How the Trident Failed to Become a Viable Tool in Minecraft

I'll be blunt: I struggle to think of a feature with as much wasted potential as the trident.

The first actual new weapon added to Minecraft in almost its entire history, you would think the addition of the trident would have been absolutely MASSIVE. And it certainly was... for all of a few weeks until the novelty wore off. 9 melee damage compared to the Diamond Sword's 7 certainly seemed good, as did the fact it also has a ranged attack doing 8 damage per hit and moving freely through water. It seemed good on paper, but it quickly became apparent that the trident had many issues which stopped it from being practical.

In this rant I will discuss what went wrong with the trident, and why it hasn't found its way into very many survival playthroughs. And bear in mind, I am talking about the trident as of 21w14a (1.17). A few changes have been made in the combat snapshots, but the combat snapshots have yet to appear in an actual version of Minecraft.

Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a Nia message sized rant.

Tridents SUCK to Obtain

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If something basically HAS to be farmed using exploits, it's not good game design. Tridents can only be obtained from the Drowned mob. On Java Edition, only about 6% of Drowneds spawn with tridents. The drowned with a trident is so powerful it's almost a random death event. They throw tridents every 1.5 seconds, each one dealing FOUR HEARTS of damage, and as you're in water, you can't really outrun it. So until you have super gear, your swim just turned super deadly. But even if you manage to slay the bugger, there is only an 8.5% chance of obtaining its trident. Even with Looting III, that is only bumped up to 11.5%. The trident-Drowned spawn very rarely, so basically your only two options are to spend many many days at sea, or build a farm. 

On Bedrock, more Drowneds have tridents (about 15%), and any drowned has a very low chance of dropping a trident. This does not fix the problem. It's still a grind, but it's just a slightly shorter grind. The fact you have to grind or farm at all to get a trident is just so unceremoneous. The idea of an uncraftable weapon is such a good one. It's just that this is the ONLY way to obtain a trident.

I've always said the trident should be the prize you get for beating an Ocean Monument. Once you slay the third Elder Guardian, it drops a trident. Or even, once you're free of the Mining Fatigue, you can then mine into a secret room which has a chest with a trident in it (and some better rewards for all your troubles!) The "golden" room in the Monument could maybe have 7 blocks of gold and a chest that always has a trident and some diamonds and gold to reward you for beating one of the game's most challenging structures. This effectively kills two birds with one stone. And because Drowned-tridents are SO powerful, maybe only 2.5% of them should spawn with tridents. This allows tridents to still be renewable if you're playing on servers. Having tridents be obtained from Ocean Monuments while still keeping the Drowned option still allows players to farm tridents if they so choose, but it allows more adventurous players to get them without having to set up a farm or grind endlessly for one trident which has almost no durability left. It basically allows another avenue other than endless grinding or setting up a farm.

The way tridents are obtained are honestly a huge reason why I don't bother. I once spent over 30 Minecraft days at sea, waiting around and grinding for a trident, with Looting III, only to come home empty-handed. And not a second of it was fun. Most nights I didn't even encounter a trident-Drowned. I'm not sure if I did something wrong, but I see other survivalists have the same predicament. You basically have to set up a farm or spend days grinding.

In the end, after literal real-time HOURS of grinding, I gave up, because the trident itself was not worth it. Even if you do manage to get hold of a trident, the trident itself has many issues which prevent them from being practical, despite their impressive statistics on paper.

Here are some ways the trident itself suffers:

Slow cooldown

Swords have an attack speed of 1.6, meaning the sword is fully charged within 0.625 seconds of the last attack. If the diamond sword does 7 damage when fully charged, you can theoretically get 11.2 damage in per second. The trident does 9 damage when fully charged, but has an attack speed of only 1.1, meaning it takes 0.909 seconds to fully charge. This equates to 9.9 damage per second. Put another way, consider the lowest common multiple of 7 and 9, which is 63. The diamond sword can potentially deal 63 damage (9 hits) in 5.625 seconds, whereas the trident (7 hits) will take 6.363 seconds. 

What we can draw from this is even though the trident does more damage per hit, due to the longer cooldown, the diamond sword is still superior when time is considered.  And the diamond sword is infinitely easier to obtain.

If the trident even wants to break even with the diamond sword, it either needs to do more damage per hit, or be given a faster attack cooldown. But the problems with the trident do not stop with the slow cooldown...

Low durability (and no way to repair it)

You go to all that effort to get a trident, only to find it breaks in a tenth of the time it took you to get it. The trident only has 250 uses, which is the same as an iron sword or pickaxe. That is quite frankly pathetic, especially when compared to the diamond sword.

The diamond sword has 1561 uses. If all its uses deal 7 damage, the sword will deal a total of 10,927 damage in its lifetime. If all 250 uses of the trident are used in melee combat, the trident will deal a mere 2,250 damage in its lifetime. The far easier-to-obtain diamond sword not only damages faster, it will deal nearly five times the total damage across its lifetime!

And that's not even taking into account the fact there is no repair mineral for a trident on an anvil! The diamond sword can be easily repaired with diamonds, but if you want to repair a trident you need ANOTHER TRIDENT. Again, the game basically forcing you to build a drowned farm. Because guess what, when you DO obtain a trident it will probably be badly damaged! So basically, get Mending or say goodbye to your trident within minutes of obtaining it.

To even begin to make tridents worthwhile up against the diamond sword, the trident really needs at least 1000 uses before it breaks.

Oh, but there is one other way the trident falls short of the diamond sword...

Lousy Enchantments

In this rant, I've shown how the sword is better in just about every way... but I've not even taken ENCHANTMENTS into account. Swords (and bows) have a WHOLE ARRAY of enchantments unavailable to the trident. Including: Looting, Flame enchantments, Knockback enchantments, and especially... SHARPNESS/POWER enchantments!

If we're talking about the diamond sword with sharpness V, the trident pales even more in comparison, because there is no way to add sharpness to a trident! The trident comes with four exclusive enchantments, asides from unbreaking and mending.

One of these is Loyalty. This enchantment is basically a must, because if you don't have it and you throw your trident... it's probably gone. The second is Impaling, which does add more damage to the trident..... but only on aquatic creatures (this IS being buffed in the combat snapshots though). And since Drowned don't count as sea creatures, it doesn't even work on the only common aquatic enemy! I'm sure your trident will make an excellent fishing tool, doing 21.5 attack damage to a fish with only 3 health. That's not overkill at all. Basically this will only ever be useful against guardians.

The third enchantment is Riptide, which actually DISABLES the option to throw the trident... unless you're in water or it's raining. At which point you're basically a god. The fourth enchantment is Channelling, which is good for mob head farms I guess........ but only in the rare event of a thunderstorm.

Beginning to notice a pattern?

The Trident Makes you a God.... Situationally.

There are only VERY SPECIFIC situations in which the trident will actually be useful. Basically, the only times tridents are actually superior are if you're in an ocean monument, or you've enchanted it with Riptide and it's raining... or if you're making a mob-head farm and you wait around for a thunderstorm. Yyyeaah... VERY specific situations in which you will ever actually want to use the trident over a sword or a bow. You are never going to take a trident with you to an Ender Dragon fight, or a Bastion, or literally anything that isn't an ocean monument. That fork is just not worth it unless it's raining or thundering or you're going for 8 gold blocks.

The sword isn't the only weapon that bests the trident in just about every way...

In this rant, I have mostly compared the trident's melee attack to a diamond sword, but the trident can also be thrown and become a ranged weapon. But yet again... the trident falls short of the bow in just about every way. The trident travels less far than a fully-charged arrow. The trident's 8 damage does considerably less than the bow's average damage of 9 per hit (10 on a critical). And unless enchanted with Loyalty, if you throw the trident, you have to then retrieve it. And the Bow also comes with knockback enchantments, flame enchantments and Power which the trident lacks. The ONLY advantage to the trident in ranged combat is that it flies through water like air. But again, that is incredibly situational and only really useful if fighting Drowned or are in an Ocean Monument. You will never bring a trident to take down a Ravager or the Ender Dragon like you would a bow.

Basically, the trident tries to be a 2 in 1 weapon (that is nigh impossible to get in Java Edition), but ends up just being a far worse version of both. In just about any situation it is FAR more practical to have a sword and a bow than a trident. Tridents are useful for about three very niche situations in niche environments.

All in All, Many Buffs are Needed...

Here at Minecraft Rants, we always try and find solutions to features that I have written nearly 2000 words slamming. 

This rant is already getting very long, so I will keep this brief:

The trident needs at least three or four times more durability. They should be reparable with prismarine shards. Its attack speed needs to be increased to 1.3 or so. Maybe 1 point added to its damage stats too (10 damage on melee, 9 on ranged). The trident should get Sharpness and Power enchants to improve its damage on melee and ranged respectively. Knockback and Punch enchantments added too, but not Flame as that goes against the concept of a trident being aquatic. And of course, the trident should be obtainable from Monuments.

Until a combination of buffs are made to the trident (in addition to the Impaling buff that will be coming eventually), and it can be obtained in a way that isn't Drowned grinding/farming, the trident will remain largely non-viable up against the classic Minecraft weapons. It's a real shame too, because the trident was one of the features I was most hyped about. It was something I'd been wanting in the game for years before it was added, and it was the first new weapon since the very early days.

And no Mojang, making the trident the only way to make stalactites fall in 1.17 does not make things any better.

Wow this post was long. I never thought I'd have so much to say about a turquoise fork.