Minecraft Raids Explained: Bad Omen, Waves and Hero of the Village

A raid is Minecraft's tower-defense event: waves of illagers descend on a village, and you are the garrison. Raids are also one of the best deals in the game — they drop Totems of Undying and emeralds, and winning earns you the cheapest villager trades anywhere. Here is how the whole system fits together.

How Raids Start: Bad Omen and Ominous Bottles

The trigger is an effect called Bad Omen, and it comes from killing a pillager captain — the illager carrying an ominous banner, found at pillager outposts and on patrols. Captains now drop an ominous bottle. Drink it and you receive Bad Omen for 1 hour 40 minutes, at the bottle's level. The moment you walk into a village with Bad Omen active, it converts into Raid Omen, which ticks down for 30 seconds before the raid begins. Drinking milk at any point before the raid starts cancels the whole chain — handy if you wander into a village by accident.

A village, for raid purposes, is simply a villager plus a claimed bed. That is all it takes, which is why raids can accidentally trigger at your trading hall if you are careless with bottles.

The Waves

Wave counts scale with difficulty: 3 waves on Easy, 5 on Normal and 7 on Hard, with higher Bad Omen levels (II–V) adding one extra wave on Java and pushing the chance of raiders carrying enchanted gear from 10% up to 75%. The attackers mix several illager types:

• Pillagers with crossbows — the rank and file, dangerous in groups.
• Vindicators — fast axe rushers who punish anyone standing still.
• Evokers — summon vexes and fang attacks; they drop a Totem of Undying every time.
• Witches — splash potions, and they heal the other raiders.
• Ravagers — the siege beasts of later waves. A killed ravager always drops its saddle.

A raid bar at the top of the screen tracks the remaining raiders each wave. If you cannot find the last one, ring the village bell — it briefly outlines hidden raiders through walls.

Winning, Losing and Timing Out

Clear the final wave and every surviving villager celebrates with fireworks while you receive Hero of the Village, at the same level as your Bad Omen, lasting around 40 minutes. It gives steep discounts on all trades, and villagers throw gifts at you based on their profession. You lose if the village stops counting as a village — all villagers dead or every bed broken — and a raid that drags on for about 40 minutes simply expires.

How to Defend a Village

• Wall it in. A two-block wall or a fence line funnels raiders to chokepoints and keeps villagers from wandering out.
• Iron golems. Each one costs 36 iron, and two or three golems will carry early waves almost alone.
• Fight from roofs. Pillager bolts and vindicator axes both struggle with height; you and a bow do not.
• Traps help. Lava moats, trapdoor pits and narrow gates all slow waves down.
• Protect the bell and beds. No beds, no village — and no victory rewards.

Once you have won once, raids become a repeatable engine: ominous bottles stack up from outpost runs, and each victory pays out totems, emeralds, saddles and the best prices your villagers will ever offer.