How Many Times Can You Cure a Zombie Villager?
The simple answer is: you can cure a zombie villager multiple times, and this process directly impacts their trading prices. There isn’t a hard limit to the number of times you can cure a zombie villager, although there are diminishing returns. Each successful cure lowers the villager’s trade prices, making it a worthwhile effort for savvy Minecraft players. The discounts become deeper with each subsequent cure until the prices reach the minimum of one emerald per trade. While many server admins might implement a cap on cures to prevent extremely discounted trades, in vanilla Minecraft, you can cure a villager repeatedly to achieve the most favorable prices.
Understanding the Mechanics of Curing
Before diving deeper into how many times you can cure a villager, it’s important to understand the mechanics behind the process. When a villager is killed by a zombie (or drowned), there’s a chance it will turn into a zombie villager. The odds of this transformation depend on the game difficulty:
- Easy Difficulty: 0% chance of villager zombification
- Normal Difficulty: 50% chance of villager zombification
- Hard Difficulty: 100% chance of villager zombification
Once you have a zombie villager, the cure involves two steps:
- Weakening: Throwing a Splash Potion of Weakness at the zombie villager.
- Curing: Feeding the weakened zombie villager a Golden Apple.
After being fed the Golden Apple, the zombie villager will emit red particles, shake, and transform back into a normal villager after a few minutes.
The Impact of Multiple Cures
The crucial aspect to remember is that each time you successfully cure a zombie villager, it offers a permanent trade discount. This discount stacks each time the villager is cured until their trades reach a minimum price of one emerald. Additionally, other villagers nearby can be affected, receiving a small discount on their own trade prices when a zombie villager is cured. This effect, however, is significantly smaller than the discount gained by the cured villager.
Factors Affecting Curing Speed
The curing process can be sped up by placing the zombie villager in a confined space that includes iron bars and beds. These elements seem to help the transformation proceed faster. While the exact mechanism is not fully understood, it is a practical trick that players can use to significantly reduce curing times.
The Value of Curing Zombie Villagers
Curing zombie villagers isn’t just a neat trick; it’s a highly effective method to secure better trading prices. Here’s why it’s worth your while:
- Permanent Discounts: The trade discounts you gain are not temporary. They stay with the villager forever.
- Significant Price Reduction: Repeatedly curing a villager can reduce the price of items to as low as one emerald, turning expensive trades into easily attainable purchases.
- Community Benefits: Curing one villager often benefits other villagers nearby through a smaller, but still relevant discount. This can be useful to lower prices overall within a village.
- Efficiency: While initially time-consuming, the long-term benefits of low-priced trades make the effort worthwhile, particularly for large builds or frequent trading.
While you can cure a villager an infinite amount of times in vanilla, the discount maxes out when the trades reach a price of one emerald. After this point, there is no reason to cure the same villager further.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can baby zombie villagers be cured?
Yes, baby zombie villagers can be cured just like adult zombie villagers. The curing process involves the same steps: weakening with a Splash Potion of Weakness and then feeding them a Golden Apple. Baby zombie villagers do not age and can be cured.
2. What’s the fastest way to cure a zombie villager?
The fastest way involves weakening the zombie villager with a Splash Potion of Weakness and then quickly feeding them a Golden Apple. Confining them in an area with iron bars and beds speeds up the conversion.
3. Can golden carrots be used instead of golden apples?
No, golden carrots cannot cure zombie villagers. The curing process specifically requires a Golden Apple. Golden carrots are used for other purposes in the game, such as breeding villagers.
4. How long does curing a zombie villager take?
The curing process typically takes between 3 to 5 minutes in real-time. However, using iron bars and beds will decrease the duration.
5. Does curing a villager lower prices forever?
Yes, the discounts gained from curing a villager are permanent. The lowered prices are kept forever by the villager. Each subsequent cure provides further trade discounts up to one emerald per trade.
6. Why do my villagers keep getting zombified?
Villagers are at risk of turning into zombie villagers when killed by zombies (or drown). The chance of zombification is 100% on Hard difficulty, 50% on Normal difficulty, and 0% on Easy difficulty. Health matters, and sometimes a villager will take damage from the zombie and die instead of being converted.
7. What is the rarest zombie villager?
The rarest zombie villager is a baby zombie villager with full enchanted diamond armor, an enchanted iron sword, and riding a chicken. This combination of traits makes it incredibly rare due to the low spawn rates of each specific feature.
8. How do you get a zombie villager 100% of the time?
On Hard difficulty, if a zombie kills a villager, there is a 100% chance that the villager will transform into a zombie villager. This is the most reliable method to obtain a zombie villager.
9. Can a drowned turn a villager into a zombie?
Yes, drowned can turn a villager into a zombie villager, using both melee attacks and tridents, with a 0% chance on Easy, 50% on Normal, and 100% chance on Hard.
10. Do zombie villagers wear armor?
Yes, zombie villagers can wear armor, just like regular zombies. They can also equip mob heads, although their noses may stick through.
11. Why do my villagers get more expensive after trading?
Whenever you trade with villagers, they raise their prices temporarily. This can occur even if they have already had their prices lowered from curing or if they are affected by other cured villagers. Villagers may also increase prices if they are unable to restock their trades.
12. Can you cure a villager too many times?
While you can technically cure a villager multiple times to achieve the one emerald trade price, server admins often implement a cap of one or two cures to prevent extremely discounted trades. In vanilla Minecraft, the maximum price reduction is to one emerald.
13. Are there specific villagers that are best to cure?
While all villagers offer a benefit when their prices are lowered, some professions stand out for their trade value: Librarians, Cartographers, Fletchers, and Clerics offer particularly useful trades.
14. Are there drawbacks to curing villagers?
Curing a villager requires effort and resources, such as Golden Apples and Splash Potions of Weakness. However, the long-term benefits of the trade discounts typically outweigh the costs.
15. How do I prevent villagers from being turned into zombie villagers?
To prevent villager zombification, build secure villages, protecting villagers from the undead. This includes using fences, walls, torches, and other structures to keep zombies and drown away. Keep your villagers well-lit in areas zombies can spawn to prevent attacks.