How to get and use ominous bottles in Minecraft Tricky Trials

The ominous bottles in Minecraft are only around to make your life a lot harder. But if you’re prepared, then they may serve to make you a lot richer. Here’s how to use them to trigger rewarding events.

How to get ominous bottles in Minecraft

There are two ways to get ominous bottles in Minecraft, and they both involve getting your hands dirty.

One way to get ominous bottles is by killing raid captains. Before the Tricky Trails update, killing an Illager with an Ominous Flag would grant you the Bad Omen status effect, but now, all of those bad vibes have been condensed into the ominous bottle that it’ll drop.

These raid parties will spawn periodically, night or day, and are a somewhat frequent occurrence when traveling or staying in the same place. They’ll have crossbows handy, so make sure to have a shield when facing them.

The other way to get ominous bottles in Minecraft is by finding them in trial chambers through chests and vaults.

Vaults are found in the trial chambers themselves, and to open them, you’ll need a Mysterious Trial Key. Upon clearing a room in a trial chamber, there’s a chance that the spawner will drop a Mysterious Trial Key. Use these on the vaults for a rare chance to get an ominous bottle alongside other loot.

Naturally, finding them from raid captain drops is much easier and more numerous than diving for them in trial chambers, but it’s good that we have two ways to obtain them.

So now that you have your ominous bottle – what do you do with it?

How to use ominous bottles in Minecraft

The ominous bottle is the replacement method for obtaining the Bad Omen in Minecraft, but the status effect has also been given another use.

You can drink the ominous bottle to obtain Bad Omen, and then use that status effect to trigger two events when you walk into specific structures.

The Bad Omen effect can now be used to trigger illager raids on villages, and to turn a trial chamber into an ominous trial chamber. Upon walking into a trial chamber, the Bad Omen effect will turn into the Trial Omen effect, which is what will trigger the ominous trial.

Village raids are the same as they’ve always been; the ominous bottles merely give us a more controlled way of activating them. The ominous trials, on the other hand, are something else completely.

Ominous trials in Minecraft

When you use an ominous bottle to turn a trial chamber into an ominous trial chamber, you’ll be in for a tough time. The mobs that spawn will be much harder, donning even better armor and weapons. Also, the spawners may shoot projectiles and potions at you.

This means you’ll need to be well-stocked for any encounter the trial could throw at you.

However, upon completion of an ominous trial chamber, you’ll be rewarded with the ominous trial key, which can be used to open the (you guessed it) ominous vault. The ominous vaults are much more rewarding than their counterparts and are the only way to get the heavy core used to make maces.

So it’s well worth diving into the ominous trials, just make sure you’re ready!

Equipped with this knowledge, you can start ominous events at your own will to take on tougher challenges for some of that sweet loot.