Guide: Updating Raid Farms for Recent Villager Patches

This guide covers the changes you need to make to raid farms after the villager and raid reworks in 1.21, which still apply in the versions that came after it.

Old technical farms used overlapping chunk boundaries to force several waves of illagers to spawn on the same tick. The balance patches closed that loophole by turning what used to be an instant status effect into a physical item you have to deal with yourself.

Summary of Mechanics Changes

Raids do not start automatically off entity detection anymore. The main thing that changed is how you actually get the Bad Omen status:

• Ominous Bottle Drop: Raid Captains (identified by ominous banners) no longer immediately pass the Bad Omen status effect to the player who delivered the final blow. Instead, they drop a stackable consumable item designated as an Ominous Bottle, which exists in variant tiers from Level I to V.
• Raid Omen Delay Buffer: Activating the bottle triggers a localized status transition state labeled Raid Omen. This mechanism applies a flat 30-second delay timer before the localized server tick registers a valid raid event, effectively stopping instantaneous multi-wave nesting.

Step-by-Step Retrofitting Process

To save an existing build, you have to redo the drop collection chutes and the AFK box so they can move physical items around instead of relying on the old instant cycle.

Phase 1: Adjusting Item Sorters

Because Ominous Bottles populate the item streams generated by the killing platform, standard hopper chains will clog immediately under high volume. You must establish a dedicated non-stackable item filter layout or a tailored multi-item sorting array directly beneath the drop zone to catch item ID minecraft:ominous_bottle before it runs into your primary emerald storage lines.

Phase 2: The Player-Feeding Elevation System

The bottles have to be mechanical routed from the collection reservoir back up to the AFK chamber where you stand. A normal dropper elevator or a compact soul-sand water column works best. Make sure the output drops right into your reach or into an adjacent buffer chest fed by hoppers.

Phase 3: Automated and Semi-Automated Drinking Logic

Since drinking the bottle is a manual action, you either do it by hand or automate it:

1. Java Edition: Put the bottles in your off-hand slot. With an auto-clicker or a right-click macro, time the clicks to fire when the current raid bar ends. Leave roughly 2500ms between attempts so you don't over-drink during lag spikes.
2. Bedrock Edition: Bedrock handles the off-hand differently, so use a layout where a dropper pushes bottles straight into your hotbar while a trident killer deals with the mobs below. A timed piston floor has to drop you out of the bed's boundary for a moment to clear the cooldown before the next raid starts.

Phase 4: Spawning Block Validation

Check that your upper spawning rings still line up with the current horizontal spawn checks. Keep solid blocks clear of any transparent decoration within a 64-block radius around the bed you are using as the center point.

Community Corrections & Tips

The following notes were submitted by Help-Wikis contributors and have not yet been verified by editors. If you spot an error or have additional information, please use the edit suggestion form.