How to Get a Trident in Minecraft (and Repair It)

The trident breaks Minecraft's usual rules. Every other weapon can be crafted, but this one must be taken from the sea itself, usually damaged and always by force. It rewards the effort with unique enchantments no other weapon can use. Here is every way to get one, with the real numbers.

Method 1: Kill Drowned

Drowned spawn in darkness in oceans and rivers, and in dripstone caves. A fraction of them spawn holding a trident, and those are your targets:

A few details save a lot of wasted effort. Zombies that wander into water and convert into drowned never carry tridents, so zombie-based farms will not work. A trident a drowned throws at you cannot be picked up; only the death drop counts. And on Bedrock there is a delightful trick: hand a trident-holding drowned a nautilus shell while it is not attacking, and it will swap, dropping you a full-durability trident.

Rivers and dripstone caves have strong drowned rates and are easier to sweep than open ocean. Bring a Looting III sword and patience; on Java this is a genuine grind.

Setting Up the Hunt

Treat trident farming like any other rare-drop project and it goes much faster. Drowned only spawn in darkness, so hunting at night or in a covered section of river multiplies your encounters. Ocean ruins are worth sweeping as you explore, since drowned gather around them naturally. A conduit or a water-breathing setup lets you stay underwater indefinitely, and Depth Strider boots make you faster than your prey. Experienced players build a simple drowned funnel in a river, letting the current deliver a steady stream of mobs to one killing spot; an afternoon of that, with Looting III, is usually enough even on Java's stingier odds. One last expectation to set: a fresh trident has 250 durability, and a looted one rarely arrives full, so plan the repair before you fall in love with throwing it.

Method 2: Trial Chamber Vaults

Since the Tricky Trials update, ordinary vaults in trial chambers can eject a trident with a 2.1% chance per unlock. That is worse odds than drowned hunting and costs a trial key each time, but if you are clearing chambers anyway, every vault is a bonus ticket.

How to Repair a Trident

Dropped tridents usually arrive badly worn, and there is no material, no diamond or iron equivalent, that patches them. You have three options:

• Mending: the best long-term answer. Apply a Mending book on an anvil, then earn XP with the trident in hand and it heals itself indefinitely.
• Anvil combining: merge two damaged tridents into one with their durability combined, keeping enchantments, at an XP cost.
• Crafting grid combining: free of XP cost, but it strips all enchantments from both tridents. Only use this on plain spares.

Why Bother: Using the Trident

The trident works in melee and as a thrown weapon, and its exclusive enchantments justify the hunt. Loyalty makes a thrown trident return to you. Channeling calls lightning onto whatever you hit during a thunderstorm. Riptide launches you along with the throw, turning rain and water into flight. Impaling adds heavy damage against aquatic mobs on Java, and against anything touching water on Bedrock. Paired with Mending and Unbreaking, a good trident is a forever weapon.