Enemies, monsters, and mobs are all generic terms for anything that you can fight in the game. When targeting an enemy, you can get helpful information about it by looking at its portrait and tooltip. The character name might indicate the class of enemy; and a blue mana bar indicates it’s some kind of caster who can attack you from afar.
By mousing over the enemy, the tooltip identifies the enemy type. The types of enemies include Humanoid, Beast, Undead, Demon, and Elemental. Some abilities only work against certain enemy types and fail if used against the wrong one.
Target Portrait Colors
Red
The target is hostile and will attack if you get too close. In PvP situations, players from the other faction also appear with this color.
Yellow
The target is passive and will only fight if you attack first.
Gray
The target has already been attacked by another player. You can still attack this target, but killing it will not give you any experience points and you will not share in any loot. In addition, the kill will not count toward any quests you have.
Green
The target is friendly.
Blue
The target is a player, just like you.
Level Number Colors on Target Portrait
The color of the target’s level number provides important information to you as well.
If the numbers are gray, killing that enemy doesn’t provide any benefit other than loot.
Green numbers indicate the enemy is a few levels lower than you, and should be easy for you to kill.
Yellow numbers are for enemies who are close in level to your current level and could be a challenge in a fight.
Red numbers are for enemies that are a few levels higher than you; it’s best to avoid combat with them until you are more comfortable playing the game.
If you target an enemy and a skull appears in the place of its level, then that enemy is at least 10 levels higher than you. Avoid enemies like this whenever you encounter them!
Social Monsters
If you see a small group of enemies and aren’t sure you can handle them all at the same time, observe them for a moment to see if they move apart from each other. With some patience, you can typically fight each enemy by itself.
However, some creatures are social and help their comrades when they are attacked, even when they aren’t right next to each other. There is no way of identifying which types of monsters are social except through experience.
Critters
Rare Spawns
Creatures with a silver dragon around their portrait are unique mobs with guaranteed drops. Some items they drop are not found on any other creature, while others are guaranteed to drop better than average loot.
If the silver dragon around the creature’s portrait has wings, it is an Elite monster. These creatures have the traits of both rare spawns and elite monsters.
Elite Monsters
Elite monsters are powerful enemies, usually the targets of group or dungeon quests. Elites are stronger than their level would indicate. Generally speaking, you can assume that fighting an elite will be as hard as fighting a monster three levels higher. In addition, Elite monsters often have special abilities that make fighting them even trickier.
Elites are identified by the gold dragon around their character portrait and the word Elite in their tooltip.
They Keep Coming Back
Loot
Enemies won’t stand against you forever. Every target has a health bar under its name. When this green bar drops to nothing, the creature dies. Almost all enemies offer some kind of loot after they’ve been defeated. When you have loot waiting, your dead enemy sparkles. Look for this golden shimmering and rejoice. You’ve earned something!
Right-click to open the enemy loot box, then click on each item to put it into your inventory. If you press Shift and right-click at the same time, each item is sent directly to your backpack.
You get loot from looting enemies and from completing quests. Quest rewards go directly to your backpack after the quest is finished. Any money you collect, from any source, goes immediately into your backpack. It can’t be lost or unintentionally discarded. Also, money has no weight in World of Warcraft. You can carry half a million gold around if you like.