Empowered isn't the official term (not even sure if there is one). Elites are the one with the yellow circles underneath them for all enemies apart from the season mages/knights. They're the ones you have to kill for the bishop to remove the curse from the pumpkin woods, and tend to have extra health and damage, and one other special feature, EG, Elite Ghosties can attack quicker, Elite Frostling Rogues and Brawler Bots aren't knocked back/stunned by attacks. They also have higher drop chances for the rarer items and cards.
Empowered is the term I gave to the Season Mages/Knights while they are in their own season. They take on the yellow ring underneath the character like Elites, but don't operate in exactly the same way. They all get their own unique attack/spell, and do more damage, but don't seem to have any extra health, and the topic we're discussing here is if they have higher drop chances like the Elites do, but it seems this is not the case (sadly T^T).
Hope that helped ^-^
