Professions come from job site blocks
A villager with no profession will claim an unclaimed job site block nearby and take the matching job. As long as you have never traded with that villager, breaking the block turns them back into an unemployed villager, and you can place a different block to reroll the profession. This is the entire basis of villager engineering, and it is why a single lectern can be worth more than a stack of diamonds.
| Job site block | Profession | Trades worth having |
|---|---|---|
| Lectern | Librarian | Enchanted books including Mending, bookshelves, glass |
| Composter | Farmer | Crops for emeralds, golden carrots, apples |
| Grindstone | Weaponsmith | Enchanted diamond sword and axe |
| Smithing table | Toolsmith | Enchanted diamond pickaxe and other tools |
| Blast furnace | Armorer | Diamond armour, including enchanted pieces |
| Brewing stand | Cleric | Ender pearls, glowstone, bottles o' enchanting |
| Cartography table | Cartographer | Explorer maps, banner patterns |
| Smoker | Butcher | Raw meat for emeralds |
| Cauldron | Leatherworker | Horse armour, leather goods |
| Stonecutter | Mason | Terracotta and quartz for building |
| Loom | Shepherd | Wool, beds, banners |
| Fletching table | Fletcher | Arrows, enchanted bows, sticks for emeralds |
| Barrel | Fisherman | Enchanted fishing rod, campfire |
Only a few of these matter in a typical survival world. A librarian for books, a farmer for emeralds and golden carrots, and an armorer or weaponsmith for diamond gear covers almost everything you will actually trade for.
Rerolling a lectern for Mending
- Trap an unemployed villager in a one by one space so he cannot wander off or claim a different block.
- Place a lectern in front of him and wait for the green particles that mean he took the job.
- Open the trade screen and look only at the first trade slot. Do not complete any trade.
- If the book is not what you want, break the lectern and place it again. Repeat until Mending appears.
- When Mending appears, buy it immediately. One completed trade locks the profession and that book stays in his list forever.
Book prices are random. Mending typically lands somewhere between 10 and 38 emeralds. If the price is painful, take it anyway and use the discount methods below to bring future purchases down. The first Mending book is the one that changes your game, and the price difference between 10 and 38 emeralds is one afternoon of farming.
One detail that catches people out: if you accidentally trade something else first, the villager is locked to that profession and the offered book list is fixed. Trade nothing until the first slot is what you want.
Restocking and levelling
- A villager restocks up to twice per day, but only if he can physically reach his job site block. A shelf too high or a path too narrow is the usual reason a shop never refills.
- Every trade earns experience. Levelling up unlocks new trades, in order: novice, apprentice, journeyman, expert, master.
- Buying the same trade too many times raises the price. Demand decays over time and the price drifts back down, so rotate between two villagers instead of draining one.
Three legitimate discounts
Curing a zombie villager
Splash a zombie villager with a potion of Weakness, then feed it a golden apple. A few minutes later it converts back and gives a large permanent discount to whoever cured it. Older versions let you stack this indefinitely; modern Java limits repeat curing, so treat it as a strong one time discount rather than an exploit.
The setup is worth planning. Find a zombie villager, trap it somewhere safe, hit it with the splash potion and the apple, then wait behind a wall while it converts. Doing this in the open is how people lose the villager to sunlight or a nearby mob.
Hero of the Village
Win a raid and you get the Hero of the Village effect. While it lasts, every villager in the area discounts their trades, and some will throw gifts at you. It is the cheapest discount in the game if you already have decent gear, and raids are a reasonable source of emeralds as well.
Reputation
Trading raises your standing with the village. Hitting a villager or an iron golem lowers it, which raises prices and can eventually turn the golems hostile. If prices in one village are terrible, check whether you deserved it before you assume the game is broken.
Where the emeralds actually come from
Every trade above is priced in emeralds, and emeralds come from villagers too. The loop is simple once you see it: a farmer buys wheat, potatoes, carrots and beetroot, a fletcher buys sticks, and an armorer or toolsmith will take iron ingots. A modest crop farm and the iron from a single golem farm will keep a full trading hall supplied without you ever mining an emerald ore.
Two villagers buying the same thing is better than one. Prices rise when you buy repeatedly from the same villager, so having a second farmer to sell wheat to spreads the load and keeps both shops open.
Build a trading hall you can use
No redstone required. Build a row of one by one cubicles, each holding one villager with his job block at the front. Leave one block of headroom above each villager so zombies cannot reach in from above, and place a few beds nearby so the group counts as a village. Roof the whole row and light it well.
Keep the cubicles at eye level with a walkway so you can see all the trades without crouching, and leave one block of space in front of each job block for the block you are going to break. A hall you can use quickly is worth more than a hall that is technically efficient.