Hint-a-Week: Color Coding

The color of the MoB name will give you immediate information about whether you should attempt to take it on.

• Purple: Eight or more level above you. In general, don't touch these guys. Most will defeat you with one blow, though some classes can comfortably handle a MoB that's four or five levels above them.
• Red: Six to Seven levels above you. You'll definitely have trouble with these guys, but you can defeat them with enough time and effort.
• Orange: Four to Five levels above you. You'll have some trouble with these guys, but you can defeat them.
• Yellow: Two to Three level above you. These guys will be a bit troublesome, but defeating them should not take a great deal of effort.
• White: On-level or 1 level above you. You should be able to deal with these MoBs. BTW, when another player's name is white, that player is role-playing.
• Dark Blue: One to two levels below you. You could have some issues, but defeating these guys should be fairly easy.
• Light Blue: Three to Four levels below you. You should be able to defeat these guys handily.
• Green: Five to Six levels below you. You should not have to put out much effort at all to defeat these guys.
• Gray: Seven or more levels below you. You should not aggro these guys, and they should be quite easily defeated.
  

Those classes with a pet (Lore-Master, Rune-Keeper, and Captain) should be aware that their pet is typically 2 levels below them (Lore-Master can trait to increase the pet's level by one). Therefore, even though a MoB appears gray to you, it might be green/light blue to your pet, who will then aggro that MoB.

Moreover, never assume that defeating even grey MoBs is guaranteed. The more MoBs you aggro at once, the more difficult the fight will be.

In general, the higher the MoB level, the more XP you'll gain from defeating it. You won't get much XP (or any) for killing gray MoBs. Also, most Class deeds won't advance from using skills against gray, although racial deeds do.

One other thing that comes into play is the MoB rating, which is a means to add even more shading to the levels. The ratings are:

• Swarm.
• Normal.
• Signature.
• Elite.
• Elite Master.
• Nemesis.
• Arch-Nemesis.

As the rating get harder, the MoB gets tougher, with more morale, harder hits, better armour, etc. In general, you should be able to deal with on-level swarm, normal, and signature MoBs; any MoB with a rating higher than signature typically requires a fellowship. Even level-capped players could run into difficulty with gray Arch-Nemesis MoBs.

There are also Rare Elites and Rare Elite Masters. As the name says, these MoBs spawn rarely. Most of them are named, and people refer to them as "shard-droppers" or "flake-droppers", because they typically drop a shard (ruby, saphire, or beryl) or a mithril flake. Shards and flakes are used in crafting.