Drowned Farm (Trident & Copper)
Intermediate Different design per edition
Produces: Tridents, copper ingots and rotten flesh - plus nautilus shells and fishing rods as bonuses
Quick answer: Drowned spawn in dark water in oceans, rivers and dripstone caves - and any zombie whose head stays underwater for 30 seconds converts into one. Farm a river or dripstone aquifer at night, or funnel zombies through a water trap to mass-produce drowned.
How it works
- Natural spawning: water blocks at light level 0 with sky light 7 or less, in ocean biomes (Java: below Y=58), rivers and dripstone cave aquifers - rates are much higher in rivers and dripstone caves than in oceans.
- Conversion: a normal zombie (or a husk, which first becomes a zombie) with its head submerged for 30 seconds shakes for 15 more and becomes a drowned - the engine of every big copper farm.
- Trident: 6.25% of drowned spawn holding one, and only those can drop it - 8.5% on Java (up to 11.5% with Looting III), 25% base on Bedrock. On Bedrock, converted zombies NEVER carry tridents: conversion farms there are copper-only.
- Copper: every drowned has an 11% chance to drop a copper ingot when killed by a player or pet, +2% per Looting level.
- A zombie converted into a drowned drops the gear it was carrying; zombies converted on Bedrock never carry a trident.
- Only player (or tamed wolf) kills drop copper and tridents - use a softening fall and finish by hand.
Materials
- For a natural farm: a river or dripstone cave aquifer, building blocks, water channels
- For a conversion farm: a zombie spawner or dark-room mob farm feeding a water column
- Hoppers, chests, and a kill platform one hit from death
- Looting III sword; Depth Strider boots for the river build
Build steps
- Scout a wide river or a dripstone caves aquifer - the two high-rate spawn zones.
- Wall off a section, darken it (slab the surface against daylight spawns... or embrace night-only), and build water currents that sweep drowned to a central chute.
- Let them fall to weaken them and finish by hand with a Looting III sword: copper, the odd trident and nautilus shells.
- Conversion route: pipe zombies from a spawner into a water column (head under, 45 seconds), then flush the fresh drowned to the same kill floor.
- Equip zombies with old armor and weapons before converting them: the conversion drops that gear.
- Light every surrounding cave and water body to concentrate spawns inside the farm.
Rates
Output depends on the design, the version and how much of it you build, so we do not quote an hourly figure. Build the layout below, time it for a few minutes in your own world and scale from there.
Tips
- Trident on Java: 8.5% to drop (11.5% with Looting III) for the 6.25% that carry one, so you need a lot of drowned.
- Trident-wielding drowned can spawn riding a zombie nautilus (50% outside rivers).
- Drowned in bubble columns rise or sink fast - soul sand and magma columns are the escalators of this farm.
- Nautilus shells (offhand, 3% Java / 8% Bedrock) plus a heart of the sea craft the conduit - this farm feeds your water base too.
- Source: minecraft.wiki Drowned.