Iron Golem vs Ravager in Minecraft: How different are the mobs?

Iron golems and ravagers are opposing mobs in Minecraft. They both spawn to protect their own respective parties. Iron golems are spawned by villagers and players to protect villages. Ravagers are spawned by pillagers as part of their raids against villages.

If they're both spawned for the same cause, that must mean these two mobs are similar, right? Not so fast, Ravagers and Iron golems have many similarities and differences between the two, here are a few.

How different are Ravagers and Iron Golems in Minecraft

Defense vs Offense

Iron Golem Attacking a Ravager (Image via Minecraft)

One of the main key differences between Iron Golems and Ravagers in Minecraft is their reasoning for existing. Iron Golems are spawned to defend their villages, they live a mostly peaceful life of roaming villages, picking up flowers, and killing zombies and mobs at night.

Ravagers on the other hand only live during the most chaotic times in a raid and are created purely to attack villagers. The only way the ravagers spawn is through raiding, and will only live after if the Illagers win their raid battles.

Attacking

Ravagers and Iron Golems both use a melee attack to hurt players and entities; however, this melee attack differs greatly.

Iron Golems will use their force to uppercut the player or an entity. They punch them and throw them into the air as a means of not letting them escape.

Iron Golems' melee attacks range greatly in their strength in Minecraft. On hard mode, a melee attack does anywhere from 11.25 to 32.25 damage points or 5.5 to 16.5 hearts. On normal mode, a melee attack does 7.5 to 21.5 damage points or 3.75 to 10.75 hearts. On easy mode, a melee attack does 4.75 to 11.75 damage points or 2.3 to 5.8 hearts.

Ravagers will chase Minecraft players and entities and charge at them at full force like bulls. This damages players greatly and sends them back with knockback force. This charging attack is a roar and does six damage points or three hearts to the receiving entity.

In hard mode, a regular melee attack from a Ravager does 18 damage points or nine hearts. In normal mode, it does 12 damage points or six hearts. In easy mode, it does seven damage points or three and a half hearts.

Similarities between Ravagers and Iron Golems

Similarities between Iron Golems and Ravagers (Image via Minecraft)

Provoking

Ravagers and Iron Golems are both incredibly easy to provoke in Minecraft. An Iron Golem will attack any mobs hostile towards villagers, this includes the player if they mistakenly hit or kill a villager.

Similarly, Ravagers are provoked when a nearby Ravager or Illager is attacked. Ravagers and Iron Golems are capable of hitting entities through one block wall and will attempt to track down their prey.

Size and body

Iron Golems and Ravagers are both incredibly heavy beasts. Although they're made of different materials, they are both equally large in size. Iron Golems are slightly taller than Ravagers, but Ravagers are longer than Iron Golems so this equals out their body masses.

Many players believe that since Ravagers are so heavy they should sink in water like Iron Golems. Ravagers can swim unlike Iron Golems and will do so if they end up in the water.

Health Bar

Minecraft Iron Golem with low health (Image via mcpeaddons.com)

Both Iron Golems and Ravagers have 100 health points (or 50 player hearts.) Players would think this would make them equally matched, but the health bars don't account for their attacks.

Who would win in a fight?

In traditional village raids, a lot of factors like illagers and players can affect the outcome of the raid. That's why in this video it's important to have stable conditions to see who would win in a fight, an Iron Golem or a Ravager.

YouTuber Stormfrenzy shows in this video that in a Ravager vs Iron Golem battle, Iron Golems win both one on one and in group battle against Ravagers. This doesn't mean an Iron Golem would win each time, as the Iron Golems attacks vary so greatly in strength, a Ravager can beat them, it would just be unlikely.

In a traditional raid situation, there's likely to be a larger number of Ravagers than Iron Golems, meaning that in that setting Ravagers may have an upper-hand. Especially since villagers don't usually fight back against illagers, whereas illagers attack villagers. This all makes the Iron Golem's job more difficult and jeopardizes their victory in a raid battle.

Conclusion

Minecraft Iron Golem and Ravager (Image via YouTube)

These mobs have much in common with each other, from their size to their attacks to their purpose for existing. If Illagers and villagers got along, perhaps these two mobs could have been friendly with each other, but in vanilla Minecraft that is not possible. Despite having the same amount of health, Iron Golems are stronger than Ravagers and will win most of the time in a one-on-one battle.