I'd rather just have villagers punch attackers as a last resort. The attack would be pretty weak, but that way a single zombie couldn't take out an entire village.
Sorry for bump but this is from a revived topic - villagers themselves need to be tweaked, not golems, not adding new mobs. Witches use potions both as splash and to drink without arm animations or model-components, why can't villagers use melee weapons and crossbows in this way? Crossbows require less arm room than common bows or tridents, and melee weapons can still do damage when held at close quarters to the bearer, just less damage.
Villagers being pacifist and indifferent to other mobs is no longer an option with the ever-increasing list of hostile and opportunistic mobs attacking them or scaring them off instead of just the player and iron golems.
This list began with just zombies and zombies alone, it now includes:
-Zombie sieges, which are worsened if the player has to take breaks to shoo off phantoms
-Witches (most likely, as of 1.14; some mobile editions already have witches hostile to iron golems and even to villagers)
-Husks, because they never burn, so they are much more dangerous then zombies
-Skeletons, which now pursue golems endlessly and often hit villagers by accident with no response from villagers
-Zombie pigmen, although they only scare villagers off, can be a problem for nether villages and for placing portals near villages
-Pillagers from patrols and raids, and especially from outposts near villages - the fact they have infinite patience is the main problem
-Zombified villagers - small issue, but on Hard they are a self-propitiating problem since 100% of zombified villagers become zombies.
-Other illager types and cohort members, most notably the beasts and servant vexes. Illusioners may be quite bad too if they can actually fool villagers.
-Drowned, who may bear tridents and as such target villagers from much farther than villagers can detect them unlike most of the mobs above. Also, on some platforms, Drowned can also use tridents as melee, not just ranged, which means you have what is basically a skeleton with an enchanted bow crossed with a zombie with an iron or even diamond sword.
-Rabbits, because carrots are now the primary crop of village farms as of 1.14 and that just demolishes desert and tundra village food supplies sometimes. No word on evil rabbits since they don't spawn naturally.
-Lightning strikes, while NaM (not a mob), they are still at phantom-tier annoying for making you sleep in thunderstorms just in case a bolt hits the favourite house of the village for the day/night
-Cacti, berry bushes, wither roses, potentially stonecutters - does anything need to be said?
-Lava lakes near the village, especially if it's a village near a thicker forest. Villagers don't even react to being on fire.
-Slimes on superflat mode, destroying all crops underfoot
-Potentially polar bears for tundras, hopefully this is avoided
And caves still remain an indirect problem because half of these threats can come out from them. Dungeons and pyramids are also surprisingly common around villages now despite being rare in general, and in earlier versions I have seen witch huts spawn near villages, producing a trickle of witches at night (thankfully, witches don't attack villagers yet, but I had to stay away from that edge of town at night when I had that world because the witches would poison villagers while I was fighting them because the villagers would just race across straight into the crossfire or float around to watch. It was never as common of a combination for structures but it happened and it still can, obviously).
Yeah, most people love it. Now it just needs to be added to minecraft.
Pleasejoin my minecraft server! Help me grow the the community!
Sorry for bump but this is from a revived topic - villagers themselves need to be tweaked, not golems, not adding new mobs. Witches use potions both as splash and to drink without arm animations or model-components, why can't villagers use melee weapons and crossbows in this way? Crossbows require less arm room than common bows or tridents, and melee weapons can still do damage when held at close quarters to the bearer, just less damage.
Villagers being pacifist and indifferent to other mobs is no longer an option with the ever-increasing list of hostile and opportunistic mobs attacking them or scaring them off instead of just the player and iron golems.
This list began with just zombies and zombies alone, it now includes:
-Zombie sieges, which are worsened if the player has to take breaks to shoo off phantoms
-Witches (most likely, as of 1.14; some mobile editions already have witches hostile to iron golems and even to villagers)
-Husks, because they never burn, so they are much more dangerous then zombies
-Skeletons, which now pursue golems endlessly and often hit villagers by accident with no response from villagers
-Zombie pigmen, although they only scare villagers off, can be a problem for nether villages and for placing portals near villages
-Pillagers from patrols and raids, and especially from outposts near villages - the fact they have infinite patience is the main problem
-Zombified villagers - small issue, but on Hard they are a self-propitiating problem since 100% of zombified villagers become zombies.
-Other illager types and cohort members, most notably the beasts and servant vexes. Illusioners may be quite bad too if they can actually fool villagers.
-Drowned, who may bear tridents and as such target villagers from much farther than villagers can detect them unlike most of the mobs above. Also, on some platforms, Drowned can also use tridents as melee, not just ranged, which means you have what is basically a skeleton with an enchanted bow crossed with a zombie with an iron or even diamond sword.
-Rabbits, because carrots are now the primary crop of village farms as of 1.14 and that just demolishes desert and tundra village food supplies sometimes. No word on evil rabbits since they don't spawn naturally.
-Lightning strikes, while NaM (not a mob), they are still at phantom-tier annoying for making you sleep in thunderstorms just in case a bolt hits the favourite house of the village for the day/night
-Cacti, berry bushes, wither roses, potentially stonecutters - does anything need to be said?
-Lava lakes near the village, especially if it's a village near a thicker forest. Villagers don't even react to being on fire.
-Slimes on superflat mode, destroying all crops underfoot
-Potentially polar bears for tundras, hopefully this is avoided
And caves still remain an indirect problem because half of these threats can come out from them. Dungeons and pyramids are also surprisingly common around villages now despite being rare in general, and in earlier versions I have seen witch huts spawn near villages, producing a trickle of witches at night (thankfully, witches don't attack villagers yet, but I had to stay away from that edge of town at night when I had that world because the witches would poison villagers while I was fighting them because the villagers would just race across straight into the crossfire or float around to watch. It was never as common of a combination for structures but it happened and it still can, obviously).