Curse

God of Tempest · Feb 26, 2012, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Is there a zodiac chest run for either Urgoz/Deep? I know there's rooms, but is there a way to consistently get to an area in one of them quickly where there's a chest?

Lawliet Kira · Feb 26, 2012, 08:35 PM // 20:35

I don't know if anyone else does this run but i go from Maatu Keep down to the portal of Tanglewood Corpse. 95% of the time theres ALWAYS a chest there. I ran around 700-800 lockpicks there. I got my good fair share of echos, orantes, GotH's, and gothic defenders. Although they were all crap single mods. Run takes about a minute

Olle · Feb 26, 2012, 08:52 PM // 20:52

^Pongmei valley is a very used run, i usually start from Boreas seabed, you can get 3-5 chests within 4-5minutes there.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by God of Tempest

Is there a zodiac chest run for either Urgoz/Deep? I know there's rooms, but is there a way to consistently get to an area in one of them quickly where there's a chest?

My guess would be to go kill 1 door in deep, and then rush in to see if theres anything, pick up /resign redo

Lawliet Kira · Feb 26, 2012, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Oh cool, because i only get like 1 chest every 1-2 minutes, thanks for the tip

superraptors · Feb 27, 2012, 12:26 PM // 12:26

starting from boreas can get you much rarer skins from amfah and jade chests which can drop bo, dragon, platinum, iridescent aegis and diamond aegis aswell.

drkn · Mar 04, 2012, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quick questions to experts.
I'm interested in working on both Treasure Hunter and Wisdom simultaneously, so that rules out selling of the unid goldies.
Now, another thing i'd like to achieve, if possible, is not to lose too much money while running chests. Of course i'm aware that i would need to be extremely lucky to make substantial profit from chestrunning, especially when identifying everything. I just wouldn't want to lose my current assets (about 1000k) before getting very very close to max (i'm at about 3k chests now).
I want to use lockpicks rather than high-end keys because of the (Un)Lucky synergy.
I am not interested in making any profit to buy anything else but lockpicks, so all i want is just to keep chestrunning as much self-sustainable as possible. I'm already at r5 Lucky, so that's about 55% retention rate on NM EotN chests, which would help i guess.
I am not interested in any particular skins, or items for myself, or items to sell for hundreds of ectos (sure, i wouldn't mind

mainly because it'd help me buy more picks!), as long as i can make more or less even via chestrunning while NOT selling unids.
Time is not a problem.

So, given all the above - is it even possible?
I'm asking here because i'm interested in opinions based on personal experience rather than pure theorycrafting. I'm aware that chestrunning is VERY much random, both in terms of costs (retention/breaking) and possible refunds (drops), but i'm asking whether my goal is even attainable without investing thousands upon thousands of platinum.

If my imaginations are sane enough for me to try them out, are there any pointers i should keep in mind? Like running NM or HM, running at certain locations/campaigns for highest possible stable gold income to alleviate the cost of broken picks, running with a certain profession and a certain build, using heroes (builds? just general ideas).
All you could throw at me.

Reformed · Mar 04, 2012, 03:59 PM // 15:59

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Treas.../Cost_analysis

Pretty extensive analysis...there is no "cheap" way to max treasure hunter while simultaneously obtaining a high ratio of golds for wisdom. If you switch to HM to increase the gold rate your retention drops and vice versa. The table also only takes into account initial cost without including what you make back through merching your unids, lucky drops, runes, tomes etc. etc. Not selling your unids also takes a bite out of your potential cost savings.

onerabbit · Mar 04, 2012, 04:43 PM // 16:43

I usually spend 100k on lockpicks, run them all in hardmode, try run areas with armors for quick cash back, tomes help getting your money back also, my retention rate is quite high these days, but back in the day i never struggled with getting money back from chest running, then again the items where worth more back then.
You'd still loose more than you make, but overall, you probably wont struggle as long as you pace yourself, making sure your getting enough money back from your first set of picks before buying your second set =)
I usually merch everything i get unless its worth 30k+ as it can be time consuming to sell ingame.

drkn · Mar 04, 2012, 05:44 PM // 17:44

I know i won't escape losing money in the long run, unless i get some really nice drop or get sup runes and elite tomes from each chest, or i get extremely lucky and i won't break too many picks.
What i'm really asking for is all small tips that would minimise the long-term loss, so that for every 100k spent on lockpicks, i lose 10k in the end rather than 70k.
In terms of raw speed of running, i find Boreal Station being the best, however i'm not really experienced with many routes. What about the long-term costs?

Zazael · Mar 04, 2012, 05:56 PM // 17:56

The advantage of running Boreal HM is that you can get some nice tomes aswell as inscr/mods that can sell for quite a bit these days. This might be more reliable.

I personally prefer chestrunning in Cantha, where there's an equal if not better chest-to-time ratio's if you know where to go, and ofcourse the possibility of getting that xxx ecto drop.. The choice is yours.

EDIT: In addition to the above, Cantha chestrunning is very 'risky'. You may open thousands of chests without getting anything worthwhile. Or you can get a perf dualmod echovald shield or bo staff from your first chest, see it as a lottery.

Reformed · Mar 04, 2012, 06:25 PM // 18:25

My advice then would be to not concern yourself with wisdom at the moment. Run somewhere with the bare minimum for high-end (southern shiverpeaks, echovald, jade sea, vabbi) and run it in normal mode. I did mine in Witman's Folly a very long time ago now and while the gap on wisdom was substantial (3k or so) the overall cost to me could not have been much more than a million. My titles were approximately where yours are now when I started there as well. If you follow this up with raptor or vaettir farming for those unids wisdom costs you nothing and would actually further reduce the cost once you merch drops.

The Mountain · Mar 04, 2012, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Run Hell's Precipice, KC areas (Am Fah easier to run with sin than Jade), and Echovald Forest....run all of these in HM. Between selling to the merch and selling tomes, you should be quite close to even over time. These areas also offer the opportunity for fabulous drops, of course. You can find runs for all these that are little less efficient than Boreal (some are more).

I've ran 20k chests, almost all in HM since I had 2500 chests opened.

drkn · Mar 04, 2012, 10:41 PM // 22:41

My concern regarding the Wisdom title meant only that i don't want to sell my unids to other people. I'm fine with running NM and getting mostly grapes if it's what it takes to keep the costs the lowest possible.

Thanks for the insight so far.
One more question. Is the drop rate of elite tomes affected by location - or does it seem so - or it doesn't matter where, as long as it's HM? I'm actually thinking about sticking to Boreal and checking whether it's better going NM (higher retention) or HM (possible elite tomes) to alleviate the costs.

Bright Star Shine · Mar 05, 2012, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

My concern regarding the Wisdom title meant only that i don't want to sell my unids to other people. I'm fine with running NM and getting mostly grapes if it's what it takes to keep the costs the lowest possible.

Thanks for the insight so far.
One more question. Is the drop rate of elite tomes affected by location - or does it seem so - or it doesn't matter where, as long as it's HM? I'm actually thinking about sticking to Boreal and checking whether it's better going NM (higher retention) or HM (possible elite tomes) to alleviate the costs.

Run HM. Period, you'll lose a lot of money in NM. In HM, you basically make money if you're not incredibly unlucky. If you want cashback, I'd advise running something that drops armors (like Jade Brotherhood/Am Fah/Afflicted) to get you runes. It will pay your costs and give some good chances for drops. The Elite Tomes you get from running are in fact profit usually on top of your items/armors. If you want time-chest efficiency, I'd say: Silent Surf (Outcasts there give armors) or Pongmei Valley (less armors, but also nice drops). And no, area does not affect Tome drops.

Also, don't run Boreal. Some people tell you it's the best and fastest chest run around. They lie. It's not. Also, it doesn't pay back the way Cantha does. Unless you want to spend a lot of time selling 15^50's and +5e's for 1k a piece. In fact, Silent Surf is the fastest one -imo- regarding chest/time. When I used to run it, I would clock a solid 3:20 just about every time yielding 4-5 chests a lot. If I had to pull an average out of my ass, I'd say it's anywhere around 3,8 chests/run, maybe even a little more.

superraptors · Mar 05, 2012, 08:39 AM // 08:39

you can make money from boreal but you will need atleast 30% retain in HM.

Run places where its armor heavy, runes pay back nicely, i agree with mountain on hells precipice although its a medium difficulty run, 50% of the drops are titan armors, which is extremely high.

Pongmei is also an excellent run for profit/time, 5 chests in 3-4 minutes is the average.

exploiter · Mar 05, 2012, 02:32 PM // 14:32

I started running pongmei NM, got a few q8s already, however the wands always seem to be 11-21. wondering if its possible to drop q8 max one...

floodwig · Mar 05, 2012, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by exploiter

I started running pongmei NM, got a few q8s already, however the wands always seem to be 11-21. wondering if its possible to drop q8 max one...

I'm pretty sure that only shields, focus, and swords are the only things that can still drop as max q8s... I may be wrong though

Bright Star Shine · Mar 06, 2012, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by floodwig

I'm pretty sure that only shields, focus, and swords are the only things that can still drop as max q8s... I may be wrong though

You are correct.

thelessa · Mar 06, 2012, 03:37 PM // 15:37

What is the best route for running chests in Pongmei? I have never run chests before, so any help would be appreciated.

Rice · Mar 06, 2012, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Start from boreas and run in a full circle. i do clockwise and leave the afflicted areas last cause team can wipe easily there. dont worry about the middle there r no chest there