Currently I’m letting my family fight in Jezebel Glen in order for them to get to level 32 so that I can start attempting Brunie’s card. So, while they’re doing that, I thought I’d start a new series of articles which won’t be posted on a regular basis (basically I’ll post them when I write them, not every week on a certain day).
The title of this series is “My Thoughts On…” followed by whatever I am talking about. What I discuss doesn’t have to be new, just something worth talking about.
As you can see, the topic of this post is elite monsters. So let’s dive right into it!
Elite monsters are basically tougher and larger versions of a specific monsters. For example, the Barrel Octopus has an elite version of itself:
Elite monsters were once a novelty. One or two would spawn every 10 minutes or so. Nothing bad, easily manageable. However, in a recent update of Sword of the New World we saw this change. Anywhere and everywhere monsters are, about 25% of them comprise of elite monsters now. Wow that’s a lot. And to make things worse, they respawn every 30 seconds to a minute.
Elite overload!
I was pretty shocked when I came back to the game and found it extremely hard to level in some areas due to the sheer amount of elites. I oftentimes had not only 10 normal monsters swarming me, but three of their elites also surrounding me. That is a big pain in the arse to take down.
However, alas I see the reason behind the number of elites: it helps prevent AFK leveling and botting. I have mostly been active leveling thus far due to this and have only seen one bot in the process. So, for that I say the elite’s are good. Some people my like afk leveling, but I find that it degrades the value of playing SotNW.
I may have trouble dealing with the elite’s, but they’re fun to take down since I can’t 1-to-2-hit them like I can most monsters.
– William
Journeys Through Granado Espada 
Also, elite monsters also allow you to use your single target skills often.