When it comes to mob diversity, nothing can beat the competence of Minecraft. It has one of the most interactive and rich sets of mobs that range from peasant villagers to an actual dragon who lives in a parallel dimension, and that’s not just about it.
Of course, they’re not just here to feed on your processing power; instead, you can slay them to gain experience points and some handsome loot. Each mob has something unique to offer; for instance, killing blaze gains you blaze rods, sheep yields wool, and many more.
Moreover, while the overworld-mobs are quite simple to find with a little exploration, then things begin to get hard when you step into the Nether and, ultimately, the End dimension. You must gather the right weapons and gear yourself up with the right spells before facing them.
To cut through the chase and spawn these mobs in the overworld without doing the hard part, you can consider using mob spawners available in the game. These are cage-like blocks that spawn mobs of a certain species.
With the help of these Mob Spawners, you can generate an unlimited supply of your desired mob, allowing it to be used in a myriad of projects like automatic farms, experience bots, and much more. That being said, let’s explore these mob spawners in detail.
How To Obtain Minecraft Mob Spawners?
Often termed as ‘Monster Spawner’ in the Bedrock Edition of the game, a mob spawner is just what it sounds like. It’s a block that looks like a cage and contains a minified, spinning version of the character that it spawns.
As these blocks cannot be generally obtained in Survival, you need to follow some alternative ways to obtain them in the Bedrock or the Java Edition. In the former, a mob spawner can be gained by accessing the game in the creative mode and taking it from the inventory.
Alternatively, you can also gain it through the “/give” command or with the help of a pick block. At first, the obtained mob spawner will be dormant and empty. You can then configure it to spawn your desired mob by throwing a “Spawn Egg” of your preferred character in the cage.
In the Java edition of the game, unfortunately, you cannot gain a mob spawner from the creative inventory. It’s also the only item in the game that cannot be obtained through the pick block, and the only way to get it is through the “/give” command.
How To Find Different Types of Mob Spawners in Survival Mode?
Mob Spawners are generally found inside various different structures located across the sandboxed world. Here is a list of some structures where you can likely find a spawner of various characters as follows:
Mineshafts – Cave Spiders
Mine Shafts are one of the easiest structures that you can find in the game. They ate mostly located near ravines and can be identified with lots of wooden planks in contrast with the stones in the ravines. Mine Shafts are mostly generated in Badlands as well.
Therefore, if you’re looking for one, then it is a sweet spot to explore. Once you successfully locate a Mineshaft, you now have to search for rooms full of cobwebs, which is where you’ll be able to find a spider spawner.
Stronghold – Silverfish
If you have ever finished a game of Minecraft, you may already know that a Stronghold is one of the hardest structures to find in the game as it requires you to have ender pearls to guide you through the location of the stronghold.
However, when you find one, you have to look for the room with the end portal. That’s where you’ll find a silverfish spawner, right in front of the end portal. Make sure to be careful of these little mobs as a bunch of them can kill you in no time.
Woodland Mansion – Spiders
To find a woodland mansion, you need to get a woodland map that can be gained from one of the many cartographer villages that you can find in the game. You’ll have to trade the woodland map in exchange for emeralds with the cartographer.
Nether Fortress – Blazes
Sooner or later, you will have to visit the Nether dimension to progress further in the game. The only point of attraction there is the Nether Fortress, where you can find a blaze spawner and hopefully kill some to gain blaze rods.
Many players find it hard to locate a Nether Fortress, and some even spend hours in search of one. To prevent this, just make sure you don’t look for it in the wrong places; for instance, a Nether Fortress can never spawn near a Bastion Remnant, so if you’re near one, keep moving.
Dungeons – Skeletons, Spiders, and Zombies
Dungeons are the hardest structures to find in the game, but when you discover one, you can level up like crazy. As they’re located underground, you’ll have to dig to be able to search for them. You may consider following some best practices to make your trek easier.
You should start your search in the Desert Biome, as it tends to fall down when there’s no block below the sand. The empty area of a Dungeon can cause the sand to collapse when you hit your shovel in the right place.
Getting A Personalized Mob Spawner in Minecraft
As you may have read above, there are numerous places where you can find a mob spawner. However, as the variety of mobs is quite less, you may look forward to making a customized spawner that yields your favorite mob in the game. If yes, then use the command given below:
/setblock ~ ~-1 ~ spawner{SpawnData:{entity:{id:wolf}},Delay:299} replace
With the help of this command, the block below your feet will be converted into a mob spawner. You can change the mob from Wolf to any of your desired creatures in the game in the above command. However, keep in mind that this only works for the Java edition of the game.
How To Disable An Activated Mob Spawner in Minecraft?
The method to disable a mob spawner differs on the basis of what type of mob it spawns. Most of the spawners tend to generate mobs that can only spawn in dark lighting conditions, i.e., when the light level is essentially zero.
Such types of spawners can be easily disabled by placing a torch on either side of the spawner. Doing this disables the spawner for an entire radius of 9x9x3 volume. On the other hand, if you want to disable blaze or silverfish spawner, you’ll need a light level of at least 12.
There are multiple ways in which you can do this, such as:
- Laying nine blocks in a unique pattern to achieve the required luminance value of 15
- Placing a 7×7 grid of torches on the Y level of the spawner
- Placing a level 15v light source on four surfaces on the Bedrock edition
You can also disable a spawner by covering the spawning volume with solid blocks in your desired pattern. This is mostly done to disable magma cube spawners, as these creatures have no difficulty in spawning at any light level.
Usage and Mechanics of Mob Spawners in Minecraft
When you are within 16 blocks of a spawner, it spawns mobs around an area of 9x3x9 volume. The spawner randomly chooses a suitable spawning location within the spawning radius as per the type of the mob it spawns.
First, the spawner spawns about four mobs in the surrounding area and then halts for 10 to 39.95 seconds before spawning any more mobs. Furthermore, spawners also get activated in the peaceful mode of the game; they do not spawn any monsters.
During the waiting time, you may also notice that the minified mob inside the cage spins faster and faster. Certain requirements must be met for a mob to spawn, such as no solid block, correct light level, and more.
Using Minecraft Mob Spawners To Build Automatic Farms
After you find or gain a mob spawner in Minecraft, you can do a lot of cool things with it. For example, the most common mob spawners are Zombies, Skeletons, and Spiders. You can set them in a way to be able to attack these monsters without gaining damage.
This will help you create a simple XP farm that provides drops from the spawned character. Additionally, you can also use Redstone and other contraptions to make a flood system, light up system, mob killing system, and more.
Talking about killing mechanisms, there are a lot of ways you can kill the spawned mobs automatically, such as lava blade traps, timed lava dispensers, flow traps, iron golem traps, wolf traps, cactus traps, fall damage traps, blaze traps, and a lot more.
Final Words
The endless diversity of mobs in Minecraft is one of the many reasons why this game is still relevant today. Although mob spawners aren’t used much in the main gameplay, they can prove to be a great utility to amp up your game a bit.
You can use them to build advanced farms, level up quickly, and whatnot. Moreover, with the help of the information shared above, you can easily find one to tinker with or spawn a personalized one right below your feet.
Lastly, we hope you find the information shared above helpful and may use it in your game.
