Tutorial:Defeating trial chambers

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Trial chambers are large, procedurally generated structures found in the deepslate layer of the Overworld. They contain trial spawners, which drop loot when all their spawned mobs are defeated, allowing for a fairly tough group experience.

Benefits of taking on a trial chamber

To get the trial key and its ominous variant, used to unlock vaults and ominous vaults respectively.
To get loot from supply chests, barrels, and decorated pots scattered throughout the structure.
To get loot dropped by trial spawners and all the spawned mobs.
To get the heavy core and breeze rods to craft the mace. Both the core and rods can be obtained only from trial chambers.
To get the guster and flow banner patterns, two types of smithing templates, three types of pottery sherds and three music discs exclusive to this structure.
To get the books enchanted with Wind Burst, which can only be obtained from trial chambers.
To get the large amount of copper blocks generated throughout the structure, which is more efficient than mining a large copper ore vein, as no smelting is needed to obtain the copper.
To get a trident without having to kill hundreds of drowned.
To obtain your first slimeballs, so you can brew some Oozing potions and build an Oozing slime farm.
To get the hoppers and copper bulbs generated throughout the structure, so you don't have to spend your iron or blaze rods to craft them.
To access snowballs, dead bushes, cacti, moss, mangrove trees and pointed dripstone without visiting the respective biomes.
To access biome-specific mobs like boggeds, husks and strays without having to go to their own biomes and wait for night, as well as the breeze, a mob exclusive to trial chambers, helping you to achieve the "Monsters Hunted" advancement (kill one of every hostile mob).‌^{[Java Edition only]}
To obtain potions of Weakness, allowing you to cure zombie villagers before accessing the Nether.
To convert the trial chamber into a farm for trial keys.
To convert the trial chamber into a mob-free base, as regular hostile mob spawning is disabled here.

Preparation checklist

At least an iron sword, preferably enchanted, or an axe (or both) if you play Java Edition.
A good bow and at least a stack of arrows (or just one if your bow has Infinity). Decorated pots, barrels, and chests may contain arrows to replenish the arrows you use; also, chambers usually contain a lot of spawners of ranged mobs, which drop arrows on death. If your bow is enchanted with Flame, the burning arrows can also clear out the powdered snow that serves as a hazard in one type of the combat rooms.
At least a full set of iron armor, preferably enchanted. Ensure your boots have some degree of Feather Falling to mitigate fall damage, either from navigation or from being launched by breeze projectiles.
A pickaxe, preferably iron or better if you have the materials.
Highly nutritious food, such as cooked porkchops or steak, at least half a stack. Trial spawners eject food as loot, but it's unlikely that this food will be enough on its own to keep you at full health.
At least 16 logs for crafting.
A few stacks of easily breakable building blocks, such as cobblestone and netherrack, to block off passageways, pillar up, seal trial spawners, and mark out areas you already visited. Smashed decorated pots can also yield bricks that can be formed into brick blocks to supplement building supplies.
A shield in the offhand to defend against mob attacks, or a totem of undying if you have any.
An ominous bottle is needed to start an ominous trial, which results in better loot, and is the only way for obtaining the heavy core (optional, only if you're well prepared). Both normal and ominous vaults can rarely yield ominous bottles themselves.
Potions of regeneration can grant rapid healing over time to offset the damage being taken while fighting strong mobs from ominous trials. Defeated spawners themselves can rarely yield potions.
Some golden apples (optional but recommended). Both normal and ominous vaults can rarely yield golden apples themselves.
A few bundles, to organize the loot you obtained and save valuable inventory slots.
Some signs or hanging signs to show directions and mark areas (optional, can be crafted with the logs you bring).
wool to craft beds to make respawn points.

Finding trial chambers

Trial chambers only generate underground, making them a bit difficult to find. The simplest method of finding them is to buy a trial chambers explorer map from a journeyman-level cartographer villager. This costs 12 emeralds and 1 compass (default price). If you do not have access to a village, you can either mine underground and hope to stumble upon trial chambers, or travel through caves until you find trial chambers which are exposed to the air.

An advanced technique exclusive to Java Edition is to use the debug menu and pie chart, which detects presence of trial spawners and vaults within render distance. This distance can be lowered to narrow down the searching area.

Additionally, using cheats, you can use the /locate structure trial_chambers command to locate the nearest trial chambers.

If you have access to the seed of your world, you can enter the seed and your edition into this map.

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Navigation

Once you have an explorer map, dig down to the chamber. Try to find a safe spot to set up a base of operations, preferably near the "entrance" or one of bed rooms. If you want to take on an ominous trial, you have to drink one of the ominous bottles you've brought.

At the center of each trial chamber, there is a big corridor that branches off into hallways leading to combat chambers. Since the corridor connects all other rooms, it is recommended to beat all the trial spawners in it before going in other rooms.

Once you're ready to take on the chamber, you can explore it room by room. You may want to use blocks such as cobblestone or wood that are not native to the trial chamber to mark off rooms you've already been in. Another way to mark explored rooms and paths is to use hanging signs found in barrels around the structure. Throughout the structure, usually near entrances to rooms, there are empty barrels with hoppers that can be used for inventory management and storage.

There are often decorated pots scattered across corridors that can be smashed for bricks, pottery sherds, and any items stored within that can range from arrows to iron ingots and emeralds. The bricks can also be combined into brick blocks that can be used to construct bridges or staircases. Chests may also contain scaffolds to serve as ladders to reach high places.

Any junctions identified can be used as a safe room and major landmark for orientation, especially if the junction also contains beds that serve as a handy respawn point if you are killed by the mobs.

Defeating the trial chambers

When you find a combat chamber with trial spawners, you can build a small shelter to retreat to if things get tough. The spawner will not activate until there is a direct line of sight between you and it, so careful positioning can allow you to fight one spawner's mobs at a time to avoid getting overwhelmed.

There are four types of spawners found in any trial chamber:

a "melee" mob (which can be a zombie, husk, or spider);
a "small melee" mob (a slime, silverfish, cave spider or baby zombie);
a "ranged" mob (a skeleton, stray or bogged);
and a breeze (which can only be found in certain combat chambers)

Each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses. For most mobs, it's safer to take them out from a distance, using a bow; this doesn't work for breezes, which reflect the projectile back at the attacker. For a tutorial on combating mobs in general, see Tutorials/Combat.

Certain combat chambers contain dispenser traps, which can be activated by breezes or by the player using wind charges. If inventory space and time permits, consider emptying out the dispensers to reduce the interruptions you face during combat.

If you have friends coming along, you could either stick to the group or have each person spread out and take on a different section of the chamber.

Placing boats in choke points to lure mobs into is an effective strategy; mobs become trapped in boats, and each boat can hold up to two mobs. The trapped mobs cannot get out on their own unless the boat is somehow accidentally destroyed, making them almost completely defenseless and easy to kill.

Trial chambers have many pre-built areas that can easily be repurposed as base camps; it’s best to use iron doors as breezes can knock wood and copper doors open. You can also put one-block windows out of the base to attack mobs; you can lure mobs towards your base, then quickly run inside and kill them through the window.

Ominous trials

Optionally, you can increase the difficulty and loot reward of the chambers by drinking an ominous bottle before taking on a trial spawner. These drop from either raid captains (in pillager patrols or outposts, but not during raids), or from normal and ominous vaults in trial chambers.

If you approach a trial spawner with the Bad Omen effect from an ominous bottle, the effect will transform into Trial Omen, causing the trials to become significantly more difficult. Mobs which can spawn with armor (skeleton and zombie variants) more often spawn with armor, usually enchanted - this includes even diamond armor. They also hold a better weapon, either a sword or an enchanted bow. Mobs which can't spawn with armor (arthropods, slimes and breeze) instead spawn in greater numbers.

Additionally, ominous spawners shoot projectiles at the player and mobs: lingering potions, wind charges, arrows, tipped arrows and fire charges. Potions have one of seven effects: Wind Charged, Oozing, Weaving, Infested, Strength, Speed, or Slow Falling. They can either benefit or harm the player, but they also can do the same to mobs. Tipped arrows inflict either Poison I or Slowness IV.

The Trial Omen effect will not trigger a raid if you pass by a village while still under its effects.

Rewards

Once all mobs from a spawner have been killed, you defeated it, and a reward pops out of the top - it can be either a food item or a trial key / ominous trial key if the spawner is ominous. You can come back 30 minutes later to fight the spawner again.

Normal trial spawners and ominous trial spawners have separate timers, so you can clear out all trial spawners during the initial sweep of the structure, then drink an ominous bottle to challenge the ominous trials without needing to wait out this cooldown timer.

Vaults are usually placed inside combat chambers, so it is recommended to defeat all trial spawners in the room before opening them. A vault that is available to the player makes a clinking sound and lights up when approached, even if there are solid blocks between it and the player. This audio cue can be used to locate and access hidden vaults. Ominous vaults are placed near the ceilings of the rooms, there is always one ominous vault in each combat chamber, and at least two ominous vaults in the main corridor. You will frequently need to expend your blocks to create bridges or staircases to ominous vaults that are out of reach.

After defeating the trial chambers

After you've defeated the trial chambers, you can build up infrastructure near the chambers to make them easier to access. One way to do this is to build a stairway down to the chambers that enters through the entrance corridor.

Another way to do this is to build a Nether portal. The Nether is ideal for quickly traveling long distances. This often saves time especially for structures deep underground like the Trial Chambers due to the fact that Nether portals can be linked from any height.

If you need more keys to unlock every vault in the structure, consider encasing the spawner(s) in blocks to make rematches easier. Allow for enough room so that mobs do not spawn out of position, but also ensure that you can still activate the spawner and collect its rewards.

Because of the ridiculous amount of copper blocks found in this structure, it is worth it to tear down the structure instead of mining for copper (particularly because of how many decorative blocks are in the copper family.). As a side effect, it can be easier to convert trial spawners into farms for keys. It makes future trial chambers much easier to tackle when you already have lots of keys.