Comprehensive Guide to Farming Chests for 19-24 BoEs
Preface
Hello,
my name is Neil and I have been going by Shft in the Free to Play (F2P, 20-24) bracket since almost the very beginning of unlimited F2P. While I have since moved on from playing my 20s, I spent a lot of time searching for BiS BoE blues. Since F2P accounts cannot trade or use mail and the auction house, the only real way to acquire these world drop BoEs is from chests that spawn in appropriate level zones.
This thread is inspired by
Kale's and
Trialcasual's
previousthreads about chest farming. (Kale seems to have deleted all of the original posts out of his started threads for some unknown reason, you can find a screenshot of the OP on page 17) While I took the majority of the screenshots provided here were taken by myself many of the screenshots were taken by
Harleybow, without whom this thread would not be possible. Using Harley's info I myself often found the locations of the chests and took my own screenshots for consistency. I'd also like to thank Bieberfeverrr, Rhaellia, Decem, and Sabekith for their contributions to the guide in one way or another.
The point of this guide is to provide direction to any F2P, 19, or even 24 looking to find BoE blue items that they could not otherwise obtain due to a trial account or possibly gold constraints. If you've just finished leveling your 20 Priest, 19 Warrior, or 24 Druid and are looking for items such as a
Magician's Mantle,
Thorbia's Gauntlets, or a
Silver-Lined Belt this is the guide for you.
There are basically 7 viable zones to farm chests in for BoEs. The level of the zone is directly related to the level of the BoEs the chests contain. A 20-25 zone will contain the lowest level BoEs. If you look for chests in lower level zones you will find that there are no blues in the chests, only greens. Of course, the greens aren't really worth anything. If you search for chests in higher level zones such a 25-30 zones you will find higher level BoEs such as Silver-Lined Belt (you can also find this particular item in the 20-25 zones) as well as a smaller amount of lower level BoEs.
With that said, the 7 zones are Stonetalon Mountains, Ashenvale, Hillsbrad Foothills, Wetlands, Arathi Highlands, and Stranglethorn Vale. Stonetalon, Ashenvale, Hillsbrad, and Wetlands are of the appropriate level for the BoEs F2Ps will want most. Arathi Highlands and Stranglethorn vale are higher level zones and are generally a waste of time for F2Ps to search for chests in. That being said, Arathi Highlands has a few chest spawns which are barely out of the way when moving from Hillsbrad Foothills to Wetlands and thus I think it is worth it for F2Ps and especially higher level P2Ps to check some if not all of the locations. Bear in mind that since it is a higher level zone F2Ps might very well have trouble with some of the mobs and thus some classes might need help or might just have to skip Arathi and even some locations in other zones.
My personal experience has been that Stonetalon Mountains is the best location to farm because of the low amount of players who quest in that zone. I have also found that Duskwood is by far the worst zone search for chests in because of the extremely high amount of players. This is because of the extreme popularity of humans at this point in the game an also because the human starting zone is one of the quickest zones to quest in. Another thing to mention, most if not all of the chests in Duskwood are very near to quest objectives, causing them to be easily found by questers and thus found less by those of us searching for BoEs. Since for me Duskwood has given very poor turnouts for chests I have chosen to not visit Duskwood at all and thus Stranglethorn Vale has been excluded from the guide because it is both out of the way from my normal route and also higher level.
Another thing to keep in mind is that even though I have had the most success in Stonetalon and the least in Duskwood doesn't mean that your experience will be the same. I suggest to make a route of all the zones if you are seriously dedicating yourself to finding that precious BoE.
The last thing I have to say to preface the guide is something obvious but most likely overlooked: what times to search for chests? If you're a P2P you can check chests really fast with 280+ flying and even 150% flying but if you're a F2P checking chests is going to take you a lot longer, You aren't one-shotting the mobs around, you aren't shooting across the continent very fast, so what is the best way to spend your time? Well, as indicated in one of the original chest threads, chests seem to have a spawn time of somewhere around 8 hours. Blizzard doesn't give out data like this so we can really only guess. I wouldn't expect a chest to respawn exactly 8 hours from when you last looted it. With this 8 hour time frame in mind though we can pick apart times and find a good time to farm chests. Obviously not everyone will be able to farm at the optimal time due to school or work or because they are from the EU. My best luck with chests has been anywhere from ~8 hours after the start of prime time on your server until the morning. From morning to mid-day when lots of players get off work, get out of school, or finish classes is also a solid time to search for chests.
Last edited by Shft; 08-12-2013 at 10:14 AM.
Basic Info
These are what you're going to be looking for, now might be a good time to familiarize yourself. While you might think that they are easy to spot, these are not your average vanilla chest and often they blend into the environment, becoming hard to distinguish from any other doodad ingame.
You can find more screenshots and Wowhead maps at their respective Wowhead pages:
Maplewood Treasure Chest
Runestone Treasure Chest
Dark Iron Treasure Chest
Sturdy Treasure Chest
Silverbound Treasure Chest
Another thing to keep in mind is that some zones have multiple kinds of chests. For example, the coast of Ashenvale has Runestone Treasure Chests while the rest of the zone has Sturdy Treasure Chests. Using Wowhead maps you can find all the chest locations of a certain type of chest in a zone, but looking for two types of chests in a single zone can be a pain if you don't know the locations, perhaps even causing you to page hop squinting at the little Wowhead pings. Using the Wowhead maps and also undocumented locations I have created maps of all the known chest locations allowing you to easily look through the zones without having to constantly swap between pages on Wowhead.
The maps I created are combined with Imgur albums full of pictures of each and every chest spawn in a given zone. What does this mean? No more questions about where the ping is on the map, no trying to get to the spot of the ping and then not being sure if there is no chest or if you can't find it.
Screenshot Albums
Below you can find links to the Imgur albums of chest locations as well as basic routes that I use while on my P2P while farming chests. Different routes may be obviously more efficient on a character who cannot fly, like a F2P.
The way I would suggest using these is with 2 browser tabs open for a single zone, one tab with the map and the other with the whole album so you can continue scrolling down without having to go back to the top every time you forget where the next location is. In time you will most likely learn all of the spawns by heart like I have myself. Happy Hunting!
Ashenvale
Stonetalon Mountains
Hillsbrad Foothills
Arathi Highlands
Wetlands
Duskwood
Basic Routes
