Spawning Tiers and Loot
Note: This section talks about normal Elite Mob spawning, not Custom Bosses. It also assumes you're using the default configuration settings. Many of these mechanics are configurable by server administrators.
When does an Elite Mob spawn?
When a normal mob spawns near a player, it has a chance to be converted into an Elite Mob. The player's combat level determines the level of the elite, and higher combat levels spawn higher level mobs. A player's combat level is calculated from their weapon and armor skill levels (see below), and is always at least 1 -- every skill starts at level 1 even with no XP earned.
They spawn based on a percentage chance, which is configurable in the MobCombatSettings.yml file.
Because the minimum combat level is 1, even brand new players who haven't leveled any skills will encounter low-level (around level 1) Elite Mobs. As they level their skills, the elites that spawn around them scale up accordingly.
Hunter Enchantment: The Hunter enchantment on gear increases the chance that nearby mob spawns will be converted to Elite Mobs.
What determines the level of the Elite Mob?
In EliteMobs 10, mob spawn levels are now determined by the player's combat level from the skill system rather than by averaging equipped gear tiers. Your combat level is calculated as: (highest weapon skill level + second highest weapon skill level + armor skill level) / 3.
The base level comes from the highest individual combat level among the nearby players, not their average — one high-level player pulls the whole area up.
Party Scaling
When multiple players are nearby, mob levels increase by +2 per nearby player (including the triggering player). This means groups will face significantly tougher elites.
Level Variance
Mob levels have a random variance of -2 to +2 levels, so you may occasionally encounter mobs slightly above or below your combat level.
Level Cap and Region Overrides
The final level is clamped to naturalEliteMobLevelCap from MobCombatSettings.yml. If WorldGuard is installed, a region's minimum and maximum elite level flags are applied before that cap.
Spawn Distance Scaling
If distance-based levels are enabled for the world in MobCombatSettings.yml, the level is taken purely from the distance to the world spawn point instead — the combat-level and party calculations above are skipped entirely for that world.
What determines the level of an item?
Non-elite items have levels equal to the level of the material (listed below). Elite Items have levels that are usually based on the level of the elite killed.
Material levels
- Netherite material: Level 8
- Diamond material: Level 7
- Iron material: Level 6
- Stone / Chain material: Level 5
- Gold / Wood / Leather material: Level 3
What kind of rewards can I get from Elite Mobs?
Before talking about the special rewards, it's important to note that only naturally spawned Elite Mobs will drop special loot.
Mob Spawner Restriction
Mob spawners never drop special loot. Even if configured to spawn Elite Mobs (optional setting), spawner-created elites will not drop special items.
Damage Participation
For normal Elite random equipment and special-gear rolls, a direct damager must deal at least 10% of the Elite's maximum health to receive their personal roll. Dealing less than that does not qualify that player for this generated-loot path.
If a qualifying damager belongs to a party with at least one other nearby eligible member, the generated gear enters the party's Need / Greed vote instead of going directly to that damager. Nearby party members can participate without personally meeting the 10% damage threshold. Two unrelated damagers do not automatically form a shared vote; without a qualifying party, each eligible damager follows the normal personal delivery path.
Anti-Exploit System
The anti-cheat mechanisms may remove an Elite Mob's eligibility to drop special loot. The anti-exploit system detects many specific situations including: mobs that cannot pathfind to you, dark room farming, height exploits, using mounts for safety, and honey block jumping.
The system uses a counter that accumulates when exploits are detected and decreases over time. When exploits are detected, the mob will no longer drop any special loot.
Farming Protection
In EliteMobs 10, a farming protection system limits rewards from natural elite mobs. It is configured in AntiExploit.yml:
| Key | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
enableFarmingProtection | Master switch for everything below | true |
farmingProtectionKills | Rewarded natural elite kills allowed per window | 20 |
farmingProtectionMinutes | Length of the window, in minutes | 30 |
farmingProtectionLevelDifference | Level window used for reward capping and skill XP eligibility | 15 |
Kill cap. Natural elite kills are tracked in a rolling window farmingProtectionMinutes long. Going past farmingProtectionKills inside that window locks the player out of natural-elite rewards for one full window starting from that moment. The player is told in chat when the lockout starts and again when it lifts. There is no separate burst cap — this single rolling window is the whole mechanic.
Reward level cap. The mob level used for XP and loot is min(mobLevel, combatLevel + farmingProtectionLevelDifference). Killing something far above your combat level still works, it just does not reward beyond that ceiling.
Skill XP lower bound. A kill awards XP for a specific weapon skill only if the mob's level is at least thatSkillLevel - farmingProtectionLevelDifference. This lower bound is skipped entirely under scaled combat, where the mob is normalized to the player and "too low level" is meaningless by construction.
Custom Boss kills are exempt from the kill cap.
Older versions of this page documented a 30-kills-per-hour cap, a separate 10-kills-in-10-minutes burst cap, and a fixed 5-level window. None of those are current: the caps are now configurable and default to 20 kills / 30 minutes / 15 levels.
Loot Types
The loot system includes several types of items:
Procedurally Generated Items
Procedurally generated items are items that are generated semi-randomly based on the server's configuration settings. There is a nearly endless amount of possibilities for procedurally generated items.
Usually procedurally generated items are armor, weapons and tools of any material quality with varying enchantment quantities and levels.
Soulbind: All procedurally generated items are automatically soulbound to the player who receives them.
Quality Indicators: Procedurally generated items are color-coded by quality and may have special visual appearances at higher levels.
Custom Items
Custom items are items either preloaded in the plugin (such as MagmaGuy's toothpick and charms) or added by admins. These items are fully customized, and can give players potion effects when either worn or held in the main hand or offhand.
The loot system also includes several types of configured items: fixed items (tier-specific), weighed items (with drop probabilities), limited scalable items, and fully scalable items.
Unique Items
Unique items are special drops from Custom Bosses which are similar to custom items. They may sometimes also have unique powers, such as the flamethrower power for the Zombie King's axe.
Vanilla Loot
Elite Mobs drop guaranteed additional vanilla loot (non-armor items) based on the formula: mob level x 0.1 x configured multiplier. They also drop more experience orbs. Very high level mobs have a cap to prevent excessive drops.
The drop chance for special items is not 100%, but the odds of getting loot increase with the mob level.
Skill-Based Gear Restriction
Loot drops are no longer downgraded by guild tier. Instead, players must meet the skill level requirement to equip items. Weapons check the corresponding weapon skill (e.g., a sword checks the Swords skill), while armor checks the Armor skill. This means you can receive loot above your current skill level, but you will not be able to use it until you level up.
How can I get better loot?
The higher the level of Elite Mob killed, the better the item dropped!