Zombie villagers are a unique type of hostile mob in Minecraft, instantly recognizable by their green, decaying skin and villager clothing. While they spawn rarely on their own, regular villagers can transform into zombie villagers when defeated by a zombie, especially on harder difficulty settings. While your first instinct might be to fight them off like any other zombie, curing a zombie villager is a rewarding endeavor, granting you the “Zombie Doctor” achievement and restoring a villager who retains their original profession and trades. This means if your valuable villagers are turned into zombies, you have the chance to bring them back to their former selves. This guide will provide you with a comprehensive walkthrough on How To Cure A Zombie Villager in Minecraft, transforming them back into helpful members of your blocky community.
Minecraft zombie villager in a visually enhanced game world using shaders.
Updated for the latest versions of Minecraft, this guide now includes enhanced strategies for locating and safely trapping zombie villagers, ensuring you can efficiently begin the curing process. Forget aimless wandering; we’ll equip you with the knowledge to find and secure these zombified villagers, maximizing your chances of revitalizing your village or starting a new one from scratch.
Finding and Trapping a Zombie Villager: Your First Steps
Before you can cure a zombie villager, you need to find one and ensure it’s safely contained. Cured zombie villagers are incredibly valuable, but the initial steps of finding and trapping them can be challenging. This section details the best methods to increase your chances of encountering a zombie villager and how to securely trap them for the curing process.
Methods to Locate a Zombie Villager
There are several ways to encounter a zombie villager in Minecraft. Understanding these methods will significantly improve your efficiency in finding one.
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| Natural Zombie Spawns | During nighttime zombie spawns, there’s a small chance (5%) that a zombie villager will appear instead of a regular zombie. While not common, persistent night exploration can eventually yield results. |
| Villager Conversion | When a standard zombie attacks and defeats a villager, there’s a possibility the villager will transform into a zombie villager. This chance increases with higher difficulty levels in your game. |
| Igloo Basements | Every igloo with a basement contains a guaranteed zombie villager spawn alongside a cleric villager. These unique spawns do not despawn, making igloos a reliable location to find zombie villagers. |
| Abandoned Villages | A small percentage (2%) of villages generate as abandoned villages. These structures often house zombie villagers, which, like igloo spawns, will not despawn over time. |
Trapping Your Zombie Villager
Once you’ve located a zombie villager, securing it is essential for your safety and to facilitate the curing process. Here’s what you’ll need to build a temporary enclosure:
- Building Blocks: Any solid blocks like cobblestone, wood, or dirt will work. Bring a stack to create a small, secure space.
- Door or Gate: A wooden door or gate to seal the enclosure entrance, preventing the zombie villager from escaping while allowing you access.
Follow these steps to trap the zombie villager effectively:
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Construct a Basic Enclosure: Quickly build a small, roofed structure. The roof is crucial to protect the zombie villager from sunlight, which will harm them during daylight hours. A 3×3 or 4×4 square enclosure, two blocks high, is usually sufficient.
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Lure the Zombie Villager: Carefully attract the zombie villager towards the entrance of your enclosure. Zombies are naturally drawn to players, so simply position yourself to encourage it to follow you into the trap.
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Secure the Entrance: Once the zombie villager is inside the enclosure, move away from the entrance and swiftly place your door or gate to block the exit. Ensure the door or gate is securely closed.
Remember that mobs can despawn if no players are nearby. To prevent your trapped zombie villager from disappearing, ensure you or another player remains within a 128-block radius of the enclosure. Keeping the zombie villager contained ensures it is ready for curing whenever you have the necessary materials.
Gathering the Necessary Materials for Curing
Curing a zombie villager requires specific items that you’ll need to gather and prepare. These materials might seem complex at first, but obtaining them is a standard part of mid-game Minecraft progression. Here’s a breakdown of each material and how to acquire it:
| Material | How to Obtain |
|---|---|
| Brewing Stand | Craft a Brewing Stand by placing a Blaze Rod in the center slot and three Cobblestone blocks in the bottom row of a crafting table. Brewing Stands can also be found in villages and churches. |
| Fermented Spider Eye | Craft a Fermented Spider Eye using a crafting table. Combine a Spider Eye (dropped by spiders), a Brown Mushroom, and Sugar. Place the Spider Eye in the bottom center, Brown Mushroom in the middle left, and Sugar in the middle center slot. |
| Golden Apple | Crafting a Golden Apple is somewhat resource-intensive. Surround an Apple in the crafting grid with eight Gold Ingots. Alternatively, Golden Apples can be found as loot in chests within mineshafts, dungeons, ruined portals, and Woodland Mansions. |
| Water Bottles (x3) | Craft Glass Bottles using glass panes. Then, fill the Glass Bottles with water by right-clicking on any water source. You will need three water bottles in total to create the necessary potions. Craft glass bottles by placing glass panes in a ‘V’ shape on the crafting table – one in the middle left, one in the middle right, and one in the bottom center slot. |
| Gunpowder | Gunpowder can be obtained in several ways: purchased from Wandering Traders (though not always available), found in chests as loot in various structures, or farmed from Creepers, Ghasts, and Witches. Creepers are generally the most reliable source of gunpowder, as they are commonly encountered hostile mobs. |
| Blaze Powder | Blaze Powder is obtained by crafting. Place a Blaze Rod (dropped by Blazes in the Nether) in any crafting grid to yield two Blaze Powder. Blaze Powder is essential for fueling the Brewing Stand and creating potions. |
Crafting a Splash Potion of Weakness
With all the materials gathered, the next step is to brew a Splash Potion of Weakness. This potion is crucial for weakening the zombie villager before applying the Golden Apple. Follow these steps at your Brewing Stand:
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Prepare the Brewing Stand: Place Blaze Powder in the fuel slot on the left side of the Brewing Stand interface to activate it.
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Brew Potions of Weakness: Place the three Water Bottles in the bottom slots of the Brewing Stand. Then, place the Fermented Spider Eye in the top ingredient slot. Wait for the brewing process to complete. The Water Bottles will transform into Potions of Weakness.
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Convert to Splash Potions: Once the Potions of Weakness are brewed, leave them in the bottom slots. Replace the Fermented Spider Eye in the top slot with Gunpowder. Wait for the second brewing process to finish. The regular Potions of Weakness will now become Splash Potions of Weakness. Splash potions are necessary as they can be thrown at the zombie villager from a safe distance.
The Curing Process: Restoring the Zombie Villager
With Splash Potions of Weakness in hand and a Golden Apple ready, you are now set to cure the zombie villager. Ensure you have the Golden Apple selected in your hotbar for quick access.
Here’s the step-by-step process to cure the zombie villager:
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Apply Splash Potion of Weakness: Approach the trapped zombie villager and throw a Splash Potion of Weakness at it. You can do this by right-clicking while aiming at the zombie villager. You’ll see grey swirling particles appear around the zombie villager, indicating the weakness effect is active.
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Feed the Golden Apple: Quickly switch to the Golden Apple in your hotbar. Interact with the weakened zombie villager by right-clicking on it. This will feed the Golden Apple to the zombie villager.
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Observe the Transformation: After feeding the Golden Apple, the grey swirling particles will change to red, and the zombie villager will begin to shake intensely. This signifies the curing process has begun.
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Wait for Curing to Complete: The curing process takes several minutes in real-time. Be patient and keep the zombie villager contained and within your loaded chunks to prevent despawning or interruptions. Do not leave the area during this time to ensure the process completes successfully.
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Villager Transformation: Once the curing process is complete, the shaking will stop, and the zombie villager will transform back into a regular villager. The villager will retain its original profession and trades if it had one before becoming a zombie.
Benefits of Curing Zombie Villagers
Curing zombie villagers is not just about obtaining an achievement; it offers significant gameplay advantages:
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Discounted Trades: Cured villagers offer significantly reduced trading prices as a sign of gratitude. This discount is permanent and makes trading with cured villagers highly beneficial, especially for valuable resources.
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Village Expansion and Creation: Curing zombie villagers is an effective way to populate or expand your villages, particularly if natural villages are scarce in your world. By curing zombie villagers, you can quickly increase the villager population in your settlements.
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Access to Professions: Cured villagers retain their original professions. This means you can restore specific professions to your village by strategically curing zombie villagers that were once, for example, librarians, farmers, or blacksmiths.
Curing zombie villagers can be a rewarding and strategic element of your Minecraft gameplay, offering both practical benefits and a sense of accomplishment. By following these steps, you can efficiently transform these hostile mobs back into valuable, trading partners in your Minecraft world.
