDurability
Diamond Tool1561
Netherite Tool2031
Diamond Tool Unbreaking 36248
Netherite Tool Unbreaking 38128
Elytra432
Elytra Unbreaking 31728
Diamond Helmet363
Diamond Helmet Unbreaking 3519
Diamond Chestplate528
Diamond Chestplate Unbreaking 3755
Diamond Leggings495
Diamond Leggings Unbreaking 3707
Diamond Boots429
Diamond Boots Unbreaking 3613
Netherite Helmet407
Netherite Helmet Unbreaking 3582
Netherite Chestplate592
Netherite Chestplate Unbreaking 3846
Netherite Leggings555
Netherite Leggings Unbreaking 3793
Netherite Boots481
Netherite Boots Unbreaking 3687

Toolsmith, Weaponsmith, Armorers, and Librarians

Then you will want to start making toolsmiths (smithing table) for pickaxes, shovels, axes, weaponsmiths (grindstone) for swords and axes, armorers (blast furnace) a single armorer can supply helmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots, and librarian villagers. You can get up to level 3 enchantments on items from villagers so it is best to seek Unbreaking 3 on your diamond items. You will need coal (15 at 2XP each) and iron (4 at 10XP each) and sugarcane for paper paper to level up the librarian as well as for books for trading and as part of the lecturn recipe. You can either place the lecturn down in front of a villager and then chop it with an axe if it has a book selling for more than 21 emeralds (so when it is cured it will only be 1 emerald) or you can put it on a piston and toggle a lever to reset the trades if you want to save axe durability and some time. If a villager does not accept a job site it may be night time or there may be some issue with another villager accepting the job block so seal off the job site from other villagers.

Books of any enchantment type and level can be sold by Librarian villagers so Mending has the same chance as Efficiency 5. After a curing, non-regular items like tools, weapons, armor, books are discounted by 20 emeralds so a level 5 trade at 64 only goes down to 44 but a level 5 trade at 21 or less goes down to 1.

Level Emeralds Chance to sell for 21 emeralds or less
1 5-19 (10-38 for treasure enchantments)* 100% (25% for treasure enchantments)*
2 8-32 58.5%
3 11-45 32.3%
4 14-58 18.2%
5 17-64** 9.2%**

* For treasure enchantments such as Mending, Frost Walker, Soul Speed (which is a treasure enchantment but is not available by Librarians), Curse of Binding, Curse of Vanishing the cost is doubled so 10-38 or a 25% chance of getting one being 21 or less.

** Actual range is 17-71 but capped at 64.

Applying Enchantments In Order

To get all the enchantments onto a sword before it reaches a cap you need to combine books rather than applying them all directly. The enchantment calculator allows you to optimize your enchantments for least number of levels required.

PvP Sword: 44 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
6 Sword + Looting 3
4 Sweeping Edge 3 + Fire Aspect 2
12 Sword + Combined book
3 Sharpness 5 + Unbreaking 3
3 Combined book + Mending
16 Sword + Combined book
PvE Sword: 49 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
6 Sword + Looting 3
3 Sweeping Edge 3 + Unbreaking 3
11 Sword + Combined book
2 Sharpness 5 + Mending
11 Sword + Combined book
2 Fire Aspect 2 + Knockback 2
14 Sword + Combined book
Boots: 30 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
6 Boots + Depth Strider 3
3 Feather Falling 4 + Unbreaking 3
9 Boots + Combined book
2 Protection 4 + Mending
10 Boots + Combined book
Helmet: 27 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
6 Helmet + Respiration 3
2 Protection 4 + Mending
8 Helmet + Combined book
2 Unbreaking 3 + Aqua Affinity
9 Helmet + Combined book
Leggings: 13 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
4 Leggings + Protection 4
2 Unbreaking 3 + Mending
7 Leggings + Combined book
Bow: 26 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
5 Bow + Power 5
2 Punch 2 + Mending
8 Bow + Combined book
2 Unbreaking 3 + Flame
9 Bow + Combined book
Fortune Pickaxe: 23 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
6 Pickaxe + Fortune 3
2 Unbreaking 3 + Mending
7 Pickaxe + Combined book
8 Pickaxe + Efficiency 5
Silk Touch Pickaxe: 21 levels
Levels Item 1 Item 2
5 Pickaxe + Efficiency 5
2 Unbreaking 3 + Mending
7 Pickaxe + Combined book
7 Pickaxe + Silk Touch

Enchantments grouped by item type

Misc.

Mending
Unbreaking 3

Armor

Aqua Affinity (Helmet)
Depth Strider 3 (Boots)
Feather Falling 4 (Boots)
Protection 4
Soul Speed 3 (Boots) (not sold by villagers)
Swift Sneak 3 (Leggings) (not sold by villagers)
Thorns 3

Tools

Efficiency 5
Fortune 3
Silk Touch

Weapons

Fire Aspect 2
Knockback 2
Looting 3
Sharpness 5 or Smite 5
Sweeping Edge 3

Bow

Flame
Infinity
Power 5

Crossbow

Multishot or Piercing 4

Mace

Breach 4 or Density 5
Wind Burst 3

Trident

Channeling
Impaling 5
Loyalty 3 or Riptide 3

Fishing pole

Luck of the Sea 3
Lure 3

How Protection Works

The Protection enchantment reduces damage taken from all damage types but only gives you 64% reduction with Protection 4 on 4 armor pieces and 48% if using an Elytra and Protection 4 on 3 armor pieces. If you switch out one piece of Protection 4 armor with another type you can get 80% protection for that damage type but at the cost of only 48% protection for other damage types. Thorns, Soul Speed, and Frost Walker are usually kept off armor since they reduce armor durability each activation.

Armor Enchantments Projectile Protection Damage Reduction Fire Protection Damage Reduction Blast Protection Damage Reduction
4x Protection 4 64% 64% 64%
3x Protection 4 + 1x Projectile Protection 4 80% 48% 48%
3x Protection 4 + 1x Fire Protection 4 48% 80% 48%
3x Protection 4 + 1x Blast Protection 4 48% 48% 80%

Vendors vs Enchanting Table

Feather Falling 4 is strange in that 30 levels gives you less of a chance to get it than lower levels like 22-23. There is a 0% chance to get Efficiency 5 with a Diamond Piackaxe and a 7% chance with Netherite and the differences in percentage chance to get a particular enchantment are only a few percent so there is not much benefit to waiting to upgrade your diamond stuff to netherite before enchanting with the enchantment table.

Efficiency 5 at 30 XP levels Efficiency 4 at 30 XP levels Fortune 3 at 30 XP levels Unbreaking 3 at 30 XP levels Silk Touch at 30 XP levels
Diamond Pickaxe 0% 68.3% 21% 61% 20.1%
Netherite Pickaxe 7% 73% 26.1% 62.3% 20.8%

Sharpness 5 at 30 XP levels Sharpness 4 at 30 XP levels Looting 3 at 30 XP levels Unbreaking 3 at 30 XP levels Sweeping Edge 3 at 30 XP levels Fire Aspect 2 at 30 XP levels Knockback 2 at 30 XP levels
Diamond Sword 0% 16.3% 9.6% 35.5% 15.4% 15% 35.6%
Netherite Sword 0% 22.7% 12.1% 36.5% 15.7% 16.2% 35.4%

Feather Falling 4 at 22 XP levels Feather Falling 4 at 23 XP levels Feather Falling 4 at 30 XP levels Depth Strider 3 at 30 XP levels Unbreaking 3 at 30 XP levels Protection 4 at 30 XP levels
Diamond Boots 32% 34.1% 2.7% 38.8% 61.4% 21.2%
Netherite Boots 34% 32.2% 1.6% 39.8% 63.4% 21.3%

Aqua Affinity at 30 XP levels Respiration 3 at 30 XP levels Unbreaking 3 at 30 XP levels Protection 4 at 30 XP levels
Diamond Helmet 28.4% 26.8% 53% 20.3%
Netherite Helmet 29.5% 28.5% 54.6% 28.4%

Netherite

A netherite pickaxe has 2031 durability vs 1561 for diamond and 7 damage vs 6. A netherite sword does 8 damage vs 7 for diamond. Netherite in item form does not burn in lava. A netherite sword with Sharpness 5 does 11 damage. A netherite axe does 10 damage vs 9 for diamond but it has a longer cooldown so the damage per second is less although the benefit of an axe is it can temporarily disable a player's shield in PvP. Netherite armor does not give any defense increase over diamond, just a 10% durability increase and a 10% reduced knockback.

Mob Fall Distance

Many mob grinders require that you calculate how far a mob can fall to get them to 1HP. Fall damage = # blocks - 3 (1HP = 1/2 a heart) so subtract 1 from the mob's health and add 3.

Mob Fall Distance to 1HP
Wither Skeleton 22
Skeleton 22
Zombie 22
Pillager 26
Evoker 26
Vindicator 26
Witch 28
Guardian 32
Enderman 42

Endportal Stronghold Triangulation

Make some eyes of ender with blaze powder and ender eyes because they have a 20% chance of breaking each use and throw one. It will fly up and out 12 blocks so do it in an open area. Look at it with your screen recticle and press F3+C to copy your location and facing direction to the clipboard. Use the Stronghold Locator and paste it into the notepad on the side. You might need to zoom out. It has various color options like #Blue or #Red you can specify to colorize the path if you put them before the pasted text. Turn 90 degrees from the direction your eye of ender flew and run a thousand blocks or so and throw another. F3+C and paste into the tool and this will give you two rays and where they cross is the stronghold.

Hotkeys and Game Settings

F3+G displays chunk borders. F3+H shows item durability. F3+B shows hitboxes which is useful to see items, players, and mobs easier. I also recommend going into the game settings and setting item Entity Distance to 500% since by default you cannot see items farther than 18 blocks away. Turn off auto-jump and turn on subtitles so you can see footsteps approaching or monsters underground. Since version 1.19 editing the options.txt file to set your gamma to 1000 so caves are bright requires more work. As of 1.19 the game resets gamma to 1.0 every time it launches. You could change the file to read only, set gamma to 1000, start up minecraft, then change it back to read/write though to bypass this.

Distances

A Beacon's beam is visible 1343 blocks away.

Iron Golems will make up to 10 attempts to spawn a golem within a 17×13×17 box centered on a villager. Villagers can summon iron golems, either when they are gossiping or panicking and the following criteria are met:

  1. The villager has slept in the last 20 minutes
  2. The villager has not detected an iron golem in the last 30 seconds
    • An iron golem is detected when it is within 16 blocks of the villager (±16X ±16Z ±16Y axis)
    • The villager scans for golems once every 10 seconds
  3. The villager has not been near a summoning in the last 30 seconds
    • A villager is near a summoning when it is within 10 blocks of a villager (±10X ±10Z ±10Y axis) who successfully summons an iron golem
  4. There are enough participants within 10 blocks of the villager, including the villager itself; participating villagers need to fulfill the previous 3 conditions:
    • When gossiping, 5 or more participants are needed
    • When panicking, 3 or more are needed
  5. A valid spawn point for the golem is found

% Chances

Enchanted Golden Apple
Monster Room3.1% *1.9+
Mineshaft1.4% *1.9+
Desert Pyramid2.6% *1.9+
Woodland Mansion3.1% *1.11+
Ruined Portal1.5% *1.16+
Bastion Remnant5.9% *1.16.2+
Ancient City8.4% *chance to find 2, 1.19+
Trial Chambers22.5% *1.21
Large Fern (item)
Taiga house chest18.6% *1.14+
Trident
Drowned6.25% *increased by 1% for each level of looting, 1.13+
Trial Chambers (Ominous Vault)2.1% *1.20+
Heavy Core
Trial Chambers (Ominous Vault)7.5% *1.20+
Music Disc "Creator"
Trial Chambers (Ominous Vault)7.5% *1.20+
Music Disc "Creator (Music Box)"
Trial Chambers (Decorated Pot)1.4% *1.20+
Music Disc "Precipice"
Trial Chambers (Ominous Vault)3.6% *1.20+
Music Disc "Relic"
Trial Ruins8.3% *1.20+
Music Disc "5"
Ancient City29.8% *as 1/9 disc fragment
Music Disc "otherside"
Monster Room3.1%
Stronghold2.5%
Ancient City8.4%
Music Disc "Pigstep"
Bastion Remnant5.6% *1.16+
Music Disc "13, cat, blocks, chirp, far, mall, mellohi, stal, strad, ward, 11, wait"
Skeleton, Wither Skeleton, Stray, or Bogged kills a Creeper with a bow and arrow100%

On hard difficulty, zombified piglins have a 5% chance to spawn as leaders. Leader zombified piglins can spawn other zombified piglins as reinforcements.

In Normal and Hard difficulties, up to 55%‌ of zombified piglins pick up any armor pieces and swords better than their golden one, which they always drop when killed. This also prevents them from despawning.

Zombified piglins try to destroy any turtle eggs they see within 23 blocks away horizontally and 3 blocks away vertically, not counting the block they are standing in.

Zombified piglins are not initially hostile, but all zombified piglins within a 67×22×67 to 111×22×111 area centered on an attacked zombified piglin become aggressive and converge on the attacker (another mob or player, except goats and ghasts) if any individual is attacked, unless the zombified piglin attacked is killed in one hit. A hostile zombified piglin "sounds an alarm", spreading the aggro to all zombified piglins within a 67×22×67 area whenever the targeted player is within their follow range (33 to 55 blocks) and has a constant line-of-sight with its target, then it does the same every 4-6 seconds (80-120 game ticks), recruiting any formerly-neutral peers. They pursue players even if they have the Invisibility effect.

Changelog Data only entered back to 1.16 so far

If you play SMP on servers that have been around a long time, knowing what changed about world generation lets you identify when a particular chunk was generated to let you know how old it is. I've also included some interesting or notable changelog items under Misc.

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