What is a trident in Minecraft?
The trident is the only weapon in Minecraft you can’t craft. You take it off a drowned, the waterlogged zombie that spawns in oceans and rivers. Once you have one, it doubles as a melee weapon and a throwing weapon, and in close combat it hits harder than a diamond sword.
In Java Edition a trident deals 9 points of melee damage, compared to 7 for a diamond sword. Thrown, it deals 8. It has 250 uses of durability before it breaks, and you can only repair it with another trident or with the Mending enchantment.
That combination of high damage, range, and a set of trident-only enchantments makes it one of the best weapons in the game, once you get past the grind of finding one.
How to get a trident
Tridents come from drowned, and nowhere else. There’s no recipe, no structure loot chest, and no villager trade for them. If you want a trident, you have to fight for it.
In Java Edition, only drowned that spawn already holding a trident can drop one. About 6.25% of drowned spawn with a trident in hand, and of those, roughly 8.5% drop the trident when you kill them. Looting raises that drop chance by about 1% per level, so Looting III takes it to around 11.5%. The takeaway: you’ll kill a lot of drowned before one hands over its weapon.
Bedrock Edition is more forgiving. Drowned have a 15% chance to spawn with a trident, and a higher drop rate when killed, so trident farming feels far less painful there.
A few things worth knowing while you hunt:
- Drowned that hold a trident will throw it at you as a ranged attack, so they can hurt from a distance.
- Zombies that drown and convert into drowned never carry a trident. Only naturally spawned drowned can have one.
- Rivers and ocean ruins are good hunting grounds because drowned spawn there reliably at night or underwater.
Many players build a drowned farm once they have a few tridents, since farming raw drops by hand is slow.
How to throw a trident
Throwing works like a bow. Hold the use button (right-click on Java, or hold the screen on Bedrock and mobile) to wind up, then release to launch the trident. There’s no half-charge throw the way there is with a bow; the trident leaves your hand at full power on release.
The thrown trident flies in an arc, sticks into whatever block it lands in, and sits there until you walk over and pick it back up. Throw it into the void or into deep lava and it’s gone for good, so be careful near drop-offs unless you have the Loyalty enchantment.
Underwater, a thrown trident is your best ranged option. Bows and crossbows don’t shoot well in water, but a trident travels and hits normally, which makes it the go-to weapon against guardians and elder guardians at ocean monuments.
Trident enchantments
Four enchantments are unique to the trident, and they change how it plays more than a stat boost on any other weapon. You can also add Unbreaking, Mending, and Curse of Vanishing.
Loyalty
Loyalty makes a thrown trident fly back to you after it lands or hits something, like a boomerang. Higher levels (I through III) bring it back faster. This is the enchantment most players want first, because it removes the main risk of throwing your only trident and losing it. One catch: a Loyalty trident thrown into the void won’t come back.
Riptide
Riptide turns the trident into a movement tool. When you’re standing in water or out in the rain, throwing the trident launches you in the direction you’re aiming instead of throwing the weapon. Levels I through III increase the distance you travel. It’s fast and fun for crossing oceans or zipping around in a storm, but it does nothing on dry land in clear weather, and you can’t use it as a ranged attack at all. Riptide can’t be combined with Loyalty or Channeling.
Channeling
Channeling summons a bolt of lightning onto any mob you hit with a thrown trident, but only during a thunderstorm and only if that mob is exposed to open sky. It’s situational, though it has fun uses: lightning turns a villager into a witch, a creeper into a charged creeper, and a pig into a zombified piglin. Channeling and Riptide can’t go on the same trident.
Impaling
Impaling adds extra damage, up to five levels of it. In Java Edition the bonus only applies to aquatic mobs like guardians, drowned, fish, squid, and turtles. In Bedrock Edition it applies to any mob that’s standing in water or getting rained on, which makes it more broadly useful there. If you fight a lot underwater, Impaling V is brutal.
Loyalty or Riptide: which should you pick?
You can’t have both, so this is the real choice every trident user faces. Loyalty gives you a reliable ranged weapon that always comes back, which is what you want for general combat, monument raids, and anything where you’re throwing at enemies. Riptide gives you mobility and a strong wet-weather melee burst, but it can’t be thrown at range and only works when you’re wet.
A common setup is to keep two tridents: one with Loyalty, Channeling, and Impaling for fighting, and a second with Riptide for travel. If you only have one, go Loyalty. You’ll get more everyday value out of a weapon that returns to your hand.
Repairing a trident
You can’t repair a trident with diamonds or iron the way you fix a sword. Your options are limited to two. Combine two tridents on an anvil and you get one with their combined durability plus a small bonus. Or put Mending on it, and it repairs itself as you collect experience orbs. Mending is by far the easier long-term answer, since fresh tridents are hard to come by.
Using a trident underwater
The trident really shines in the ocean. Most of your weapons get worse the moment you go underwater. Bows lose range and accuracy, and a sword’s sweep attack stops working when you’re not standing on solid ground. The trident ignores all of that. It swings at full speed and throws in a clean straight line through water.
That makes it the right tool for clearing an ocean monument. Guardians and elder guardians are aquatic mobs, so an Impaling trident chews through them, and the ranged throw lets you pick off guardians before they lock their laser onto you. Pair it with a Respiration helmet and a potion of Water Breathing and you can raid a monument without ever surfacing.
Building a trident farm
Because hand-farming drowned for trident drops is slow, a lot of players build a drowned farm once they’ve scraped together a trident or two. The usual design funnels naturally spawned drowned from a river or ocean into a small drop chamber, then finishes them at a safe height so you collect both their gear and any tridents they drop. A farm like this also produces nautilus shells, copper, and rotten flesh as a bonus. It won’t make tridents rain down, since the spawn-with-trident rate is still low, but over a long session it beats wandering the seabed by hand.
Tips and common mistakes
- Don’t throw a trident with no Loyalty near a cliff, deep water, or the void. If you can’t reach where it lands, you’ve lost it.
- A trident makes a great underwater weapon even with no enchantments, so don’t wait for the perfect roll before using one.
- Riptide will fling you into walls if you aim badly in a tight space. Practice in open water first.
- Channeling lightning can start fires and can hit you if you’re standing too close to the target. Keep your distance during a storm.
- If you’re after a charged creeper for a mob head, a Channeling trident in a thunderstorm is the cleanest way to make one.
Frequently asked questions
Can you craft a trident in Minecraft?
No. There’s no crafting recipe. The only way to get a trident is as a drop from a drowned.
How rare are tridents?
In Java they’re fairly rare. Only about 6.25% of drowned even spawn with one, and only around 8.5% of those drop it. Bedrock is kinder, with a 15% spawn chance and a better drop rate.
Can you put Loyalty and Riptide on the same trident?
No, they conflict. A trident can have one or the other, never both. Riptide also can’t be combined with Channeling.
Does Riptide work on land?
Only if it’s raining or you’re touching water. In clear weather on dry ground, a Riptide trident does nothing when you try to throw it.
What’s the best trident enchantment?
For most players Loyalty is the most useful, because it lets you throw the trident as a ranged weapon without losing it. Impaling adds the most raw damage if you fight underwater a lot.
How much damage does a trident do?
In Java Edition it deals 9 damage in melee and 8 when thrown. That’s higher melee damage than a diamond sword, which deals 7.
Can a trident break?
Yes. It has 250 durability. Each melee hit or throw uses some of it, and Unbreaking or Mending will make it last much longer.
Worth the grind
A trident takes real effort to get, especially in Java, but it pays you back. A Loyalty trident covers ranged and melee in one slot, Riptide rewrites how you move in the rain, and Channeling gives you a lightning button for free. Kill enough drowned to get your first one, then build a farm so your next ten are easy.