[Guide] My Witch Farm

Discussion in 'Player Guides, Tips and Tricks' started by ThaKloned, Oct 5, 2015.

  1. My Witch Farm

    I've gotten a few inquiries about my old witch farm and I'm going to make this guide on how I made this thing. Please note that I have taken some extreme measures to make my farm as efficient as possible. This may not be necessary for some, this is just my preference.

    Table of Contents:
    -= Step 1: Finding a Witch Hut =-

    Edited on July 29, 2016

    First step is to find yourself a witch hut. In my opinion the best option is to look for a hut that doesn't have much land around it. The less land around you, the less you have to dig up. This can be tricky as sometimes when there is a lot of water around, you risk the hut itself being in a different biome. We'll get into all that in a bit though.

    On EMC you want to use the /map feature to make sure your area is completely undiscovered. This will help prevent finding a broken biome. A broken biome used to happen in games pre-1.7. Because of the way world generation was changed in 1.8, this often would break or re-zone previously discovered biomes. This is important because for a witch hut to work, it must be in a swamp AND be a verified witch hut. Any of these conditions change and the hut it useless.

    First let's find a witch hut.

    So you found your witch hut:


    First thing you want to check is that witches are actually spawning inside the hut or even on top of it. Sometimes the hut will not register as a witch hut and will never spawn witches. It's rare but can happen. So once you verify that witches can spawn, you want to make sure that the entire hut is within a spawn biome. The reason for this is that you want the maximum amount of spawn blocks for your farm. A witch hut has a spawn area of 7×9×5. Any blocks within this area that are not within the swamp biome will spawn all mobs, including witches, but you only want witches. To check for this simply get on the roof of the hut and press F3.


    Where it says 'biome' on the left of the image you want to make sure that ALL blocks say 'swamp'. Just stand on each block of the hut to make sure they all say 'swamp'. If your fine with not all blocks being in the swamp biome, you can place glass blocks on those ones. This will prevent non-witch mobs from spawning in your farm but also means that no witches can spawn either since mobs cannot spawn on glass. Below image is an example:


    So if you are ok with this then you are ready to build the witch farm.
    Vizsco, khixan, Gawadrolt and 8 others like this.
  2. -= Step 2: Building of the Witch Farm =-

    Edited on July 29, 2016

    Total Build time: 1 hour or less.

    Because of some changes to how shifting floors work, the farm no longer works. Instead I went with a design by xisumavoid. The tutorial is here:


    There were no additional changes needed other then preference in glass/block choice. This design is super easy, very resource friendly and very fast build time.
    Gawadrolt, LadBlo, PenguinDJ and 3 others like this.
  3. -= Step 3: Cleansing the Area =-

    This is where the majority of your time will be spent and where the 'extreme measures' comes in. There are a few things you can do here. You can look for all the caves and light them up (this does not prevent slimes from spawning, lowering rates), build your afk room high above the farm or, what I do, find the middle of the farm and dig out all blocks within a 64 block radius around the farm. This will guarantee that the only spawn locations will be in the farm and no where else. But you will need to be in the middle 'afk spot' for this. This is what your farm will look like once your done:


    But this is a lengthy project. For my first farm I dug down all the way to the top layer of bedrock. This did not leave a lot of room for hoppers, item elevators, etc. and made it more difficult to hide things. On my new farm I will be making the actual floor 2-3 blocks above bedrock. This will give you plenty of room to hide things. To start off you want to find the middle of your witch farm and dig straight down to the layer you want to stop at. Once you are at the desired level, replace that block with glowstone and a sign that says 'middle' or something. This comes in very handy. This is also a good location to bury your establishment chest as it will be hidden under the ground and out of the way.

    For fastest results have about 18 Efficiency 5, Unbreaking 3 Silk 1 picks on hand. Silk is optional but you not have to cook all the cobble to make stone. This will produce roughly 150+ DCs of items from stone, ores, etc. My first witch farm dig out I was able to pull out about 4-5 DCs of coal ores and more stone then I needed. You will also want to have 4 beacons in place so that your are full covered with Haste 2 no matter where you are in the 64 block radius. To ensure complete Haste II coverage, you will want to place the beacons exactly 33 blocks diagonally from the center spot. You will also want to have a few stacks of glowstone and about 4 DCs+ of glass. Again this is optional but is something I have always prefered. Basically you will be covering the floor of this thing with a layer of glass and adding in glowstone for lighting. This will make sure that nothing at all spawns on the floor of this place and the glowstone provides enough light so you can see. It's pretty dark without any light down there.

    So to start you want to find the walls of your area so you know where to dig and where not to dig. If you use this site (http://www.plotz.co.uk/plotz-model.php?model=Ellipse) it will help guide you through the process of building a giant circle. Simple adjust the bottom sliders to 129 for the width and depth. Then at the top of that page click on 2D and have it at either 200 or 400% so it's easier to see. What I do to start is stand on that initial glowstone center block and dig in all 4 directions 64 blocks out. Once you've dug out the 64th block replace it with your choice of block as this will be your wall. From there just follow the website layout. for the largest part of the wall where it says '8' blocks, they count the middle block; I don't so from that middle block just dig out 7 instead. Once you have the initial ring, you have your area. Now just do the same up above and then you can start digging down. The design of the walls are up to you. I went with stone bricks on my first build. My new one I wanna make some thing fancy looking. It'd look better IMO. As for the floor, as I mentioned I used glass with glowstone every 5th block starting from that middle spot with carpet on top of the glass for cosmetic purposes. Again the carpet design is up to you.


    Hopefully this has helped you to build your own witch farm. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them. :)

    *Special thanks to PenguinDJ for his help on this guide*
    Vizsco, khixan, Gawadrolt and 5 others like this.
  4. -= Optional Addition of Iron Farm =-


    If you have chosen to use this guide to build your witch farm then it is possible to add an iron farm to this design without affecting spawn rates of the witch farm. The exact number of units you can add will depend on how well you have reduced spawn locations other then in the witch farm itself. Best thing to do is to build a few at a time and test the rates. Always make sure to keep an eye on your /entc. If this gets too close to the max of 250, then you will hurt your witch farm rates as well as the possibility of losing some of the villagers in the iron farms. The above image is my old farm built in 1.7 and has 12 iron farm units. This number may be too much for a 1.8.1+ witch farm though.

    To start off, I used DocM77's iron farm design. The tutorial is here:


    Just follow his setup step by step and you will be fine. I will out line a few changed I have made from his design that have worked very well for me in keeping this farm functional with very little down time.

    Before you start to build the iron farm, let's talk about placement of the units above the witch farm. In the above tutorial video, the iron farm spawn platforms are placed 64 blocks apart from each other. Because that would make things uneven and leave 1 extra block on one side, I have chosen to have my iron farms 65 blocks apart. It's all about symmetry people. To find the appropriate starting point for each unit base you will need to find the center of your farm again. Make sure to grab a few stacks of dirt or another disposable block. To start off place a piece of dirt in the very middle and place a torch or another block on top. This way it's very clear where the center is. From that center block make a single wide path 32 blocks long. (Note: Do not count the middle block as 1) Once you've made a path 32 blocks long, you will count another 32 blocks on each side of that. It will look like the image below:


    Do this for all 4 sides. Once this has been done you should end up with a perfect square shape around your witch farm. If you don't have this then you might have to recount. The 4 corners of this huge square will be the corner of each iron farm unit. The image below is what it should look like facing outwards from the witch farm:


    Now you can start building the iron farm units using the tutorial posted above.

    I've made some personal changed from DocM77's design that I think work flawlessly on EMC. Most notable is the villager holding cells. I struggled with this for months until I finally found an option that worked perfectly. The problem with the design in the tutorial is that sometimes the iron golems spawn on top and even inside the villager holding cell. When this happens that farm stops producing. After many different designs and alterations I finally found something that stopped this issue completely.

    I have found that using all glass for the villager holding cell has stopped iron golems from spawning anywhere other then where intended. Thus the farm will not be stopped due to spawned golem. The cells are 2 blocks wide, 2 blocks high and 1 block deep. This is more then enough room for 4 villagers, as you can see in the image below.


    Other then the glass villager units, everything else was built using DocM77s design. So just add a few units, see how the rates are and go from there.

    Some issue that might come up are disappearing villagers. This can be caused by a few things. If your /entc is too close to max then the villagers will be killed off. If you have dug out the entire witch farm then this issue will most likely be cause by too many passive mobs in the area. I'm not sure if the spawn rates for animals have been increased on EMC but this was a huge issue for me many times. My solutions was to flood the surrounding area of the witch farm outer wall. From the outside of the wall around the witch farm, I went back another 20 blocks and flooded it. This stopped the /entc from reaching max and killing off the villagers. This may or may not work for you so you will have to just test it out and see where your issues are.

    Any questions, feel free to post in the comments. :)
    Vizsco, ShelLuser, Gawadrolt and 3 others like this.
  5. -= Questions/Answers =-

    Q: Is your farm for public use?
    A: Since we updated to 1.8, this farm has broken. It's not worth using it. The rates are awful.
  6. Nice
    ThaKloned likes this.
  7. This is nice. Is your farm public?
    ThaKloned likes this.
  8. The one shown in the images is my old one. Once we can claim land (i.e. Protect our builds) then I was planning to make it public. Same can be said for my current one. This is not because I don't trust people. This is because I've seen public farms get destroyed bit by bit and would not like to have this happen on something I put alot of effort into making.

    All irrelevant now as the update to 1.8 broke this farm :(
    Vizsco, JohnKid and WayneKramer like this.
  9. This is one awesome guide! #shellapproves :D

    I really enjoyed reading it and I admire your attention for small details. For example: the top picture of the hut also shows us a witch inside. Its a small detail, but it really adds up!

    Very nice work ThaKloned!
    ThaKloned likes this.
  10. Took me 20 mins of waiting for one to pop out :p

    Thanks for the kind words. It was a ton of work to make but I loved it and hopefully will inspire others to try it out.
  11. Added the info about iron farms.
  12. Really nice guide.
    OriginalScuf and ThaKloned like this.
  13. I have edited Part 2 of the guide regarding the design of the build. Everything else about this guide will not be affected by a different design. The reason for the change is that in 1.9, Mojang changed (or 'fixed') how shifting floors work. Now monsters will not fall through. So this means the original design used in this guide no longer works.

    I have added a new video of the design I used in it's place and was made by xisumavoid. The video is here:


    Also added some info in Part 1 about witch huts potentially breaking.
    JesusPower2, AmusedStew and khixan like this.
  14. I'm looking forward to this project for the public utilities. Granted, I have a craptonian ton of stuff to do before I even get to hunt for a witch farm, but still, it's gonna be cool in a couple of months :)
    ThaKloned likes this.
  15. I'll bring the eviction notice for the future hut :p
    khixan likes this.
  16. This is a great guide. I have begun my first attempt at a witch farm. I ventured into many "black areas" on the live map & through multiple swamps before I finally found a hut. It is almost completely surrounded by shallow water for 80-100 blocks. Based on the water color, I believe it is all swamp biome, but I'll hop on the roof and check thanks to your advice. I don't believe it is " broken" because there was a witch in it when I found it. I have lit it up to avoid spawns until I'm ready to build the farm.

    I had already planned to use Xisumavoid's design as well. I considered another design (I think DocM77 was involved) but it used skeletons with punch 2 bows to knock the witches off. Although it did have a higher number of spawn able spaces, it didn't seem worth the effort. Trying to capture that many skellys & give them all punch 2 and name them only to have someone come along & kill them didn't seem worth it. Slightly more efficient, way harder to build & easier to grief terribly = not worth it in my book.
    ThaKloned likes this.
  17. This is an awesome guide dude! Thanks for putting it out there and also giving credit where's it due.. very nice. =] Now that I know how to be sure what is and isn't the witchy area I can't wait to start. :D

    I see that you said it broke with the 1.8 update.. was whatever issue fixed with the 1.9 update?


    ThaKloned likes this.
  18. |Thanks, the witch farm looks good. and it also gives me a place i can assign as mining area in frontier :) Now i only need to find one on good spot.
    ThaKloned likes this.
  19. Yes, Aikar said he did a special thing when we went either 1.8 or 1.9 where it will permanently fix witch farms breaking. I've quoted it before, however I am too lazy to re-quote it.