Are you wondering why your Minecraft village is under attack by a bunch of grey guys? That’s a raid, and it’s an entirely preventable event if you know what you’re doing. Our Minecraft When do raids happen guide will tell you everything you need to know about this in-game event, why it happens, and how to prevent it!
Minecraft | When do raids happen? | Raids and Pillagers explained
Raids are a natural consequence of Pillagers, a mob that is newer to the game. If you haven’t been playing Minecraft for a while, you may be mystified at these new grey guys that are running around the world and shooting you with crossbows.
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In short, Pillagers are hostile, militaristic mobs that roam around the world, typically in groups of five or so. They’re all armed with crossbows and they’re always looking to shoot players or Villagers if given the opportunity. Obviously, you’ll have to defend yourself, but killing one of the guys who is carrying a banner will give you the Bad Omen debuff. There’s no apparent timer on it, and it seems rather ominous.
It is indeed a scary thing, and Bad Omen will directly lead to a village coming under attack if you’re not careful.
Minecraft | When do raids happen? | Bad Omen and triggering raids
Killing a Pillager Captain—that is, one of the guys who is carrying a flag—will give you the Bad Omen debuff. Killing additional Pillager Captains will give you higher levels of the Bad Omen debuff, each of which can result in an even worse raid than the previous level.
Getting too near an active villager (a space that is more or less defined as having a living Villager and a bed) will kick off a raid. Here are the basics of the process:
- A player with the Bad Omen I debuff or higher enters a chunk that’s next to a chunk which has a village in it.
- A red Raid timer bar starts counting down.
- The first few Pillagers attack.
- The Pillagers are defeated—another countdown begins.
- Repeat steps 2-4 for 3-7 waves (depending on difficulty)
- The Raid ends when:
- All enemies are defeated.
-or- - All beds are destroyed.
-or- - All Villagers are dead.
- All enemies are defeated.
- Should the player win, they’ll get the “Hero of the Village” buff and a nice discount on purchases for a while.
And that’s that. The key piece of information here is that a raid happens when you have the Bad Omen debuff and get too close to a village. It can, however, be prevented if you’re smart.
Minecraft | When do raids happen? | Avoiding a raid
Raids can be pretty bad, especially if you’re not prepared for them. Thankfully, it’s entirely possible to prevent them. All you need to do is keep in mind a few simple principles:
1. Do not fight Pillagers near Villages.
This is the first (and most important) step: Do not, under any circumstances, fight Pillagers near Villages. Should an arrow miss and kill a Pillager Captain, you would fulfill the main condition of starting a raid: Having the Bad Omen debuff and being within one chunk of a Village. Run away and try to get the Pillagers to follow you far enough away so you can kill them.
2. Let something else kill Pillager Captains.
Let’s say you absolutely have to fight a group of Pillagers. What do you do? Well, you only get the Bad Omen debuff if you or your dog kills the Pillager Captain. Should the environment kill them, you won’t get the debuff. Hilariously, Pillagers have a poor sense of preservation and have no compunction about shooting their friends—standing in between the Captain and the other Pillagers can get the Pillager Captain killed by his own men shooting him in the back.
3. Use milk to get rid of Bad Omen (or wait a very long time).
Lastly, in situations where you do get affected by Bad Omen, you have three options to get rid of it:
- Drink milk (which is harvested by using a bucket on a cow).
- Wait 1 hour and 40 minutes (according to the Minecraft wiki)
- Die.
And there you have it! Now you know when raids happen and how to prevent them.
