How to Get a Trident (and the Best Enchantments)
Only Drowned that spawn holding a Trident drop one: 8.5% when you kill them, 11.5% with Looting III. Trial Chamber Vaults give one about 1 time in 48.
No recipe makes a Trident, and no villager or Wandering Trader sells one. Drowned are the main source, so most players hunt or farm them. A Vault is a bonus roll if you are already clearing a Trial Chamber.
Which Drowned drop Tridents
Only a Drowned that spawned holding a Trident can drop one. That is 6.25% of natural spawns, and you can see the Trident in its hand. Outside rivers, half of adult trident-holders spawn riding a Zombie Nautilus, so any Drowned on one is worth chasing.
A trident-holder drops it 8.5% of the time, but only if you or your tamed wolf hit it shortly before it dies. A Drowned killed only by lava, a fall or a trap drops nothing. Each level of Looting on your sword or spear adds 1%, but only if that weapon lands the final hit.
| Looting | Drop chance | Trident-holders per Trident | Natural Drowned per Trident |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 8.5% | about 12 | about 188 |
| I | 9.5% | about 11 | about 168 |
| II | 10.5% | about 10 | about 152 |
| III | 11.5% | about 9 | about 139 |
Even with Looting III, expect to see about 140 Drowned, and kill about 9 trident-holders, for each Trident. The one you get has random durability and may already carry an enchantment, so check it before spending books.
A zombie that drowns and converts keeps whatever it held and never gains a Trident, so zombie-conversion farms never produce one.
Where Drowned spawn
Drowned spawn in water at least 2 blocks deep, in oceans, rivers and the underground lakes of dripstone caves. Flowing water counts. The block light must be 0 and the sky light 7 or below, which is why most appear at night. The mob spawning guide explains these light rules, the 24-block ring and the mob cap.
Rivers are the best place to hunt:
- About 1 in 6 hostile spawn picks in a river is a Drowned (weight 100 of 615), against about 1 in 100 in any ocean (5 of 520).
- A Drowned pick then goes ahead 1 time in 15 in a river, against 1 time in 40 elsewhere.
- In oceans and dripstone caves, Drowned only spawn below Y=58. Rivers have no height limit, and river water deep enough to keep sky light at 7 or below spawns them in daytime too.
Dripstone caves come close on weight (95 of 610) but get the 1 in 40 check. Avoid frozen rivers, where the Drowned weight is just 1.
How to hunt them
- 1.Scout a long, deep river by day. Drowned ignore you on land or in a boat in daylight, so you can spot trident-holders safely.
- 2.Come back at night and scan every Drowned that surfaces for a Trident. At sea, target any Drowned riding a Zombie Nautilus.
- 3.Kill trident-holders first and finish each with your Looting weapon. Their throw deals 8 damage on Normal (5 on Easy, 12 on Hard), and a Shield blocks it.
- 4.Ignore the Tridents they throw at you. Those can never be picked up.
A river Drowned farm
A farm runs on the same rules and only pays if you finish trident-holders yourself.
- Build it in a river biome, with spawning floors of water 2 blocks deep. Leave at least one block of air, or a third layer of water, between the surface and the roof, or nothing has room to spawn.
- Roof and wall it, with no light sources, so block light is 0 and sky light 7 or below.
- Stand 24 to 128 blocks from every spawning floor. Nothing spawns outside that range.
- Use water currents to carry every Drowned to one kill spot.
- Light up nearby caves, because their mobs fill the same hostile mob cap as your farm.
Vaults in Trial Chambers
A normal Vault opened with a Trial Key has a 25% chance to add a bonus item. The Trident is 1 of 12 weight in that bonus list, which works out to about 1 in 48 per Vault. Ominous Vaults never give one. The Trial Chambers guide covers Trial Keys and Vaults.
Enchanting your Trident
| Enchantment | Max level | What it does | Conflicts on a Trident |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loyalty | III | Returns after a throw, faster per level | Riptide |
| Riptide | III | Throw launches you 9, 15 or 21 blocks | Loyalty, Channeling |
| Channeling | I | Lightning strikes a hit mob or Lightning Rod in a thunderstorm | Riptide |
| Impaling | V | +2.5 damage per level against aquatic mobs | None |
| Unbreaking | III | Slower durability loss | None |
| Mending | I | XP repairs the Trident | None |
Most players end up with two Tridents. The combat one carries Loyalty III, Channeling, Impaling V, Unbreaking III and Mending. The travel one carries Riptide III, Unbreaking III and Mending.
Riptide only works while you stand in water, swim, or have rain falling on you. The launch is shorter underwater: 7, 11 or 15 blocks. Deserts, savannas, badlands, the Nether and the End never get rain, and snow does not count, so there a Riptide Trident only works while you are in water.
Impaling only adds damage against aquatic mobs, such as guardians, elder guardians, squid, dolphins, fish, turtles, axolotls and nautiluses. Drowned are not on that list, so Impaling does nothing to them.
On an Enchanting Table with 15 bookshelves, a level-30 roll on a Trident includes Loyalty III about half the time but Channeling only about one roll in six. The enchanting calculator shows the odds for each slot at any bookshelf count. Mending never appears on the table. Buy it, and anything else you missed, as an Enchanted Book from a librarian and combine it on an Anvil.
Keeping it in one piece
A Trident has 250 durability. It loses 1 per melee hit and 1 per throw, and a Riptide launch that crashes into a mob costs 2. No material repairs it. Your options are Mending, or combining two Tridents on an Anvil, which adds their durability plus a bonus of 12% of full durability. A crafting grid or Grindstone also merges two Tridents, with a 5% bonus, but removes every enchantment except curses. The anvil and Mending guide explains the prior work penalty and the combining order that keeps repair costs low.
A few ways to lose one:
- The void. A Loyalty Trident thrown into the void is destroyed, not returned. Be careful on End islands.
- Leaving it behind. A Trident without Loyalty despawns 60 seconds after landing if you don't collect it.
- Dying mid-return. If you die while a Loyalty Trident is flying back, it drops as an item and can despawn.
Lava is safer than it looks: a Loyalty Trident thrown into lava takes fire damage but still returns.
What to do with it next
Channeling turns thunderstorms into a tool, as long as the target is under open sky. Lightning within four blocks of a creeper charges it, and its blast makes one zombie, skeleton, wither skeleton, piglin or creeper it kills drop a head. Keep the Trident away from villagers in a storm, because a strike turns one into a witch. Doing that once earns the Very Very Frightening advancement.
As a melee weapon, the Trident deals 9 damage at an attack speed of 1.1, and a throw deals 8. Best weapons ranked sets that against the sword, axe, mace and spear.