Loot

The term Loot (or Drops) refers to the items, weapons, crafting materials, gold...literally anything "dropped" by mobs when they are slain.

Loot Quality / Quantity / Type
The quantity of loot is random, but is also related to the uniqueness and difficulty of the slain mob.

The average quality of dropped weapons and items follows the same pattern: It starts with about 20% of the max damage/energy/AL for a level 1 foe, and increases linearly to 100% for a level 24 foe, give or take a few random percent. Different monsters drop different types of loot, for example Tengu drop feathers, most Stone Summit drop Stone Summit Badges and most Ettins drop Ettin's Pauldrons.

Axes, hammers, swords, shields and bows are dropped by monsters of all professions in all campaigns, and daggers are dropped by monsters of all professions in the Factions campaign. Profession-specific wands, staves and focus items are generally only dropped by monsters of the same profession. Variable attribute wands and staves dropped by any monster can be linked to the attributes of any caster profession. Variable attribute focus items dropped by Monks, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist and Ritualist monsters are linked to one of the attributes of the monster's profession. It is not currently known if Warriors, Rangers or Assassins can drop variable attribute focus items.

Because of this, Ritualists wands, staves and focus items are quite rare in Guild Wars Nightfall. They can only be obtained from collectors, weaponsmiths, chests, Ritualist bosses and Shiro'ken Ritualists, which are the only non-boss Ritualists in the campaign.

The pattern for gold is a little different: It starts at 3 for a level 1 foe and it increases at geometric rate to reach an average of about 42 for a level 12 foe and 140 for a level 24 foe. However, sometimes foes will drop the double ("uncommon") or even the quadruple ("rare") amount of gold.

The chance of dropping a rare item is greater at higher difficulty levels as well.

Loot Sharing
To eliminate bickering or "stealing" another party member's "kill", the game engine assigns "loot turns" to each player as a means of equally distributing loot among all the party members. When an item is dropped, the game automatically assigns it to a specific member of the party, and for a period of time, only that player can pick it up. The next item dropped is assigned to the next member of the party, and so on. If the assignee doesn't pick up an assigned item within 10 minutes after it dropped, the assignment goes away, and anyone can pick it up.

However it is still possible to have an item "stolen" by another player. If a good item is dropped for a player that happens to be dead, all the party has to do is not resurrect the fallen member and wait for the item to become available to all.

This rigid system makes no distinction between player classes, even if certain items would be better suited for another member of the party. For instance, an Elementalist would be just as likely assigned a dropped Longbow as a Ranger.

If a foe receives most of its damage from other sources than the party - NPCs (not including henchmen), other foes, Edge of Extinction, etc - the party will not gain loot from that foe.

To be eligible for a drop, you must have been in radar range of the monster when it dies.

Dropped gold is automatically divided equally among all members of the party, regardless of distance apart, when someone picks it up.

Note that NPC Henchmen and Heros get "loot turns" as well. Although dropped items assigned to Henchmen do not actually appear, they are taking in their share of loot along with the "real" players. A recent update introduced loot scaling. With loot scaling now in place solo farmers receive the same amount of normal drops (e.g. Collectors items) as they would in a full party of 8. The only items exempt from this rule are: Skill Tomes, Scrolls, Dye, Rare materials, Gemstones from the Domain of Anguish, Rare (Gold) items, Green Items, and special event items.Therefore, when farming for loot, it is best to bring only the minimum required to survive, in order to increase the amount of loot scaling exempt drops.

Farming
There is a system in place to prevent Farmers from gaining excessive wealth. If you kill the same monsters in an area over and over, they will drop loot less frequently and the quality of drops will become progressively worse.