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This article covers curing zombie villagers.

About zombie villagers[]

Zombie villagers have a 5% chance to spawn in place of a regular zombie and can also spawn if a zombie kills a regular villager, depending on the difficulty level. (0% on Easy, 50% on Normal, and 100% on Hard)

You can also spawn zombie villagers via commands or using a spawn egg.

A villager and a zombie villager always spawn inside an igloo basement. Zombie villagers also naturally generate in zombie villages.

Zombie villagers have a similar appearance to normal villagers but have zombie-colored flesh and attempt to attack the player like other zombies.

Please note that zombie villagers do not spawn from zombie monster spawners, so don't expect to get a zombie villger by waiting next to a monster spawner.

Equipment, items, and mobs needed to cure a zombie villager[]

Required[]

Optional[]

  • Any type of expendable block (e.g. dirt or cobblestone)
  • A full set of armor, preferably iron or above
  • Any type of mining tool, such as a pickaxe for stone or shovel for dirt
  • A boat or minecart to restrict movement and ease transportation
  • Iron bars and a bed to speed up the curing process

Finding and crafting the equipment[]

Splash Potion of Weakness[]

To create a Splash Potion of Weakness, it must be brewed using a brewing stand, which can either be crafted using blaze rods and cobblestone or found in an igloo basement, end ship or a cleric house in a village.

Place the water bottle(s) and the fermented spider eye in the brewing stand, then insert the blaze powder to initiate the brewing process. Once your potions of weakness have brewed, place in the gunpowder to convert them into splash potions of weakness.

A splash potion of weakness can also be found placed in igloo brewing stands.

Lingering Potion of Weakness[]

To create a Lingering Potion of Weakness, it must be brewed using a brewing stand.

Place the three water bottles and the fermented spider eye in the brewing stand, then insert the blaze powder to initiate the brewing process. Once your potions of weakness have brewed, place in the gunpowder to convert them into splash potions of weakness. Once your splash potions of weakness have brewed, place in the dragon's breath to convert them into lingering potions.

Arrow of Weakness[]

An Arrow of Weakness can provide an alternative to splash potions of weakness and eliminate the risk of splashing yourself with the weakness potion; however, they are harder to obtain than splash potions.

To craft arrows of weakness, you must brew a lingering potion of weakness, which can be done by brewing a Splash Potions of Weakness with dragon's breath.

  • Dragon's breath can be obtained by right-clicking (or long-pressing if in Bedrock Edition) the ender dragon dragon breath or dragon fireball clouds with an empty glass bottle in hand.
  • Combine eight arrows and a Lingering Potion of Weakness in a crafting table, and craft eight Arrows of Weakness.

Alternatively, there are multiple methods to obtain arrows of weakness without having to fight the ender dragon:

  • Arrows of weakness can be obtained by filing a cauldron with a Potion of Weakness and then using arrows on it. A full cauldron can treat the tips of a stack of arrows.‌[Bedrock Edition only]
  • Arrows of weakness can be obtained through trades with master level fletcher villagers.
  • If the player has the Hero of the Village effect, fletcher villagers can throw arrows of weakness as gifts to the player. {Java Edition only}

Witch[]

Witches have a 25% chance of throwing a splash potion of weakness if the player is within 3 blocks of a witch and does not already have the Weakness status effect. While this method is more dangerous to attempt than others, this method can be used as an alternative if a player is not able to obtain a potion or arrow of weakness at the time.

Witches spawn in numerous ways, including:

Golden Apple[]

Golden apples are crafted from eight gold ingots and an apple in a crafting table.

They can also naturally generate in:

Finding a zombie villager[]

Zombie villagers spawn in place of a normal zombie 5% of the time and can also be found in igloo basements and zombie villages. Manually scouting your base's perimeter during the night is a good way to find zombie villagers.

If you cannot find a zombie villager, you can summon them via commands or use a spawn egg if you have cheats on.

Curing a zombie villager[]

  1. Prepare before the curing process by taking off your Thorns enchanted armor (if your armor isn't enchanted with Thorns don't worry about that) and put away anything that might hurt the zombie villager, such as splash healing potions. Try to keep your golden apples next to your splash/lingering weakness potions or your bow if you're using weakness arrows, since you might forget your golden apples and the zombie villager loses the weakness effect by the time you find the apple. Grab a shield with a durability above half so you can block the attacks more safely. If you're planning to use weakness arrows, use an unenchanted bow since enchanted bows mostly deal more damage to the zombie villager. Make your tamed wolves sit and move your iron golems away from the zombie villager. Make sure you don't heal the zombie villager in the middle of a raid because the raiding illagers might attack the newly-cured villager. Try to keep your health above half because the zombie villager might kill you if you have too little health. Now after the preparing is complete and you had turned off most of your defenses, go find a zombie villager in any of the places stated above.
  2. When you find a zombie villager, lure the zombie villager and secure it in a safe area that no hostile mobs can break into (make it following you it is best, and try to use a door to secure it), in case a zombie kills or infects the newly-cured villager, making you lose your hard work and patience. Make sure to include a roof of opaque blocks so the zombie villager does not burn when the night ends. Also, it's best not to heal multiple zombie villagers at a time (unless you can feed all of them a golden apple around the same time, or if they're sealed in separate areas) because if one zombie villager is healed, other zombie villagers attack that villager and turn it back into a zombie villager.
  3. Select the Splash Potion of Weakness, use your bow if you are using Arrows of Weakness (don't enchant your bow with Power or Flame or else it might kill the zombie villager), or lure a witch close to the zombie villager or vise versa. Don't worry about the zombie villager attacking the witch after the witch threw the weakness potion because the witch's potions (except weakness and slowness) do nothing to the zombie villager (poison does nothing to the zombie villager because the zombie villager is immune to poison and harming heals the zombie villager since it's an undead mob).
  4. Throw the splash/lingering potion or shoot the tipped arrow at the zombie villager from a distance. Or stand within 3 blocks of the witch and the zombie villager until the witch throws a splash potion of weakness. If done correctly, the zombie villager should have gray swirls emanating from it; this means that the zombie villager is currently inflicted with weakness, which, as it is an undead mob, gives it lives (giving "live energy" so to say, the first part of the cure).
  5. Feed the zombie villager the golden apple, done by facing the zombie villager and pressing the use key. If done correctly, the zombie villager emits red particles and starts shaking. Note that iron bars and beds speed up the curing process. Keep the zombie villager safe at this point and don't attack it.
  6. After 3 to 5 minutes have elapsed, the zombie villager converts into a normal villager. If you found your zombie villager in an igloo basement or a zombie village, you have to transport them, likely via boats, minecarts, upward bubble columns (soul sand and water), nether portals, or other ways of manual movement, as villagers cannot be leashed unlike other mobs. You can also push the villager onto the ladder to make it climb up. Make sure you bring the villager's job site blocks if you're in an igloo!

Curing a zombie villager grants you the Zombie Doctor achievement/advancement if it has not been obtained yet. If the cured villager has a profession, it permanently provides heavy discounts while trading to the player that cured them.‌[Java Edition only] There is also a heavy discount on Bedrock Edition with 1.16, another thing to keep in mind is that in Bedrock Edition, the discount spreads through the "talking" of villagers 16 blocks in a cube from the cured Villager.

Gallery[]

Zombie discounts Java Edition

This is for Java

Notes (things to pay attention to)[]

  • Don't cure the zombie villager near any mob that attacks villagers, such as zombies and illagers. These mobs might not attack the zombie villager, but when the zombie villager is cured, they attack the newly-cured villager. For example, don't heal a zombie villager during a raid.
  • Moving your iron golems temporarily away from the village can be good since the iron golems attack zombie villagers, even while a zombie villager is getting cured, and the zombie villager always attacks iron golems. Once the zombie villager is cured, bring the iron golems back as your village may get wiped out by zombies if they don't patrol the paths.
  • Make your tamed wolves sit because they also attack the zombie villager until it dies if the zombie villager accidentally attacks you.
  • If you're planning to shoot a weakness tipped arrow at a zombie villager to give it the weakness effect, don't use a bow enchanted with Power or Flame because it might kill the zombie villager in one hit or burn the zombie villager to death if you use the bow on it.
  • Punching the zombie villager with a weakness arrow doesn't give it the weakness effect.
  • Use a shield for safer blocking from zombie villager attacks since you don't want to harm the zombie villager when curing.
  • Don't let your zombie villager infect any more villagers when curing.
  • Moving a zombie villager into a village house with no beds is the best trapping place, because there is a door and you can build a wall in the tiny area of the house and the zombie villager cannot attack you, rather than outside, where you need to build four walls to prevent the zombie villager from attacking you. Make sure you close the door after trapping the zombie villager!
  • You can also let the zombie villager chase you after you fed the golden apple if you don't want to trap the zombie villager or get attacked by the zombie villager. Keep the zombie villager away from zombies while chasing.
  • If the witch throws the weakness splash potion on the zombie villager, the zombie villager attacks the witch. Don't worry about the witch killing the zombie villager with negative splash potions, as poison does nothing to the zombie villager, harming heals them, and slowness doesn't affect them as much because the witch barely moves when throwing or drinking a potion. Since the zombie villager already has the weakness effect, the witch doesn't throw another weakness potion at the zombie villager.
  • If you play on a realm or server and cure a villager, the discounted trades apply only to you. Everyone on the multiplayer world must cure the same villager themselves to get the discounted trades.

Videos[]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9rOXvK9WOM

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