Overview
A Trident is the only weapon that works equally well thrown and swung, and the only one you cannot craft. In melee it deals 9 damage — more than a Netherite Sword — and thrown it deals 8 on impact at a flat trajectory that outranges a bow's arc at short distances. What makes it a keeper is the enchantment set, which no other item shares. Loyalty returns the thrown trident to your hand, and without it a throw in the wrong place means swimming after it. Riptide launches you through water or rain in the direction you are looking, which turns a rainstorm into free travel and pairs with Elytra for a rocket-free take-off. Channeling summons lightning onto whatever the trident hits during a thunderstorm, which is how charged creepers and mob heads are made. Impaling adds damage against anything standing in water. Note that Riptide and Loyalty are mutually exclusive, so most players keep two tridents: one Loyalty III for combat, one Riptide III for travel. Durability is 250 and no material repairs it on an anvil, so Mending or a second trident is the only fix, and that scarcity is the real reason drowned farms exist.
A ranged weapon that needs no ammunition, a lightning wand for making charged creepers, and — with Riptide — the fastest way to cross open water or travel in the rain without spending a single rocket.
Trident is a weapon item in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. Durability is 250. Enchanting it is possible and generally recommended.
It does not stack — each one takes its own slot. The usual source is Drowned. No recipe takes it as an ingredient.
How to get it
Only drowned drop it. About 15% of drowned in Java spawn holding one, and a trident-holder drops it 8.5% of the time — around 1 in 100 kills, plus 1 percentage point per level of Looting.
Tips
- Riptide only fires when you are in water, in rain or in snowfall, so it is useless in the Nether and unreliable in a desert.
- Channeling needs a thunderstorm, not ordinary rain, and the target must be exposed to the sky for the strike to land.
- Loyalty III returns the trident fastest; without Loyalty a throw into lava or the void loses the weapon permanently.
- Farm drowned at a river or ocean at night rather than converting zombies — converted drowned never spawn holding a trident.
Damage and attack speed
Trident deals 9 damage per hit and swings 1.1 times a second, which works out at 9.9 damage per second when every swing is fully charged.
A swing that lands before the cooldown bar refills deals a fraction of that, so waiting for the bar is worth more than clicking faster.
That is 3 hits to kill a zombie or a creeper, the same for a skeleton, and 2 hits for a spider.
Properties
Trident lasts 250 uses before it breaks. Two worn copies can also be merged, on an anvil or a grindstone. Unbreaking III roughly quadruples the lifespan, and Mending replaces the repair cost with experience. Its enchantability of 1 decides how good the enchanting table's offers are: the higher the number, the more often a level-30 table offers the top-tier enchantment rather than a weak one. Trident does not stack — each one occupies an inventory slot of its own.
- Damage per second
- 9.9
- Enchantability
- 1
- Renewable
- Yes
- Category
- Weapons
Dropped by
1 mobs drop Trident: Drowned. Looting raises the maximum on most of them.
Enchantments it can take
6 enchantments can be applied to Trident: Channeling, Impaling, Loyalty, Mending, Riptide, and Unbreaking.
Mending is a treasure enchantment and never appears at an enchanting table — they come from loot chests, fishing or villager trades only.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Trident in Minecraft?
Trident has no crafting recipe — it drops from Drowned.
What is the stack size of Trident?
Trident does not stack at all. Every one you carry takes an inventory slot of its own, which is the practical limit on how many you take on a trip.
How much damage does Trident do?
9 damage per fully charged hit, at 1.1 attacks per second — 9.9 damage per second. Strength II adds 6 damage on top of that.
How much durability does Trident have?
Trident has 250 durability.
Can Trident be enchanted?
Yes — 6 enchantments apply to it, at an enchanting table with fifteen bookshelves, or from an enchanted book on an anvil. Mending is usually the one worth hunting for, because it removes the repair cost entirely.
