Guild Wars 2

Is it by design that elite mobs give no loot or is this a bug? I observed this for a long time now (months) and I’ve never gotten any piece of loot from an elite mob. Veterans drop some blue/green stuff sometimes and champions give mostly green…

Elite enemies are supposed to fill in for champions in places Anet don’t want us farming loot bags.

They weren’t in the game at first, but when Anet added champion bags it created an issue where if an event scaled up enough for champions to appear players would just focus on killing them for loot instead of actually doing the event.

They couldn’t just remove champions because the event scaling algorithm needs to be able to add both more enemies and harder enemies. So they added elites which are supposed to be harder than veterans (and not just HP sponges like champions) but don’t give better loot. Which makes them purely a part of the event mechanics rather than something that can be farmed.

It seems to depend on the “source” of their eliteness. If they are from scaling then elites and veterans do not seem to give any loot or even exp.

Interesting answer @Danikat, this would explain why they give no loot. Now I wonder if there are elites outside of scaled events.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Interesting answer @Danikat, this would explain why they give no loot. Now I wonder if there are elites outside of scaled events.

There are a few. Mostly former champions that got downgraded to elite. For example the one guarding the skill point at Gallow’s Hang in near Shelter’s Gate in Cursed Shore.

Enemies spawned by scaling of Events or spawned with certain Boss level enemies (usually tied to Events) almost never have any drops. They are there to make the fight harder and Anet does not want them “farmed” (or at least that’s the popular belief).

Brother Grimm.5176:

Enemies spawned by scaling of Events or spawned with certain Boss level enemies (usually tied to Events) almost never have any drops. They are there to make the fight harder and Anet does not want them “farmed” (or at least that’s the popular belief).

The inconsistency is the problem…

Khisanth.2948:

It seems to depend on the “source” of their eliteness. If they are from scaling then elites and veterans do not seem to give any loot or even exp.

This.

Just like Champions, not all elites give loot.

This however is inconsistent in it’s form – sometimes upscale elites and champs do give loot (Jormag Phase 2 for example).

Knowing which ones do and don’t give loot is largely just something learned by play experience unfortunately.