Minecraft: Top 10 Best Villagers To Trade With

Villagers are NPC mobs, introduced in the update of February of 2012. 

Residing in villages, they roam the surrounding land and stick to their assigned job block.

At night, villagers will sleep in their assigned bed.

If a villager doesn’t have a bed, they will claim the closest one, signified by green sparkles above the bed.

How to get more villagers in a village

More doors!

That’s all you need, place more doors and build small lodgings for them to live in, with a bed and job block.

How to change a villager’s job

Destroy the villager’s assigned job block, they’ll default to an unemployed villager if there are no other job blocks to claim.

Then place the job block you’d like them to claim, and they’ll automatically take it!

How to protect your villagers and keep them safe

Villagers cannot fight by themselves, and are total pacifists.

What you’ll need to do is build, or spawn, an Iron Golem.

Also recommend building a cobblestone wall around each village, with iron doors and buttons to enter or exit.

10. Cartographer

Job Block: Cartography Table

Here mostly for the ability to Emeralds by trading paper, which is a massively common resource with a modest sugar cane farm.

You can also get Item Frames pretty easily. 

If you see the Woodland Explorer Map, don’t be baited into it like me.

I spent an hour on my fastest horse, traveling in the direction of the Mansion yet I still didn’t get close.

Those maps have no minimum distance, you could get one that’s hundreds of thousands of blocks away 🙁

9. Weaponsmith

Job Block: Grindstone

Until you get a sword with the Mending enchantment, Weaponsmiths can be your easiest way of keeping your offensive equipment topped up.

Enchanted Diamond swords/axes are available for up to 35 Emeralds.

Enchanted Iron swords are pretty cheap too, offering a good source of weaponry during your early stages.

Getting past the Apprentice trading level can be daunting though, with many of the trades being heavily in the Weaponsmith’s favor.

Your best bet is to sell Coal, then Iron Ingots, then Flint.

8. Butcher

Job Block: Smoker

Despite the Butcher requiring a load of uncooked meat to get to Master level trades, it’s well worth it. Offering an Emerald per 10 Sweet Berries, which are easily obtainable in stacks, they can become a great source of Emeralds.

Also offering Cooked Porkchops/Chicken, you can get a chest full of valuable cooked meat to ensure you never run out of food.

7. Armorer

Job Block: Blast Furnace

Deemed obsolete once again when you eventually get the Mending enchantment on your armor, Armorers are amazing in the meantime. 

If you get lucky with the trades offered, 2 Armorers can supply you with full sets of Enchanted Diamond armor, for a cost of between 58 and 124 Emeralds.

Unless you want to sell loads of Coal, Iron Ingots, Lava Buckets, or Diamonds, don’t utilise an Armorer for getting Emeralds.

6. Toolsmith

Job Block: Smithing Table

If you didn’t know, weapons and armor with the Mending enchantment will be repaired even while they aren’t equipped. Whereas tools are not repaired unless they’re equipped.

Due to this, Toolsmiths are more valuable than Armorers or Weaponsmiths.

You’ll be able to find enchanted Iron tools at lower trading levels. After a few more levels, you can find enchanted Diamond Axes, Shovels, and even a Pickaxe.

If you can get a villager with the ideal enchantments, you’re pretty much set for the rest of your play-through. 

For acquiring Emeralds, don’t bother with the Toolsmith villager. They will want Coal, Iron Ingots, and even Diamonds, things that you will need yourself.

5. Fletcher

Job Block: Fletching Table

You can never have too many Arrows or Tipped Arrows. Fletchers offer 16 and 5 of those respectively.

Enchanted Bows and Crossbows are also available, although they’re easy enough to get through fishing for enchanted books/bows.

Trading for Emeralds requires Feathers and String, 2 resources that tend to build up in chests without much use. Fletchers offer those resources a way out, for easy Emeralds.

When it comes to acquiring arrows, Flint is surprisingly difficult to get in large numbers.

Fletchers offer 10 Flint for 1 Emerald at their basic level, extremely useful early on in your adventures when you don’t have the Infinity enchantment!

4. Fisherman

Job Block: Barrel

Fishing is one of the most boring, yet rewarding, things to do in Minecraft. Especially when you have a high-level Fisherman vendor.

Searching for valuable enchanted books, bows, or fishing rods can be useful, especially if you like to disenchant items you don’t really use.

Fish for eating, Pufferfish for brewing, and exp for leveling/enchanting are also prevalent.

So you’ve gone fishing for 20 minutes, you don’t need the fish as your food chests are full, best to offload them to a Fisherman in return for Emeralds!

3. Cleric

Job Block: Brewing Stand

You’ll finally have a use for all that Rotten Flesh sitting in your chests, as the Cleric will happily buy them from you. 

Nether Wart is another resource you can sell to them, and you’ll have plenty sitting around if you have a basic Nether farm.

The Cleric’s usefulness comes in the form of selling, not buying.

Glowstone, Ender Pearls, and Bottle o’ Enchanting are all available to purchase.

While the former two are easy to get in small numbers, having them readily available from a villager is great.

2. Librarian

Job Block: Lectern

Librarians are amazing, selling enchanted books to get some of the best enchantments in the game.

Mending, for example, is an enchanted book you need easy access to. 

Luckily for you, there’s a little-known tip to ensure your Librarian will give the perfect enchantment you’re looking for. Acquiring a book with the enchantment you need is as easy as a few steps:

1. To start, make sure you have an unemployed villager.
2. Lock him in a room so they can’t escape, and place a Lectern.
3. They will become a Librarian, so check the first enchanted book they offer.
4. If the offered book is not the one you’re after, destroy the Lectern and place it down again.
5. Check the offered enchanted book again, and repeat until it’s the right one.

This method makes the Librarian one of the best villagers by far, but it’s relatively difficult to get masses of Emeralds from them, which is where the next entry comes into play.

If you do need to get Emeralds from the Librarian, then Paper and Ink Sacs are your best bet. After playing for a while, you tend to accrue a large amount of these, so you might as well turn them in for profit.

1. Farmer

Job Block: Composter

Farmers are by far the best villagers to trade with in Minecraft, providing an unlimited supply of Emeralds.

You’ll never need to buy anything from a Farmer, instead, you can set up a decent-sized plot of land to grow the food they need.

A Farmer will ask for either Wheat, Potatoes, Carrots, or Beetroots for their starting trades, and will eventually want Pumpkins too. 

All of these items are easy to get by the hundreds. Dedicate a chunk or two for farming, get a steady supply of the required vegetables for the easiest way to get Emeralds in Minecraft.

Highly recommend getting at least 5 Farmers per village, for up to 140 Emeralds a day!