Minecraft Ominous Banner: How To Make It, Effects, And What Does It Do?
Every Item and tool in Minecraft all serve a given purpose, and most of them have their various special abilities while others are meant mostly for landmark or decorative functions. A Banner for example mostly serves as a decorative item, but there is a special banner called “The Ominous Banner” which serves a higher purpose. Unlike its counterparts, this is the only banner in Minecraft that has a special effect on players, so what is that effect?
The Ominous Banner can be found in a Pillager Outpost or in most cases an Ominous captain wears it. After killing the ominous captain and collecting the banner, the player is given a Bad Omen status. This is a status effect that causes a raid to begin when an affected player enters a village.
Minecraft has a variety of unique mobs in the game, and these mobs come in all shapes and sizes each with its various effects and abilities. However, out of these special mobs, the Pillagers are most famously associated with the Ominous Banner. An ominous banner also known as the Illgars banner is a special kind of banner that is mostly carried by the Ominous captains.
Ever since its introduction on April 23, 2019, the Ominous Banner has since then been a great addition to the game. The banner itself serves as a great way to decorate your environment because of its unique design, while the bad omen effect you get from killing the captain gives you a lot of rewards after a raid. Today I’ll be giving you a general insight on the Ominous Banner and everything you need to know about it, so just relax and read on.
What Does The Ominous Banner Do In Minecraft?
The Ominous Banner might look just like a regular Banner but it is the most unique Banner in the entire game for specific reasons. First of all, it is the only banner that is significant to the Pillagers (Special mobs with a captain that carries it), second, you can’t find its design anywhere else in the entire game, and finally getting an Ominous Banner means you’ll also get the Ominous effect. Besides these facts I just stated, the Ominous Banner itself doesn’t do much in the game besides serving as a great decorative piece.
Sometimes, players like that stack their Ominous banners on the walls of their war room as a way to boast about the number of captains they have killed, and raids they have won. Trust me, it is quite intimidating to see someone in possession of 10 Ominous banners. Such a person is a well-decorated warrior.
How Do You Use The Ominous Banner in Minecraft?
Players can use the Ominous Banner for multiple purposes like decorating the environment or worn as a cosmetic. That’s right, you can equip the banner on your character by placing it in your head slot. Although this doesn’t serve any unique function to the player nor does it add defense or protective bonuses to your stats, it does make you look cool.
What Happens When You Hang an Ominous banner?
If an Ominous Banner is dropped as an item on the ground, there is the tendency that it will attract a nearby Pillager patrol. When the patrol does find the banner, they will try to pick it up and carry it as their banner. So hanging this banner could attract nearby Pillagers to your location.
Although hanging the Banner does not affect the Ominous spawn time of Pillagers in any way, it just attracts them to where it is. But if there are no nearby Pillagers, then hanging or standing the Ominous Banner doesn’t have any effect whatsoever.
Can You Spawn An Ominous with a Banner?
An Ominous Banner usually spawns on top of an Ominous Captain’s head whenever it spawns, and in some rare cases, it can also spawn on a regular Ominous or Vindicator, and even on an Evoker in the Minecraft Java Edition. However, players cannot use the Ominous Banner or any other banner in the game to Spawn an Ominous mob.
The Ominous Banner Effects
The only real effect associated with the Ominous Banner is its ability to attract nearby Pillagers to its location if they spot it. Besides that, the Ominous Banner has no real effect in Minecraft if it is placed/hidden away. However, to get the Banner, you might have to kill an Ominous captain and that does come at a price.
After killing a raid/patrol Ominous captain, players will receive the Bad Omen status. A patrol captain mob usually moves with a group of other Ominous mobs or Pillagers. You can easily identify the Ominous captain amongst the other Pillagers around him because he is the only one wearing the Ominous Banner on his back.
Once you do get the bad Omen, you have to be careful where you go next unless you are ready for what happens afterward. Entering a village with the Bad Omen status effect still on you triggers a Raid. During a raid, all the villagers find shelter in their houses while Various Ominous mobs like Vindicator, Evokers, etc attack the village with their full might in a series of about 5 waves.
The quality of the raid or the potency of the raid can also be stacked. That is to say, if you kill multiple raid captains, the power level of your bad omen effect also increases. This means the higher the power level of your bad omen, the stronger the raid you will encounter.
You can of course just start the raid and leave the villagers to their faith while still having the Ominous Banner in your possession. But come on, could you live with yourself knowing that you have doomed several NPCs and their children to a life of death and possibly slavery? It’s a choice, you can either die a hero of the village or live long enough to see yourself as a villain, but I’m sure I can live with myself if I wasn’t prepared for a Raid, to be honest.
How to Get Rid of Bad Omen
In real life, the calcium from milk helps build stronger bones, but in Minecraft, it serves a far different purpose. Who needs stronger bones when you can get rid of a Bad Omen effect just by drinking milk. All you need to get some milk is an empty bucket, a cow or mushroom, and voila, instant milk.
Cows are really important in Minecraft because their milk can remove a large variety of negative status effects like poison, slowness, etc. A bad omen can be inconvenient to have, especially if you live in a village, so just keep in mind that a bucket of milk can Instantly free you from its effect.
What is the Max Bad Omen?
In Minecraft, the Bad Omen effect doesn’t have an infinite number of level-ups, which is good news for everyone. The max level for a bad Omen status is capped at five, and it stays that way regardless of how many Ominous captains a player kills afterward. Basically, after killing 5 ominous patrol captains, the bad omen level stops increasing even if you kill more captains.
How Do You Make An Ominous Banner In Minecraft?
Out of all the possible banners in Minecraft, the Ominous Banner is the only one that cannot be crafted by any normal means in a regular Minecraft world. It is also the only banner that mobs can drop in the game.
How To Get An Ominous Banner In Survival Mode
There are only two possible ways by which a player can get an Ominous Banner because it can’t be crafted. These include either Finding an Ominous Outpost or Finding an Ominous patrol squad.
Find an Ominous Outpost: you first need to find the Outpost in your Minecraft world because they spawn randomly but be careful, the area will be heavily guided by Ominous Pillagers. Next, you can either use stealth to enter the Outpost or just straight up kill everyone in your way. Once you enter the Outpost, observe the walls, there should be several banners around for you to take.
Find an Ominous Patrol squad: if you are lucky enough to find an Ominous patrol squad, you will find the Ominous captain wearing an Ominous Banner. When you kill him, you will receive the Bad Omen status, but the captain will also drop the Ominous Banner. So just kill the captain and you will get the Banner.
What Happens I Place An Ominous Banner?
You can craft an Ominous War Flag by following these easy steps.
Step 1
Enter your crafting table and go to the 3×3 crafting grid.
Step 2
Place the ominous Banner in the center.
Step 3
Put sticks in every other empty cell, such that it surrounds the banner in the middle.
Step 4
Collect the crafted Special Ominous War Flag and place it in your inventory.
This Ominous War Flag can be placed in a village, afterwards, a horn sound plays and the flag disappears. Cool isn’t it?
How Long Does The Ominous Banner Last?
The Ominous Banner can last forever in a regular Minecraft world unless it is destroyed. While the Bad Omen effect can last a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes (100 minutes).
