If a zombie dies without player contact, will it drop a “rare drop”

minecraft-java-edition

I've been at my automatic mob grinder waiting for hours for a zombie to drop iron for a cauldron (This is on a Skyblock map by the way), but no armor, potatoes, carrots, equipment, or even iron has dropped. Then, I manually killed a zombie and it dropped an iron ingot.

I couldn't find any information on the wiki, so can someone help me?

Best Answer

Unfortunately, no they will not drop rare drops without player intervention.

According to the wiki, in order for a zombie to drop an iron ingot, it must be slain by a player or tamed wolf:

They can also drop one of the following when killed by a player or tamed wolf:

  • Iron Ingot
  • Carrot
  • Potato (baked potato when killed with fire)

However, the odds are low, and baby zombies don't drop them at all:

Baby zombies cannot drop the three items mentioned above when killed by a player or tamed wolf, but they still drop 0–2 rotten flesh after dying.

This drop has a 2.5% chance of occurring, increasing by 1% per level of looting. Individual items have the following chances of dropping:

  • 1⁄120 (about 0.83%)
  • 7⁄600 (about 1.17%) with Looting I
  • 3⁄200 (1.5%) with Looting II
  • 11⁄600 (about 1.83%) with Looting III

Similarly, equipment also has a low chance of being dropped:

Zombies have an 8.5% chance of dropping their naturally-spawned equipment and drop it with a random durability. Each level of Looting increases the chance by 1 percentage point (11.5% with Looting III).

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