Chest ransack


 * This page is about the mechanic that limits chest and quest reward loot. For the quest XP bonus from breaking objects, see Experience points.

Chest Ransack Timer
Looting a chest too often within a certain span of time can temporarily reduce the quality and amount of treasure that chest generates for you. This is to prevent players from farming the same chest over and over, especially chests that certain builds can reach quickly and chests that contain highly sought named items.

Every single chest in the game has its own chest ID and "ransack timer". Timers are tracked separately for each character. They are not tracked separately for each difficulty level (with a couple of exceptions).

When a chest is opened: if there is no active chest timer for that chest, it generates normal loot for you and the game starts a secret timer that lasts exactly 7 days (168 hours), right down to the minute.
 * Normal loot drops the first through eighth times you loot that chest within those 7 days (counting the first one that started the timer).
 * Starting on the ninth chest looting: you get a ransack warning notice, most chest-specific named items cannot appear, and the chest's loot level is reduced by 1 for each time beyond 8 that the chest has generated loot.
 * You get no loot at all once you've driven the loot level to 0.
 * How long this takes depends on the initial loot level.
 * Effectively, you can loot 8 times per 7 days without ransack. The 9th looting is the first to be reduced (and have no named loot).

The ransack timer counts down even through game updates and server outages. Once it runs out, that chest refreshes completely. It'll provide full loot and start the timer again the next time it's freshly opened.

Tips
Due to the way the ransack mechanic works, if you close and re-open a chest, it shows you the message you would get from your next looting, not the current one. So if you get no message on your first opening, but re-opening it gives you a ransack warning, you know you just got your 8th and last set of normal loot this period and your next run will be penalized unless you wait the timer out. This is an easy way to know if you will soon be ransacked without keeping track.

Opening a chest repeatedly in one quest does not advance your ransack count extra times. This has been confirmed by a developer, and tested (link).

Because the chest timer does not reset each time you loot the chest, you only need to wait 7 days from the first time you open the chest for the chest to be reset. So, you could loot the chest once, wait 6 days, then loot the chest 7 times within that last day of the chest timer, then loot the chest an additional 8 times after that day has elapsed. So, you can "pre-set" a chest's timer 6 days before a planned loot boost weekend and then loot the chest 15 times on that weekend.

Drops

 * Chests with 100% static loot have no ransack rules.
 * Prey on the Hunter, Tempest Rune for Dragontouched Armor and Toothpick
 * Eye of the Titan clam

Doesn't Drop

 * Almost all chest-specific named items
 * Gianthold Tor Dragon Scales
 * Greensteel ingredients - Raw ingredients, Shavarath Stones, Small/Mid/Larges
 * Reaver's Refuge Draconic Runes
 * Guild Renown tokens
 * Seals and shards for Epic Crafting

Quest Rewards
Quest end rewards can be "ransacked" as well, with a similar mechanic.