Chest Keys-Keep this in mind

I think many people are missing a very good point about the chest keys:

They drop when you kill stuff.

Buying them is optional. If you feel buying keys is a gold sink or isn't worth the money then farm the keys instead.

I don't see why people are complaining about the risk/reward of the keys/chests considering that they can get keys without spending a single gold piece. It just requires a lot more work to farm the keys as opposed to buying them.

I would also like to add it is not hard to make money in guild wars (so you can be lazy and buy keys). Before last nights update I had 500+K and I spent about 250K on gold items as well (So I would have close to 1mil if I didn't spend some of it). I'd say 99% of that money came from farming outside of UW. I have never sold any of my ecto for gold either. In addition I've only made about 200K selling items/materials.

Ok I'm rambling so I'll just end this by saying I really love all these new updates they have added. And this is coming from a guy that spends 90% of his time farming while playing Guild Wars. Good job ANet!

Key drops seem to be very rare though. I killed _lots_ of stuff today looking for collector items, got several gold drops but not a single key.

yea i agree the key drops are very rare which leads me to believe they want you to buy them instead

a gold sink like no other

i love it

No keys here. I did get two purples and one gold in 2 hours gaming in the new areas.

well i got 2 keys today, in about 6 hours of playing. the rarity of keys is (for me) comparable to the rarity of gold items i get

it is meant ot be that way so people buy them instead of finding them.

it is all about the gold sinks my friend, and it is long overdue

After having released a post complaining about the drops from chests I went out and immediately got two sets of gold armour. One yielded superior smiting and the other superior health! I know I should have sold them un-id ed but I just had to know what they were. Sold them to the merch for 16.5k

Not such a gold sink after all.....lol

I brought 4 keys and spend 1.9k. And I only use one of them to get me a gold shield

Key drops is rare because i only saw one of them drop last night when i was playing for 2 hours

If you guys were able to get this far, then you should have 50K or more. Money is never an issue cause its so easy to make. First time out after update, I bought 10 shriver & 10 mines keys.

in the long run it most certainly will be a great gold sink.

the traders reflect wht is happening in the marketplace. just wait till more and more come on the market the prices at the merchants will go loower and lower

Really? At least three keys dropped in the Ice Caves run my guild did last night...?

I played about 6 hours and had 0 key drops.

The chests were also fairly horrible. Out of 10 chests, I had 1 gold item which wasn't that good. Max damage staff 12 energy. 1 major rune, 1 minor rune, lots of other max damage but otherwise useless crap.

I did get a gold item DROP which turned out to be a sup prot rune which I'm trying to figure out what to do with, but chests seem to be a big money waster.

In regards to having 50k+, I don't believe that's true. I've not bought a single weapon/armor/rune/etc. all game, played enough to complete all missions and bonus, and only have 30k. So I'd say most people have way less than that w/o doing UW farms.

I've opened 7 chests, both shiverpeak and miners, on my current run using keys and i have also opened 3 chests in the kilroy quest (the suicidal aggro dwarf).

All items have been purple.... minor runes, purple wands with no stats and a crappy purple which looks like it came from a skeleton mesmer at nebo terrace.

Last night, golds were dropping like crazy. I had unlocked a few things and almost everything was worth keeping. It seems like i am struggling to even find the chests now...has some been removed?

I may just be having bad luck but how are peoples chest drops going? At the moment i'm thinking of not even buying anymore keys.
Sorry if i sound pessimistic, don't misunderstand me though, i am having a blast ...i just want some more golden (or green) goodies.

played about 3 hours and got 1 key drop

as for plats i have never been even IN thr UW/FOW and have about 400k so it can be done

I played 2 hours yesterday after the update. Enough to get to the war camp and complete the first 2 quests off glint.

I used 3 keys to open chests. 1 purple armor item that turned out to be a minor tactics rune, 1 gold armor item that turned to be a superior mesmer rune and a gold necro staff with +3 insightfull +5 armor vs physical and another mod that required a mesmer att.
All in all I see potential in this.

The way I think about it is this:
You are in a pug or with henchies doing quests. You would/should be killing enough to get gold and other regular drops that at the end of the run should offset(or come close to it) the cost of the keys you used to open the chests you came across.
If you think about it like this then everything you get off the chests are bonus

Anyway..... I haven't used the miner's keys yet. I'm guessing those chests
are inside SF? Haven't visited it as of yet.

Sent.-

I did a quick chest run this noon on my lunch hour and eight shiverpeak chests netted me 4 nice gold items. I also tried two quick mountain troll runs north of Droknars and they dropped a key each run.

Yes, half of the time you get purple junk but the one really nice item that drops is worth the gamble in the long run. The very first chest I found north of Port Sledge netted me a sweet staff with a +30 HP hale head that my new Elem will take advantage of shortly. That mod alone paid for the 50 keys I bought right away.

I don't need to farm for items anymore, just an occasional run to pay for the keys I buy. This update really sticks it to the bots who were farming items to sell for E-bay gold, why pay real cash for GW money when you can go buy a few relatively cheap keys and find your own items? A-net really killed two birds with one stone, I applaud what they did. If you don't want to take your chances with the chests, you can kill the new bosses for the guaranteed perfect green items.

My only concern is how much is ecto going to cost now that have truly nerfed the solo UW monk. Have the drop ratios gone up in UW? If not, they could be pretty pricey soon.

I was in footprint and alteast 3 keys dropped i got one and we were out there no longer than 30 mins. lucky i guess....

Unlike monster drops, keys are even more of a crap shoot, because they typically cost gold each roll. I kinda like 'em though.

Just tried 1 key on chest in Perdition Rock got purple max damage earth staff that I haven't IDed yet...

Good to know I'm not the only one with bad luck when it comes to the key issue... I just can't seem to justify spending 600g (on a shiverpeak key) to get the gold item which... is max damage, but nothing else, or a couple of major runes. If it had happened while going to the one chest all the time, I'd be ok with it.. but.. I only did that a few times (hey, I had to see what it's like) then wasted another 4 keys getting from copperhammer(sp?) to citatel without any decent drops from the chest or otherwise.

So all up, somewhat dissapointing, but I'm glad there are some people out there who get lucky.