Chest

Normal Mode Chests
The landscapes of Tyria, Cantha, Elona, and the known parts of the mists, are all dotted with randomly positioned locked chests, which are guaranteed to contain uncommon or rare items. Whenever your party finds a locked chest, multiple party members can each use their own keys to unlock the chest and get their own loot. Monsters randomly drop chest keys, and you can also buy chest keys from Merchants. Chests differ in regions and can only be unlocked with the appropriate key. A chest can only be opened once per player per time of visiting the area where the chest is in.

A player can open a chest with the corresponding key (i.e. a Krytan Key will open a Krytan Chest). Whoever opens the chest is granted a piece of loot. Therefore, if you open a chest it is not possible for the loot to be assigned to anyone else in your party. Usually, the farther through the game you are the better the loot becomes. The chest loot is randomized for each player so that players may get items of different rarity.

Chest spawns:

With few exceptions, an explorable area ideally has five locked chests.(Tombs Of Primeval Kings contain 3 chests, so you might want to get 3 phantom keys before entering.) Locked chests will always spawn along with a monster group. Therefore it's not possible to find unguarded locked chests. However, sometimes a chest will be associated with a monster group that has yet to spawn (i.e. a hidden pop-up group like Oni) at which case, approaching the chest will cause them to pop-up.

In areas where there are groups that spawn as a result of taking quests or causing certain triggers (like Luxon groups in the Echovald Forest or Stygian groups in the Stygian Veil), the chest will not appear until the group has been triggered. Previously, such chests were unguarded, but since the February 14th, 2007 update they now only appear when their attached spawns are also able to appear.

Normal mode chest loot
Loot in locked chests is usually similar to loot dropped by monsters in the explorable area.

For example, Darkstone Chests in Ring of Fire area display these properties:
 * Chests in Ring of Fire (Mission) and Abaddon's Mouth (Mission) drop Mursaat related loot.
 * Chests in Hell's Precipice (Mission) contain Titan related loot (i.e. Magmas Shield), but one spawned nearby Portal Wraiths contains Undead related loot like Sephis Axe
 * when Final Blow quest is active chests spawned in Perdition Rock then chests in the area can drop White Mantle loot.

Thus, when aiming for specific loot, look for chests that are in an explorable area with monsters that can drop the desired item.

Locked Chests
Locked Chests (chests marked only as the aforementioned) are found in both hard mode and Eye of the North areas, and only lockpicks can open them. The open chest dialog will show your chance of opening chest without breaking the lockpick. Hard mode Locked Chests generally contain much higher quality loot than you would otherwise find in normal mode.

Unlocked Chests
In Pre-Searing, players will find lots of unlocked Hidden Stashes. But in Post-Searing, unlocked chests are very uncommon. However, in the Ascalon region players will find piles of Wreckage that may contain some gold or goods.

Unlocked chests are chests that do not require a key, and can be opened by anyone. However, the loot can be assigned to anyone in your party, including henchmen. In the Realms of the Gods, completing a quest will usually reveal a chest near the reward giver that is also an unlocked chest.

Spread across

Mission/Quest Chests
Several quests include chests (e.g. the quest "The Royal Papers"). These are unlocked and reveal quest items when opened.

Prophecies campaign

 * Chest - The Frost Gate (Mission) which contains the Secret Siege Weapon Plans
 * Chest - Gates of Kryta (Mission) which contains the Orrian Text
 * Chest - Deldrimor Bowl (during The Deserters quest an empty chest will appear)
 * Chest - The Breach (during Charr Reinforcements, four unlocked Chests with random Weapons can be found)
 * Chest - Sorrow's Furnace (during Kilroy Stonekin (Quest), 3 chests with loot for the party)
 * Chest - Sorrow's Furnace (during Tasca's Reprise quest 5 chests will drop from monsters with the Quest Items required to complete this quest)

Factions campaign

 * Chest - Monastery Overlook (this chest is unlocked by Instructor Ng at the start of a Canthan character's training, inside is the Starter weapon for that character's primary profession)
 * Spirit Keepers (sic) - Panjiang Peninsula (these chests appear during the Shackled Spirits quest, and contain Shackled Spirits)
 * Chest - Kinya Province (this chest contains the Ornate Box needed for the quest Lo Sha's Gift)
 * Old Chest - Wajjun Bazaar (this chest is there all the time, but is only opened during the quest Little Lost Bear)
 * Kanaxai's Chest - The Deep, spawns when Kanaxai is defeated. In normal mode it drops two Jadeite Shards and either one inscribable gold item or one of Kanaxai's unique items. In hard mode it drops four Jadeite Shards and two rare or unique items.
 * Urgoz's Chest - Urgoz's Warren, spawns when Urgoz is defeated. In normal mode it drops two Amber Chunks and either one inscribable gold item or one of Urgoz's unique items. In hard mode it drops four Amber Chunks and two rare or unique items.

Nightfall campaign

 * Chest - Barbarous Shore, in the Corsair camp, contains a Preserved Red Iris Flower
 * Treasure Chest, Buried Treasure and "Do Not Touch!" - Locations of the Treasure are scattered throughout Elona. It is believed that they can all be opened by each character once every 30 days.
 * Stygian Chest - Stygian Veil, once you defeat the Dreadspawn Maw, contains 1-8 Stygian Gemstones for each party member1
 * Titan Chest - The Foundry of Failed Creations, once you defeat The Fury, contains 1-8 Titan Gemstones for each party member1
 * Torc'qua Chest - City of Torc'qua, once you defeat Lord Jadoth, contains 1-8 Margonite Gemstones for each party member1
 * Tormented Chest - Ravenheart Gloom, once you defeat The Greater Darkness, contains 1-8 Torment Gemstones for each party member1
 * Citadel Chest - The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx, once you defeat Mallyx the Unyielding. Contains one unique item per party member. See drop rate/Citadel Chest for details.


 * 1 Stygian Chests, Titan Chests, Torc'qua Chests, Tormented Chests, and Citadel Chests work like locked chests except that they don't require a key. The number of anguish gemstones in normal mode is 1 for the first chest opened on a run, 2 for the second chest opened on a run, 3 for the third, and 4 for the fourth; twice the amount in hard mode.

Eye of the North campaign

 * Burrows Chest - Frostmaw's Burrows, once you defeat Frostmaw the Kinslayer, contains randomly two items (a Diamond and a gold item or a gem) for each party member.
 * Chest of the Brotherhood - Glint's Challenge, after surviving the 6 waves of Destroyers. Always contains one Cloth of the Brotherhood.
 * Dragrimmar Chest - Sepulchre of Dragrimmar, once you defeat Remnant of Antiquities, contains one gold item or gem for each party member.
 * Destroyers Chest - Raven's Point, once you defeat (A Destroyer Boss), contains one gold item or gem for each party member.
 * Havok's Chest - Darkrime Delves, once you defeat Havok Soulwail, contains one gold item, green item (Havok's Shield or gem for each party member.
 * Murakai's Chest - Cathedral of Flames, once you defeat Murakai, Lady of the Night
 * Wintersdays Past Chest - Secret Lair of the Snowmen, once you defeat the Snowman boss, contains two Wintersdays themed items.

Core

 * Chest - winning the Hall of Heroes in the Global Tournament will spawn a chest that drops high level loot. This chest drops Celestial Sigils, as well as certain rare weapon skins such as Crystalline Swords, Dwarven Axes, Runic Blades, Legendary Swords, and Stygian Reavers, and the rare Miniature Ghostly Hero. See drop rate/Hall of Heroes chest for details.
 * Chest - The Fissure of Woe and The Underworld (chests will appear after completion of some quests). Purple Dwarven Axes and Crystalline Swords have been known to drop from these chests.

Trivia

 * There used to be two unlocked chests, one in Dreadnought's Drift, and one in Ice Floe just outside the exit from Thunderhead Keep. These were removed in the March 2, 2006 update.
 * At launch, all chests in the Prophecies campaign were unlocked, and would randomly produce two to five items of blue to gold quality when opened. While these chests were relatively inaccessible in many areas, other areas, such as Witman's Folly, were easily farmed by single players. In the Sorrow's Furnace update, the key system was introduced, negating the easy profits of such chest runs while improving quality to compensate for the reduced volume and initial cost.

Related articles

 * Treasure
 * Key
 * Lockpick