How to Get a Trident in Minecraft: Drowned Drop Rates, Best Spots and Enchantments

The trident is one of the most fun weapons in Minecraft. You can stab with it, throw it, call down lightning or launch yourself through the rain like a rocket. The catch: there's no crafting recipe. To get one, you have to take it from a Drowned, the waterlogged zombies that lurk in oceans and rivers, and only a few of them carry one.

This guide covers where to hunt, the real odds on Java and Bedrock, what Looting does, and how to enchant and repair your trident once you have it. The drop mechanics are unchanged in the current version of the game (Java 26.3, the Wilderness Bound drop, released in September 2026).

Quick answer

Only Drowned that spawned naturally holding a trident can drop one. Zombies that turn into Drowned underwater never carry tridents. There's also a very small chance of a trident from a regular vault in Trial Chambers.

Step-by-step: hunting a trident

1. Gear up for water. Bring a Respiration helmet or Water Breathing potions, a decent sword or bow, and food. Night Vision potions make dark water much easier to search.
2. Enchant Looting on your sword. On Java, every level of Looting adds 1% to the drop chance, so Looting III takes you from 8.5% to 11.5%. Looting also improves the odds on Bedrock.
3. Pick a good spot. Drowned spawn in all kinds of oceans and rivers, plus flooded parts of dripstone caves. Rivers are often the best bet: they're narrow, so Drowned are concentrated and easy to spot. Ocean ruins are another reliable place, since Drowned gather around them.
4. Go at night or in the dark. Drowned are hostile mobs and need darkness to spawn. Dark water, deep sections and nighttime give you the most targets.
5. Look for the trident. You can see what a Drowned is holding. Ignore the empty-handed ones (or kill them for XP) and focus on any Drowned carrying a trident.
6. Watch for incoming throws. A trident Drowned will throw its weapon at you from range. Close the distance quickly or fight from cover.
7. Kill it with your Looting weapon. The final hit needs to come from the Looting sword for the bonus to count. Repeat until it drops – it can take many kills, especially on Java.

Why rivers beat zombie farms

A common shortcut is to drown zombies in a water pit to make Drowned. That's fine for rotten flesh and XP, but it's useless for tridents: converted Drowned never spawn holding one. A real trident farm has to rely on Drowned spawning naturally, which is why those farms are always built in river or ocean biomes. For a first trident, though, a simple night of river hunting with Looting III is often enough.

The Trial Chamber backup

Since the Tricky Trials update, regular vaults in Trial Chambers have a tiny chance to give you a trident when you open them with a Trial Key. Ominous vaults don't have it in their loot table. The odds are slim, so treat it as a bonus if you're already raiding chambers rather than a plan.

Trident enchantments explained

A fresh trident is good, but enchantments make it great. Use an enchanting table or apply books with an anvil.

• Loyalty – the trident flies back to you a few seconds after you throw it. Essential if you plan to throw it often.
• Riptide – throwing the trident while you're in water or standing in rain launches you instead. Great for travel, but it doesn't work in dry weather.
• Channeling – during a thunderstorm, a trident that hits a mob summons a lightning bolt on it.
• Impaling – extra damage against aquatic mobs. On Java this doesn't include Drowned; on Bedrock it also boosts damage against mobs in water or rain.
• Unbreaking and Mending – the two you want on any trident you plan to keep.

Important: Riptide can't be combined with Loyalty or Channeling. Loyalty and Channeling do work together, so most players end up with two tridents: a Loyalty + Channeling one for fighting and a Riptide one for getting around.

How to repair a trident

Tridents dropped by Drowned are often badly worn, so plan for repairs early.

• Mending – the best long-term fix. XP orbs you collect while holding the trident repair it. You can't get it from an enchanting table, so find a Mending book and apply it with an anvil.
• Anvil – combine two tridents to merge their durability. This keeps enchantments but costs XP levels.
• Crafting grid – place two tridents together to get one with combined durability. It's free, but it removes all enchantments, so only do this with plain tridents.

Tips and common mistakes

• Trying to pick up thrown tridents. Tridents a Drowned throws at you can't be collected. Only the drop on death counts.
• Farming converted Drowned. As covered above, they never hold tridents. Don't waste time on a zombie-drowning setup.
• Forgetting Looting. On Java especially, every percentage point matters. Switch to your Looting sword before the killing blow.
• Throwing without Loyalty. A trident without Loyalty lands where it stops. Throw it into the void and it's gone for good.
• Picking Riptide too early. If your only trident gets Riptide, you lose the ability to throw it as a weapon. Save Riptide for your second trident.
• Hunting in bright, shallow water. Drowned need darkness to spawn. Deep or dark river and ocean water at night gives you far more targets.