Ominous Trials are the more difficult version of Minecraft’s new Trial Chambers. In them, you’ll face more mobs with tougher armor and effects applied, but you’ll also find greater rewards, as Ominous Vaults have a much better chance of giving you rare loot than their regular variants. Plus, there are some items that you can only get from Ominous Trials.
We’ll explain how to start an Ominous Trial in Minecraft 1.21, so you can dive right in to find all of the best loot on offer.
First, you need to find a Trial Chamber in Minecraft, which you can learn how to do in our guide at that link. Once you have, you need to enter it while under the effects of a Bad Omen. To get a Bad Omen you either need to kill banner-holding Pillagers that spawn in their raid parties, or drink an Ominous Bottle, which can be looted from vaults in regular Trial Chambers.
When you come in range of a spawner with the Bad Omen active, it will remove your Bad Omen and replace it with the Trial Omen. By default, it lasts for 15 minutes, but it’s multiplied by the level of your Bad Omen, which can go has high as level 5.
While you have a Trial Omen, any Trial Spawner you get in range of will transform into an Ominous Trial Spawner, which spawns more difficult variants on the mobs it would normally spawn, and can shoot out projectiles with negative potion effects. If the spawner is on cooldown, this will automatically be reset when turned Ominous, so it can spawn mobs immediately.
Once defeated, the Trial Spawner will eject it’s loot, which will be better than usual, and among the loot table is the Ominous Vault Key, which can be used to unlock an Ominous Vault in any chamber. You can tell when a vault is ominous as it will have red eyes instead of the normal orange.
Among the possible loot in Ominous Vaults is the rare Heavy Core, which you’ll need to craft a Mace in Minecraft.
RYAN WOODROW
Ryan Woodrow is Guides Editor for GLHF based in London, England. He has a particular love for JRPGs and the stories they tell. His all-time favorite JRPGs are the Xenoblade Chronicles games because of the highly emotive and philosophy-driven stories that hold great meaning. Other JRPGs he loves in the genre are Persona 5 Royal, Octopath Traveler, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Nier Automata, and Pokémon. He also regularly dives deep into the indie scene trying to find hidden gems and innovative ideas. Some of his favorite indie games include FTL: Faster Than Light, Thomas Was Alone, Moonlighter, Phantom Abyss, and Towerfall Ascension. More of his favorite games are Minecraft, Super Mario Odyssey, Stardew Valley, Skyrim, and XCOM 2. He has a first-class degree in Games Studies from Staffordshire University and has written for several sites such as USA Today's ForTheWin, Game Rant, The Sun, and KeenGamer. Email: ryan.woodrow@glhf.gg
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