Tutorial:Pillager farming

Pillager farms are a method of obtaining experience quickly, built at pillager outposts and also relatively cheap to build.

Mechanics

Pillager outposts have a 72x54x72 box centered at the central block of the highest floor where the game spawns exclusively pillagers. This makes it the only place to build a pillager farm. The farm requires full destruction of the outpost, however it won't affect pillager spawning.

Pillager farms have a couple of spawn platforms that are large and shaped like rings. Each of the platforms have one villager and one composter (being the point of interest block). They also have guard rails made of bottom slabs at the inner edges 2 blocks above the floors.

• The villagers surrounded by the spawn platforms claim their points of interest that they are inside, causing pillagers to chase toward them.
• The guard rails prevent pillagers from coming close enough to start shooting villagers. A pillager's crossbow loading range is a 8 block radius, so the platforms cannot extend into that area.

The farm also has two very tall bubble elevators with two open sides, stimulating pillagers to enter one of the elevators while still being able to see the villagers. Water flowing is stopped by signs, blocks that do not block lines of sight.

The killing chamber is located way above the spawning platforms, being within a raid, above enough of the outpost to minimalize spawn-proofing. A player's mob spawning sphere has a 128 block radius and a 24 block radius that is cut off. To visualize both mob spawning spheres and raid area (96 block radius), the mod MiniHUD is recommended.

The bubble elevators end 27 blocks higher than the killing chamber and this is where pillagers take enough fall damage to have only one health point () remaining, and, to create less lag, those pillagers begin to have a line of sight with another point of interest directly in front of the killing chamber, two chunks apart, causing them to sprint toward the killing chamber without any way back.

The pillager farm works best when an ominous bottle is used at the killing chamber, causing a raid to start and with raid center shifted way down due to another point of interest far away, but within a 64 block radius of the player. This causes the raid area (96 block radius) to occupy all spawning platforms and the killing chamber and immediately start because of pillagers underneath. All pillagers including future ones participate in the raid, removing them from the mob cap, giving room for even more pillagers to spawn. However, raid captains won't drop ominous bottles until the raid is over.

Recommended enchants for swords are Sweeping Edge III, Mending and Unbreaking III.

Spawning rates of the farm can also depend on which Y layer it is built. The lower, the higher those rates are, being the lowest possible Y level of the lowest floor of pillager outposts at Y=63. The landscape around the outpost also affects on how hard the building process is going to be.

Outcome

The higher and/or bigger the spawning platforms, the more pillagers the game will spawn, however, if there are enough spawning platforms with enough size, the farm will produce excessively high amounts of experience (more than a player can absorb, being 10 orbs per second) and can also create a lot of lag, therefore, going crazy on the building process is pointless. Although, the experience outcome may be 150% higher than a enderman farm's, making this farm very useful for consistent anvil usage and enchanting. Keep in mind, pillager farms do not produce any item other than ominous banners and crossbows.

Precautions

• Raids are not permanent as they last up to 40 minutes. This means the farm is not easily AFKable unless you are playing in versions prior to 1.21, because raid captains back then immediately gave the Bad Omen effect when killed.
• If there are iron golems surrounded by the spawning platforms instead of villagers, pillagers will take longer to chase the golems, creating more lag.
• Trying to convert a pillager farm into an ominous bottle farm with a familiar design can severely impact spawning rates because pillagers leaving the raid, also having extra lifetime before getting killed in the killing chamber, makes them contribute to the mob cap again.

Videos

Pillager farm tutorial:

Guide on how to design pillager farms: