https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Vindicator

Vindicators are hostile toward players, iron golems, adult villagers, baby villagers ‌[JE only], wandering traders, and snow golems.‌[BE only]

Java vindicators attack the player regardless of distance, unlike most other illagers, who attack the player on sight. The vindicator can stare at a player from a long-distance away. This also applies to other mobs, if the vindicator was named "Johnny".

When attacking, a vindicator raises its main hand brandishing an iron axe. It sprints, moving faster than villagers. When not attacking, a vindicator crosses its arms similar to a villager and does not hold its axe.

If the vindicator has no weapons (its axe), it still attacks players, iron golems, villagers, wandering traders and snow golems, except the axe doesn't appear in the vindicator's hand when the vindicator raises its hand. A vindicator's axe can break, just like pillager crossbows.‌[JE only]

When idle, the vindicator prefers to stand in dark corners,[verify] moving around occasionally.

A mob hitting a vindicator would provoke not only that vindicator, but also all vindicators nearby, similar to piglins, piglin brutes, or zombified piglins.‌[JE only]

During raids, vindicators can open doors, just as villagers do.‌[JE only] They break wooden doors on Normal and Hard difficulties when attacking.

A vindicator disables the player's shield for 5 seconds with its iron axe attack, even when riding a mob.‌[JE only] For this reason, a player may not survive trying to land a melee attack on a vindicator that rides a ravager during a raid in Hard difficulty.

If raiding vindicators kill all the villagers in the village or all the beds are destroyed, vindicators celebrate by cheering.

Like shulkers, and evokers, vindicators are passive in Peaceful difficulty.‌[Bedrock Edition only]

Like most hostile mobs, vindicators despawn in Peaceful difficulty in Java Edition.

In Bedrock Edition, if a pillager arrow accidentally strikes a vindicator, the vindicator retaliates against the pillager and the pillager fights back. This does not occur in Java Edition, as all illagers are friendly to each other, even when accidentally hit.

Vindicators look at the player in creative mode like villagers do, but they might break the line of sight with the player after looking for a while or when it sees a target.

Vindicators are tied with Piglin Brutes for being the mob that does the single highest amount of raw melee damage in the game, dealing an alarming 19 hearts of damage, on hard difficulty. This makes them pose a serious threat, even to well-prepared and heavily armoured players. Strong armour (at least diamond) and a strong weapon are mandatory to quickly deal with Vindicators, as even one of them is a massive threat to players. Due to the fact they spawn in large amounts as well, they make mansions extremely dangerous, even for seasoned players.