Armor trims were introduced to Minecraft in the 1.20 Trails & Tales update, allowing players to customize their armor with unique patterns. With the 1.21 Tricky Trials update, two new trims—Bolt and Flow—were added, bringing the total to 18 unique armor trims. These can be found in various structures as smithing templates in chests, mob drops, or archaeology sites. Drop rates vary, making some extremely rare. Here's the top 5 rarest based on their low drop chances in their respective containers.

Table of Contents

1. Silence

Silence remains the rarest armor trim with just a 1.2% chance per chest. Found exclusively in Ancient Cities within the Deep Dark biome, deep underground.

Tips & Tricks:

  • Use /locate structure minecraft:ancient_city (cheats enabled) or explore Deep Dark biomes under mountains at Y=-51.
  • Stealth is key: Wear wool boots or place wool blocks to muffle footsteps, sneak-walk to avoid sculk sensors and shriekers summoning the Warden.
  • Bring night vision potions, a bow for safe Warden kills, and check every side ruin and room chest—there are dozens per city.
Ancient City Secret Redstone Room

2. Ward

The Ward trim has a 5% drop chance from Ancient City chests, making it the second rarest. Same hazardous location as Silence.

Tips & Tricks:

  • Same Ancient City strategies as Silence—more chests mean better odds for Ward.
  • Prioritize chamber rooms and barracks which have higher concentrations of chests.
  • Duplicate once found using 7 diamonds + echo shard.
Ancient City

3. Bolt

Added in Minecraft 1.21's Tricky Trials update, Bolt has a 6.3% chance from Trial Chamber vaults and reward chests. Trial Chambers are massive underground structures filled with challenges.

Tips & Tricks:

  • /locate structure minecraft:trial_chambers to find one quickly.
  • Farm trial spawners for trial keys (dropped on completion); ominous spawners (via ominous bottles) drop ominous keys for rarer ominous vaults (Flow trim, not Bolt).
  • Chambers have dozens of vaults—bring enchanted gear, potions, and totems. Elytra helps navigate.
There are many new blocks in the Trial Chambers of Minecraft 1.21.

4. Spire

Spire trim appears in End City chests with a 6.7% chance. End Cities are in the End dimension's outer islands.

Tips & Tricks:

  • Defeat the Ender Dragon first to activate End Gateways for easy access to outer islands.
  • Use elytra (craft from phantoms/elytra from End Ship) and fireworks to travel between cities.
  • Check all chests; shulkers guard them—use shulker shells for shulker boxes. Cities generate in a grid pattern every 20 chunks.
Minecraft End City

5. Rib

Rib trim is found in Nether Fortress chests at 6.7% chance. Nether Fortresses are sprawling structures in the Nether.

Tips & Tricks:

  • Build a Nether portal and explore at various Y levels (corridors span 40-100); use F3 to spot bridges/walls from afar.
  • Wither skeletons drop skulls for beacons; blazes for rods (eyes of ender).
  • Fortresses generate north-south; use elytra or bridges to cross lava. Potion of Fire Resistance essential.
Nether Fortress

How to use armor trims in Minecraft 1.21

There are now 18 unique armor trims, each customizable with 10 different materials, allowing millions of combinations across 5 armor types.

Players can duplicate armor trims easily once found.

To obtain templates, explore structures—check our updated guide for all locations.

Preparations

You need:

  • Smithing Table
  • Armor pieces
  • Smithing templates
  • Trim materials: diamond, netherite ingot, iron ingot, gold ingot, copper ingot, lapis lazuli, emerald, quartz, redstone dust, amethyst shards.

How to add trimmings to armor

Open smithing table: template left, armor middle, material right.

Adding armor trimmings

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