7 best Minecraft mobs for XP farming in 2022

Farming mobs in Minecraft for their XP orbs is one of the best sources of experience in the game. However, not all mobs are created equal, as some provide much more experience than others.

While enemies like bosses award the most experience per kill in Minecraft, farming them isn't exactly practical. It's important to note mobs that are both straightforward to farm while still providing a good amount of experience to make a player's time efficient. Plenty of mobs award good items and experience without being difficult to take down. Below, Minecraft players can find some of the best mobs to farm for experience.

Note: The list is in no particular order and reflects the writer's opinions.

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Best mobs to farm for experience as of Minecraft 1.19

1) Guardians

Guardians are the protectors of Minecraft's ocean monuments (Image via Mojang)

Guardians are agile and relentless opponents that are found swimming near and within ocean monuments in ocean biomes. However, when defeated, the spiky protectors also drop 10 XP in addition to items such as fish and prismarine crystals. Since prismarine isn't an easy material to acquire, many players create XP farms out of ocean monuments to farm guardians for their items and experience as much as possible. This can become quite a lucrative farm when built correctly.

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2) Elder guardians

An elder guardian is spawned through the use of a spawn egg (Image via Mojang)

A stronger version of standard guardians, elder guardians serve as the strongest protectors of an ocean monument. They are more dangerous largely due to the lasers they can fire from their eyes. Though they drop the same amount of experience as their weaker counterparts, they provide better loot, including wet sponge blocks. A sponge is quite rare in Minecraft. It's possible to dry out a wet sponge block and use it to serve a player's water-draining purposes.

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3) Blazes

A player-constructed blaze farm (Image via Mojang)

Blazes are hostile mobs capable of setting their targets aflame. They are solely found in Minecraft's Nether fortresses. Though they may be dangerous, players seek them out for one major reason: They are the only creatures capable of dropping blaze rods, which are needed to complete Survival Mode's story. Blaze powder from blaze rods is also used in potion brewing, making blaze farms quite popular among players. While blazes only drop 10 XP per kill, creating a farm around a blaze spawner can yield plenty of experience as well as crucial blaze rods.

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4) Baby zombie piglins

A baby zombified piglin in a player's base (Image via Reddit/farcrytastic)

While standard zombie piglins don't drop much experience in Minecraft, the rarer baby variants are a different story. A zombie piglin farm set up by players can occasionally spawn a sizable enough number of babies, which reward 12 XP per kill in addition to the standard items that the mob drops. Baby zombie piglins are harder to farm than their larger counterparts due to their low spawn rate. However, they yield great rewards if players farm them efficiently.

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5) Baby zombies

A standard version of a baby zombie (Image via Minecraft Amino)

As far as experience farms go in Minecraft, baby zombies are very similar to baby zombie piglins. However, being from the Overworld, players can farm baby zombies without Nether access. This makes them a source of XP earlier on in the game, and they still drop 12 XP when killed. Much like their Nether counterparts, they don't have a particularly high spawn rate, but players can sometimes find them on their mob farms regardless. Killing these little foes yields more experience than a standard zombie, while still dropping all the items that their larger allies would.

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6) Slimes and magma cubes

A player spawns a slime using a spawn egg (Image via Mojang)

Though slimes and magma cubes in Minecraft come in varying sizes, it's possible to farm the largest variants. Each time a slime is broken from large to medium and medium to small, it drops a sum of experience. In total, players can receive up to 16 XP for killing a large slime or magma cube. Therefore, these relatively harmless mobs are quite a great way to rack up experience. The slime balls and magma creams, which the the two mobs drop, are well worth farming too.

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1) Piglin brutes

A piglin brute as seen in the Nether (Image via Mojang)

Piglin brutes are aggressive variants of ordinary piglins, which are often found in Minecraft's bastion remnant structures within the Nether. They aren't distracted by gold and will attack players and certain other entities on sight. If users do manage to farm them, which is a tricky endeavor, they'll receive 20 XP per kill. Piglin brutes can also occasionally drop golden axes, which isn't a bad pickup from a Nether mob.