Trident Guide: Drowned Drops and Loyalty vs Riptide

Tridents are dropped, not crafted

There is no recipe. A trident comes from a drowned that is already holding one, and the numbers are stacked against you twice over: only 6.25% of naturally spawned drowned carry a trident at all, and a drowning that does carry one still only drops it 8.5% of the time in Java Edition (25% in Bedrock). Each level of Looting adds 1%, taking Java to 11.5% at Looting III and Bedrock to 28%.

Two details change how you farm. A drowned's thrown trident cannot be picked up, so you are waiting on a drop, not on a projectile. And a zombie converted into a drowned never carries a trident, so a conversion farm produces tridents only from drowned that spawn naturally — the conversion trick makes drowned, not armed drowned.

The drop chain, as one formula

Both gates multiply. The chance that any single drowned kill yields a trident is:

p = P(holding) × P(drops | holding)   =   0.0625 × 0.085  =  0.531%

And the number of kills needed to be fairly sure follows the usual geometric tail, n = ln(1 − confidence) ÷ ln(1 − p). Because this is a probability rather than a counter, "I killed 100 and got nothing" is not evidence of a broken farm — it is the expected outcome a third of the time.

Worked example 1: how many drowned for a trident

Per trident-holding drowned, the drop rate alone answers it: 8 such kills give better than even odds without Looting, and 6 with Looting III — which is exactly the figure the wiki quotes, a useful cross-check that the formula is being applied to the right number.

Per any drowned you kill, the carrier chance has to be paid too. At p = 0.531% per kill, you need 131 kills for a 50% chance, 433 for 90% and 865 for 99%. With Looting III those fall to 97 and 320. Over a thousand kills the expected yield is 5.3 tridents without Looting and 7.2 with it.

That is the whole reason a trident farm is a project. A farm killing 300 drowned an hour is not a trident printer; it is a 1.6-tridents-per-hour operation, and the variance on that is enormous.

Durability is the real budget

A trident has 250 durability in Java Edition (251 in Bedrock) and spends one point per use, whether that use is a melee swing or a throw. That single fact sets the whole economics: damage per durability point is what you are actually buying.

Melee is 1.13× more damage-efficient than throwing, and against an entity that you hit the efficiency halves again because the collision costs a second point. Throwing is for reach and for Loyalty returns, not for damage per point of durability. Unbreaking is not a luxury here: Unbreaking III multiplies the useful life by 4, turning 2,000 points of thrown damage into 8,000.

Loyalty, Channeling and Riptide cannot coexist the way you think

The exclusivity rule is asymmetric, and getting it wrong wastes an enchanting session. Loyalty and Channeling are mutually exclusive with Riptide, but Loyalty and Channeling can coexist. So there are two valid archetypes, not four:

• Thrower: Loyalty III + Channeling I + Impaling V. The trident returns after every throw, and a storm-time hit calls lightning. This is the combat build.
• Mover: Riptide III. The throw becomes a launch — only while you stand in water or it is raining on the block you stand on, and the charge is cancelled if you step into a dry area. No Loyalty, no Channeling.

Impaling is worth understanding across editions, because its target set differs. In Java Edition it adds extra damage to all aquatic mobs, in or out of water. In Bedrock Edition it adds damage to players and mobs standing in water or rain. Same enchantment, different question: Java asks "is it aquatic", Bedrock asks "is it wet".

Worked example 2: what Impaling V is worth in a fight

A trident swings at 1.1 attacks per second in Java Edition (Bedrock has no attack cooldown), and its base melee damage is 9 HP — the 9.9 DPS the wiki lists. Impaling V takes the same swing to 21.5 HP, so:

21.5 HP × 1.1/s = 23.65 DPS against aquatic targets, or 2.39× the unenchanted 9.9 DPS. Thrown, Impaling V moves 8 HP to 20.5 HP, so the wiki's 16 ranged DPS becomes 41 DPS — higher than melee, but paid for at 8 damage per durability instead of 9.

Which is the honest summary of the trident: it is a burst weapon with a durability problem. Against drowned, guardians and elder guardians the Impaling build hits hard; against anything not aquatic you are holding a 9 HP weapon with a 250-use life, and a sword is the better tool.

Worked example 3: Riptide as a transport budget

Riptide III launches you 21 blocks per use (9 at I, 15 at II), costs 1 durability per throw, and 1 more if you collide with an entity. One trident is therefore a travel budget of:

21 blocks × 250 launches = 5,250 blocks of rain-travel before it breaks — and crossing a 1,000-block stretch costs 48 launches, or 48 durability.

Compare the alternatives on a 1,000-block run: an Elytra under the same riptide-style boost covers it in 8 seconds at 125 blocks per second, while firework propulsion needs 29.9 seconds at 33.5 — a 3.73× difference. Riptide is not in that race, and it should not be sold as such: it is the cheapest way to move fast while it rains, with no firework supply chain, at the cost of both hands and a durability budget you can count in blocks.

Where a trident comes from without a farm

Two shortcuts are worth knowing before you commit to a drowned farm. Trial chambers put a trident in vault and reward-chest loot at about 2.1%, which is a realistic first trident for a player who has not built a farm. And an existing trident is renewable through the drop chain, so a single lucky drop upgrades into a farm target rather than a one-off trophy.

Sources and standards

FAQ