Darkstone Chest Run - 10 keys (6 platinum) Results

10 keys is a small sample space, so obviously you can't divulge very much, but at least it is sampled.

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10 keys bought for 6 platinum
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1st drop:
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2nd drop:
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3rd drop:
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4th drop:
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5th drop:
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6th drop:
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7th drop:
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8th drop:
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9th drop:
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10th drop:
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Statistics:
PURPLE: 6 (60% of the time)
GOLD:4 (40% of the time)

CLASS:# of drops:total value
W: 2 (20%): 336g
Mo:3 (30%): 656g
N: 1 (10%): 152g
R: 1 (10%): 392g
Me:1 (10%): 174g
E: 2 (20%): 604g

1: purple-warrior-142g
2: purple-monk-110g
3: gold-elementalist-312g
4: purple-necromancer-152g
5: purple-monk-186g
6: gold-ranger-392g
7: purple-warrior-194g
8: purple-mesmer-174g
9: gold-elementalist-292g
10: gold-monk-360g

Total value: 2314g out of 6000g (38.56%)
Net (Loss): -3686g (61.43%)

Note: I ran wildy around Ember Light Camp looking for the chests in no ordered manner. Assume that location of each chest has no bearing on the value of the drop. Mainly, there is a belief that the farther or harder-to-access chests drop better value items, but I cannot conclude anything about that. Also note the total value of all the items if sold to the merchant, which is 2314g. The total value of the keys themselves is 3000g (if sold back to the merchant). These all seemed to consist of so-so mods, although all weapons/items are max damage/energy. This also brings up another point, and that is the introduction of new professions. For those that only play 1 or 2 professions, finding an item of your profession is going to be increasingly harder. Add the two new professions in Factions and your percentage is going to drop even more.
If I had gotten one good drop out of these 10, then the results would look more positive. Still keeping in mind this is only 10 runs, the general look of the drops do not look impressive. I am thinking of attempting to salvage some of the mods, such as the zealous or enchantment mods. I hope someone else decides to do their own run and test, so more samples can be added, but my personal take is that I will never buy another key again. Anyway, if anyone has any questions or sees an error or if this is in the wrong forum even, ask away.

-[XGZ]

If you are going to chests to sell the drops to merchants you will always lose money. Farming chests only makes sense if you are trying to sell drops to players (for much larger sums) or you are trying to unlock upgrades for PvP.

Someone did a rough cost/benefit analysis a while ago and found, even when trying to sell to the player market, it wasn't really worth it (I would give you a link, but searching here has become all but impossible). The likelihood of getting a really valuable drop is just too low.

I, like many others, only bother with chests when we get keys as drops.

you need a group of people to make the run profitable, so that you only use the keys when the chest opened by others is gold. And consider there could be drops of mursaat hammer/horn bow/magmas shield, I feel 40% gold is very profitable.

I say try it again, something good to drop if not farmed 24/7. Always test theorys twice , change a variable and make it 20 keys.

I did the full ring of fire missions yesterday, 8 keys, 8 purples, not please. 4 shiverpeaks, 4 purples.

If you want to make any sort of conclusive test, you need more data. 10 keys isn't anywhere near proving anything. Also keep in mind that you make much more by selling to other players, and limiting yourself to the merchant is a bit unrealistic if you're trying to make money. Not that anything you've had so far is worth selling to other people, but you're not about to sell that req. 8 15>50 to the merchant now, are you?

uhh...How much for that earth staff? >.>

OnT: I used to chest farm Grenth's footprint till they removed it, I had more golds than purples. Was one of the best places. Even a +5 energy staff.

use your brain next time cus a few there looked like
some fine pearls to me...

(btw greenies are worth about 35g to merchant
and you wouldnt want to sell that to them?)

hmm i actually found this thread helpful some 1 should do a threat like this on fow chest runs

Why would you sell all chest drops to a merchant. Kinda the point of chest running is to get some nice drops for sale.

Well, while I appreciate the time it took you to do this experiment, I think the fact remains that random is random. I would certainly never advise someone to spend all of their money on keys and bank on great items to recoup their losses. However, some amazing items do drop from chests that will net you the cost of the key and then some. It's a gamble, much like playing the lottery. An analysis of a few lottery tickets (that aren't winners) will show a result that doesn't look so hot. But tell that to the guy who got lucky and won $10 million.

For the record, a darkstone chest once dropped me a gold magmas shield that netted me over 2 million gold, all told. I didn't expect it, and I don't expect to ever find another item like that again, but it sure was nice.

I got a clean gold max 15^50 hand axe from a chest in perdition rock last week (the place outside ember)

Yeah. Don't complain, because the value of some of those mods will easily break 6k. You got a net gain of at least 2k, let alone anything else that dropped. Here's a hint: IDENTIFY EVERYTHING! It drives their prices up and will make up the cost of IDing quickly.

I would be very proud of those results...

Chest runs will never give you something good most of the time, try and get lucky (1 out of 20 or 50) will be amazing

Surely the zealous mod would have gone for at least 1k to someone? But anyway, most chests aren't so great, I've had very few rares with anything good on them. I'd say if you're gonna go for keys, buy slightly cheaper ones that are still in 'max' areas.

damn most of the time, chests are crap
i only open some when i got a keydrop ..

golds are way too rare in chests, and purple are BS

i miss the riverside chests, those were way more fun, since u could drop anything in the game (even removed items )

Although some of those mods might look good on paper, its near impossible to sell anything to players thats not perfect, or just under
Unless you are willing to waste countless hours in town

And chests in high end areas should never drop purples!
I get purples in FoW...Thats adding insult to injury

purple are almost untradable except some skins with mods like 12>50
only worth few Ks, though ..

Keys = goldsink. Pretty simple.

That zealous axe upgrade can be sold for almost what you spent.
Chests are a gold sink and takes quite a bit of an investment to reap rewards.
If we dont have favor, Ill give this run a quick try.

Certain chests give better drops.

Hint: the longer and more work it takes to get to a chest, the better the drops will be.

Examples: Superior Healing Rune, Gold Sephis Axe 1/1 try at each chest.

I always get lots of rares on ember, best thing to do is to run at the white mantle area, get alot of rare white scythes and other white mantle weapons + armors

i love chests. im a gambler and its the only gambling in the game. plus i love those so close to perfect items. gold shadow shield req 8 str. +44 health while in stance. oh so close but its good enough. and then theres the other items that are PERFECT except that is a axe with medium req. like 10. and mods to elem skills....

This is my first post in weeks Some chests give you gold items so I only ever opened chests if it had already dropped a gold item for someone else in the group. I'm not sure whether or not this makes a big difference to the quality of the item.

I think this is a very important point. Who else has experience with it?

I've never been a key buyer, and rarely group with anybody other than my wife, so I only have a single data point. That one was favorable -- golds for both my wife and me, and another gold the next time we found it. (Grenth's Footprint -- I fear it was the one that was removed a couple of days later.)

I used to be a chest farm inside SF. I usually don't open the chests unless someone else did it and got a gold item. Out of all my chests run, i got about 4 golds and tons of purples. I did get a near perfect halfmoon once from a SF chest. But now a day, i rarely farm for chests.

Well, now I have to go do it too. Will let you know.

Keys are a marginally profitable enterprise, if you understand what you are doing.

A. Don't open every chest. Have a different person do it each time. Lets say you do a B/P group through the new tombs. 8 players, all have multiple keys. Each takes turns trying a chest (this is best with a non-pug where you do this over and over). When one person opens and gets a gold, all will. You are now getting 7 out of 8 or 8 out of 8 gold drops for your keys. Accordingly, I merch everything less then godly, otherwise my storage would have so many golds waiting for sale I would have to stop playing.

B. ID everything. Unided golds are hard to sell and (assuming you don't test out the mods) you are gambling against yourself. My favorite are drops like a bad staff with a 20% enchant mod. This turns a key into 40 plat very quickly.

C. Repeat. I have opened HUNDREDS of chests. I would guess 40% or 30% is a good estimate of gold drops. However, ten keys is too small a sample. Do this long enough and you will see a profit (if you follow my first two points).

you should be able to make up 6k on the mods, and then turn a profit on remaining at merchant if nowhere else but... the main concern i've found is time invested to sell the tiems which noone likes to do and it takes a while.

I like reading studies like this.

I've done 30+ keys. But one drop made me 100k+ and that made up for all the loses plus some. So at the moment, even though I'm sure I'm reaching 50-60 in Shiverpeak keys, I feel I still have made more, and its just from that one drop.

Salvaging upgrades helps a lot in making your money back, but most things are just junk and should just be merchanted.

you do know that if you get a purple on one map the rest on that same map are gunna be purple until you zone?

Chest runs @ Hells Precipice can produce good rewards. :x

And FoW, of course.


Edit2: LOL @ Trylo. Nice joke.

I think the Chests inside the Tombs(not HA) always drop rare weapons. I brought a key for each lvl, each chest droped gold.

Incorrect. Many a UW run (that'd be the OLD underworld, for your B/P guys ) we've had multiple chest spawns, mixed purple and gold.

Shiverpeaks: same.

Perdition: same.

FoW: Not tested, but no reason for it to be different

Please get your facts straight

insight +4 still sells for 1-2.5k no? and you got 3 to try for on staves?

Chest farming is much better with a FULL party. This spreads out the cost of testing each chest among 8 people. So instead of spending 10 keys, testing 10 chests, you test 1-2 and use the rest on Rare chests only because your other party members test it. If someone opens a rare chest, thats 8 rares right there.

I jsut did it alone, 10 keys, about 5 runs through ember avg about 4 min each... 4 gold, 6 purple, not bad tho... just salvage the mods and come a little above even

Indeed. Easiest way is to take turns, even go down the party list as to whom is going to use their key next. Then only one person loses the cost of a key if it's a purple chest but everybody benefits if it's gold.

Chests just plain suck until you reach the south shiverpeaks and later. There's no point at all in buying keys before then.

And I got a superior absorption from a chest in Abadon's Mouth, so chest drops can be very profitable. It somewhat made up for having to do that godforsaken mission 7 tmes just to cap Restore Condition. Somewhat.

I have a feeling that chest are going to be completely nerfed or keys removed.

Bots are becoming more sophisticated. Some believe that they are able to make a team of bots now for farming. If they can cordinate a running team they will be able to alternate keys till they hit a gold chest. Then you can get a gold for each character per chest.

This could potentially be very bad.

Yea and which were those ? Nothing I seen that you could sell for more than a couple a K, IF you want to sit in Droks, or LA and fight the spam(for hours most likeley, and then, quite possibly no luck), anything under perfect aint worth squat(maybe one off perfect fort or enchant mods, but not a +4 insight) so if your thinking those +4 insightfuls are jewels, so sad too bad, have fun trying to sell a +4 for more than 500g. Keys are for gamblers, they are gold sinks and nothing else really, go look at the auction its flooded with all kinds of nearly perfect merchant junk.