When a mob picks up a weapon it considers better, it has about a chance to drop the weapon it was holding. That drop skips the random durability damage that equipment gets when a mob drops it on death, so equipment the mob spawned with comes out at full durability and keeps any enchantments
Steps to reproduce:
Set Difficulty to Hard
Summon a horde of zombified piglins
Throw weapons with higher rating than gold swords next to them
Some of the zombified piglins that pick up the better equipment also drop their weapons
The dropped weapons have full durability
Expected result:
The replaced weapon gets the same random durability damage as a death drop
Actual result:
The replaced weapon drops with full durability
Code analysis (26.2, official names):
Mob.equipItemIfPossible drops the replaced item with spawnAtLocation and no durability change:
https://mcsrc.dev/2/26.2/net/minecraft/world/entity/Mob#L553-561
Mob.dropCustomDeathLoot applies random damage to equipment that isn't a guaranteed drop (drop chance above 1.0):
https://mcsrc.dev/2/26.2/net/minecraft/world/entity/Mob#L907-915
Possible fix: apply the same damage in equipItemIfPossible when !this.dropChances.isPreserved(slot)
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