Guild Wars Guru

The Most Efficient Chest Run

2 pages • Page 1
HigherMinion
HigherMinion
Forge Runner
• #1
We all know how Guild Wars likes to screw around with drop chances. We don't open chests for this reason; we want a gold and those lucky/unlucky/treasure hunter points.

Plenty of people have claimed the best run for this goal is Pongmei Valley; leaving from Boreas. In Hard Mode, the run takes about 5 minutes across a vast map scoring you three chests, with the chance for a 4th occasionally. This is a very ineffective way to get your titles if it's not just echo you want.

I've been chest running on my necromancer now for a few weeks in Witman's Folly in Normal Mode. I have a 63% retention rate, but here's the cool part:

Witman's Folly, leaving from Port Sledge, yields a consistent 3 chests which only cover half the map, 80% of the time. On average, each run takes 3 minutes (hitting /age brings up 3 mins on the counter, but I often hit 2).


The bottom line, if you're looking to max out your chest hunting/wisdom/luck/unlucky titles, there is no faster run that will help you achieve this.

~HM

P.S. (Leaving from Port Sledge, just go anticlockwise)
Zylo16
Zylo16
Krytan Explorer
• #2
You have a very bad misconception about Pongmei Valley. First of all, 5 minutes is a terrible time for that run, unless you're doing two accounts. A regular run for me is a little over 3 minutes. Secondly, My average chest rate is something like... 3.6? It goes from 3-5 usually. Also, although an echo is fairly rare, almost every drop will be better than Witman's.


By the way, don't we have a chest running thread for this discussion?
HigherMinion
HigherMinion
Forge Runner
• #3
Now that I study my times; I am contantly hitting sub 3 minute runs. Running in NM saves cash and gets Lucky fast. What's the issue with this run?
Zylo16
Zylo16
Krytan Explorer
• #4
One problem I have with that run is that, if you're getting 3 chests in 3 minutes (or even slightly sub 3), you're getting fewer chests than Pongmei. Now, there are other things to consider. For instance, HM Pongmei only gives me somewhere in the 30's for retention, so it is not optimal for Lucky. However, that will make it better for my unlucky title. Saying that one run is the overall best in all categories is just... false. For instance, when I want to run in NM to boost my lucky, I prefer to run in Hell's Precipice. I find that when I run in Pongmei I usually break even or sometimes even make money when I get a good drop. If we're taking cash saved into account I think that will beat most normal mode runs in Witman's Folly. So, to sum this up:

Pongmei (HM) Vs. Witmans Folly (NM)
Lucky Title Progression: Witman's Folly
Unlucky Title Progression: Pongmei
Treasure Hunter: Debatable, but I'd say Pongmei
Wisdom: Pongmei (More golds as it is in HM)
Cash Saved/Earned: Pongmei (Tomes as well as items)
Voodoo Rage
Voodoo Rage
Desert Nomad
• #5
Any love for the vermin area in Sheng Tunnels? It seems like I can hit 2-3 chests pretty quickly with tons of celestial drops.
Zylo16
Zylo16
Krytan Explorer
• #6
Oh, I'm in no way doubting that there are other great runs, I was just contesting "The bottom line, if you're looking to max out your chest hunting/wisdom/luck/unlucky titles, there is no faster run that will help you achieve this," because I just outright don't believe this and it seems like it's based on inaccurate data.
HigherMinion
HigherMinion
Forge Runner
• #7
Quote: Originally Posted by Zylo16 View Post
One problem I have with that run is that, if you're getting 3 chests in 3 minutes (or even slightly sub 3), you're getting fewer chests than Pongmei. Now, there are other things to consider. For instance, HM Pongmei only gives me somewhere in the 30's for retention, so it is not optimal for Lucky. However, that will make it better for my unlucky title. Saying that one run is the overall best in all categories is just... false. For instance, when I want to run in NM to boost my lucky, I prefer to run in Hell's Precipice. I find that when I run in Pongmei I usually break even or sometimes even make money when I get a good drop. If we're taking cash saved into account I think that will beat most normal mode runs in Witman's Folly. So, to sum this up:

Pongmei (HM) Vs. Witmans Folly (NM)
Lucky Title Progression: Witman's Folly
Unlucky Title Progression: Pongmei
Treasure Hunter: Debatable, but I'd say Pongmei
Wisdom: Pongmei (More golds as it is in HM)
Cash Saved/Earned: Pongmei (Tomes as well as items) I will concede, It clearly won't be the best for unlucky, but you will naturally max Unlucky before Lucky anyway. You're also talking with false information if you think you can seriously profit from regular drops in Pongmei with a 30% retention rate. You'll be able to profit a good deal more from common drops in Witman's, including survivor insignias (common), Major/Sup Vigs and dual-vamp weapons which crop up every now and then.

Hard Mode grants better drops and more golds at the cost of much lower retention. that doesn't magically make it cheaper; quite the opposite. I have a far higher chance to get multiple golds from one lockpick, while you will generally break on the first or second chest.


Back to the zone; it is the fastest, and you would have to show me screenshots getting sub 3 minute runs anywhere else to prove otherwise.
f
floodwig
Krytan Explorer
• #8
witmans: 3 chests in 3 min
pongmei: 3-5 chests in 3 min

pongmei has rarer drops available, bladed shield, echo, bo staff, diamond aegis, amber aegies, etc.

running in hm pretty much always makes more money from tomes and runes

just my two cents...
Bright Star Shine
Bright Star Shine
Furnace Stoker
• #9
Okay, since I've had this discussion plenty of times before, I went out of my way to test what I believe are the best routes, and the ones others believe to be the best. I used the speed.exe program to show my EXACT time used to do a certain chestrun. I'm only going to post the links, because if I post the whole pictures, this post will be enormous.

Pongmei: 3:42|4 chests
Pongmei: 4:18|5 chests, very bad spawns
Pongmei 3:52|5 chests, suboptimal spawns
Silent Surf 3:57|5 chests
Silent Surf 3:44|4 chests
Witman's Folly 2:52|3 chests, second try

Now, a few notes, these were the first runs I've done. I didn't try to get super-times to prove a point, these were a couple of random runs I did to keep things fair. I didn't post my first Witman's Folly run because I derped and took a wrong turn, and my second one had such a good time I thought it proved the speed of the run. I did Witman's in NM though, due to people jabbing on about how to do it in NM. So take that into account.

Now, conclusion of my couple of random chestruns. I don't think I can get Witman's down much more than I already did, except if I take Shadow of Haste for when there's a chest at the imp bosses. So if I want I could do it in 2:40 I think and if spawns are good and you don't have to run up until Drok's, 2:30 is easily doable.
Whereas Pongmei and Silent Surf are both easily doable in 3:30-3:40 when you get into it a bit (I wasted 10 seconds on one of my Pongmei runs trying to pick up something and kept clicking next to it like a derp), but to be fair a lot of runs will be 3:50-4:00 as well. So 3:45 average on Pongmei I'd say and 3:40 in Silent Surf.
The difference is that I did both those areas in HM (though HM changes nothing to your times) and drops are significantly better.

Quote: Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage View Post
Any love for the vermin area in Sheng Tunnels? It seems like I can hit 2-3 chests pretty quickly with tons of celestial drops. As a person that really loved doing that chestrun for quite a while, I think the run takes about 1:50-2:10 minutes and yields 0-3 chests. The problem is that the chest ratio is very fickle, you can have 1 chest/run for the longest time and then 3chests a couple times. I'd say the average chests there is like 1,6-1,8 if I could take a guess. It's kind of hard run though, if you don't know how to avoid bodyblock.

I'm still sticking with Pongmei/Silent Surf.
W
Whirl E Vic
Frost Gate Guardian
• #10
If you're going to argue about the fastest run, you should really be running as derv for permanent 50% speed boost. Pongmei with smart use of shadow of haste is easy to get to tanglewood with 3-5 chests and /age showing 3 minutes. Also, if you get lucky with chest spawns at yeti cave, IG/wallow, bridge sin and in the Am Fah muck you get 4 chests in 1-2 minutes and /resign.

I've maxed TH and unlucky and have tried all the different runs, boreal, witman, pongmei, CoF, silent surf, etc. There's a reason that people pick pongmei. Witmans isn't exactly a terrible run, but not the best.


As others have said, HM is more profitable than NM. 75% of NM drops are junk purples that sell for 90g. This topic has already been flogged in the chestrunner thread, not sure why we need another one here.
Bright Star Shine
Bright Star Shine
Furnace Stoker
• #11
Quote: Originally Posted by Whirl E Vic View Post If you're going to argue about the fastest run, you should really be running as derv for permanent 50% speed boost. Pongmei with smart use of shadow of haste is easy to get to tanglewood with 3-5 chests and /age showing 3 minutes. Also, if you get lucky with chest spawns at yeti cave, IG/wallow, bridge sin and in the Am Fah muck you get 4 chests in 1-2 minutes and /resign. I actually had 4 chests at like 2:47 one run, but didn't post that screenshot because those things don't happen too often and didn't think it was fair, since we're talking about maxing TH, so off-chances shouldn't be taken into account, but you should look at the average.

Quote:
I've maxed TH and unlucky and have tried all the different runs, boreal, witman, pongmei, CoF, silent surf, etc. There's a reason that people pick pongmei. Witmans isn't exactly a terrible run, but not the best. Same here, at 13,5k chests, I still like Pongmei the best. I run it with 2 accounts at 4:40-5:20 depending on spawns though. But still, 200% the chest rate at 125% time rate isn't something to complain about.


Quote:
As others have said, HM is more profitable than NM. 75% of NM drops are junk purples that sell for 90g. This topic has already been flogged in the chestrunner thread, not sure why we need another one here. Agreed on both accounts. In HM I have 41% retain on one account and like 20% or something like that on the other and I actually make a solid profit running Pongmei selling my junk golds as unids for 7=5k. The Elite Tomes really make up for it.

This discussion has been held dozens of times already, no need to do it again.
HigherMinion
HigherMinion
Forge Runner
• #12
What's the timer you used, Bright? You need to really get average times, not just one-offs, and don't use heroes.

FYI, you don't need to use Shadowform for the Witman's run. I use Wastrel's Collapse.
snodaard
snodaard
Jungle Guide
• #13
LOL don't use heroes is such a bullshit.. Everyone uses heroes on their chestruns because it will speed things up. It should speed things up by the same time in all areas because they are just the same everywhere.
Voodoo Rage
Voodoo Rage
Desert Nomad
• #14
Quote: Originally Posted by snodaard View Post
LOL don't use heroes is such a bullshit.. Everyone uses heroes on their chestruns because it will speed things up. It should speed things up by the same time in all areas because they are just the same everywhere. Yeah, no kidding. Heroes have no effect on chest runs (right?) so why not load up your heroes, especially if you are arguing for a particular run where the heroes are going to significantly distract the enemy on your behalf (that vermin run I mentioned goes a lot more smoothly with heroes).
Bright Star Shine
Bright Star Shine
Furnace Stoker
• #15
Quote: Originally Posted by HigherMinion View Post
What's the timer you used, Bright? You need to really get average times, not just one-offs, and don't use heroes.

FYI, you don't need to use Shadowform for the Witman's run. I use Wastrel's Collapse. Look in this thread. You need to go to one of the last pages though, since the program has been updated a lot. Mike (Impulsion) updates the program regularly in case it doesn't work anymore. Just to give you an idea how the timer works: it starts counting whenever a new instance of an area is created. For example if you were to start the timer and zone to kama ad1, you would have basically the time since the last new build was launched and someone zoned in (since there is someone there 24/7). So when you zone in to an area, the counter starts as soon as you zone, meaning that you always lose like 3-5 seconds due to loading screen, but I didn't QQ about that, because same applied in Witman's.

Also, why shouldn't I use heroes? I use them in all the chestruns because they make things easier. I used the same hero builds in both chestruns, to keep things equally fair. I didn't go around tweaking my build for Witman's though, but since I run with my heroes most of the time, I don't see how I could get my time down significantly by build tweaking. I already stated in my first post that the times could be around 2:40 once you get around getting used to it.

And what do you mean with 'you need to get really average times'? I don't see how my times can be more average than they already are. I did 5 runs in Pongmei, 2 of which I didn't count because one was significantly faster than average runs, due to really good spawns and one because I lagged like a motherf*cker and rubber banded all over the place. Then I did 3 runs in Silent Surf, one of which I also lagged like hell, so didn't count that one in. Then did 2 runs in Witman's, one of which was terrible due to me having never done the run, and one being about as fast as it gets on average. If you want me to do more runs, it'll end up with me getting my times down even more, because I'll focus on speed. So I stayed with the couple of runs I did to keep things as fair and average as possible.
HigherMinion
HigherMinion
Forge Runner
• #16
Quote: Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine View Post
Look in this thread. You need to go to one of the last pages though, since the program has been updated a lot. Mike (Impulsion) updates the program regularly in case it doesn't work anymore. Just to give you an idea how the timer works: it starts counting whenever a new instance of an area is created. For example if you were to start the timer and zone to kama ad1, you would have basically the time since the last new build was launched and someone zoned in (since there is someone there 24/7). So when you zone in to an area, the counter starts as soon as you zone, meaning that you always lose like 3-5 seconds due to loading screen, but I didn't QQ about that, because same applied in Witman's.

Also, why shouldn't I use heroes? I use them in all the chestruns because they make things easier. I used the same hero builds in both chestruns, to keep things equally fair. I didn't go around tweaking my build for Witman's though, but since I run with my heroes most of the time, I don't see how I could get my time down significantly by build tweaking. I already stated in my first post that the times could be around 2:40 once you get around getting used to it.

And what do you mean with 'you need to get really average times'? I don't see how my times can be more average than they already are. I did 5 runs in Pongmei, 2 of which I didn't count because one was significantly faster than average runs, due to really good spawns and one because I lagged like a motherf*cker and rubber banded all over the place. Then I did 3 runs in Silent Surf, one of which I also lagged like hell, so didn't count that one in. Then did 2 runs in Witman's, one of which was terrible due to me having never done the run, and one being about as fast as it gets on average. If you want me to do more runs, it'll end up with me getting my times down even more, because I'll focus on speed. So I stayed with the couple of runs I did to keep things as fair and average as possible. I just started using Shadow of Haste; thanks for the tip on that. I've been getting 2:10 consistently now, with 2:30 if the final chest is outside Droknar's. I've not been using heroes for my 2:10 times, either. I don't think they will speed me up, since I'm already shadowstepping like a mothertrucker and spamming Dash.

By average, I mean 3-5 runs with average times, because the chest spawns are random and therefore, I don't think 2 or 3 runs is accurate enough.
esthetic
esthetic
Wilds Pathfinder
• #17
kind of topic...

As you know Unlucky Title can take longer than Lucky Title, I am trying to max unlucky via chest runs any ideas which run is the best for this particular purpose.
C
Champen
Frost Gate Guardian
• #18
In the good old days I used to run chests just outside Boreal Station. Is that run "outdated" now ?
TrippieHippie89
TrippieHippie89
Lion's Arch Merchant
• #19
Witmans has been my chest running spot for years, but you're doing it wrong.

Run in hard mode. Get your picks from a town your alliance owns, or someone that can get the discount. Elite tomes+selling unid golds usually nets a profit as well as offering all the title points the nm run does.
Reformed
Reformed
Jungle Guide
• #20
Quote: Originally Posted by esthetic View Post
kind of topic...

As you know Unlucky Title can take longer than Lucky Title... This was true if you exclusively worked on this through chest running the bare minimum for "high-end" (600g) prior to the November 13th update in 2008 but isn't today. You'll easily max out Unlucky before Treasure Hunter or Lucky. Even if you mix methods you'd need a substantial lead through AFK rings on Lucky to catch up.