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How hard is it to open a Paragon Chest, truly?!?

Vahrane

Novice
So, I started a lockpicker/trap remover a couple days ago to try and open a couple paragon boxes I had as well as to start working on a few low end treasure maps. After a few days of off and on macro sessions I have GM'd both picking and remove trap. Along the way I managed to open the lesser paragon chest (it had junk inside). The lesser box required 80 skill in each to have a 1% chance of success. So I figured at master (90) I could tackle the regular paragon chest. Wrong! So, I got my skills to 100. Meanwhile, I was checking forum posts about this, and learned that I needed a better set of tools to help my chances. So I hit 100, noticed the box finally says 1% success chance (huzzah!), and went to get a set of better tools. I ended up getting some gold tools which brought that 1% chance up to 1%!!! This leads me to believe that a Greater Chest potentially requires 120/120?!

Am I missing something here? How fricken hard are these cursed boxes to open? Do I need GM skills AND Valorite or better tools or something?!? I get that you can get skills to 120 here, but it seems a little silly that a normal paragon chest is this hard to open (especially considering I'd read somewhere that they were made easier to crack!). Basically, it took less effort to kill the paragon creature that dropped the box then it is taking to open the box itself. I've seen a number of posts wherein other players are offering their services to open these chests for people (kudos to all those guys btw), but, personally, I would prefer to be able to open at least lesser and normal paragon boxes myself. Any advice would be appreciated as I'd prefer not to shell out more gold for Valorite tools if that will still end up leaving me at a 1% success chance. Thanks in advance.

P.S. I fully understand it sounds like I'm whining/complaining here, however, I do really enjoy the shard, going so far as to recommend it to friends and mentioning it in YouTube posts on videos where forlorn mmo gamers are looking for something to play. Still, I can't help but feel a little frustrated about these damnable boxes. The lack of any concrete info about the requirements being the most irritating factor.
 
Make sure the tools you bought are exceptional. My Lockpick was around 102 and with verite exceptional I could open greater paragons without much trouble.

If you've got the cores etc you could also unlock fortune which would increase your chances.
 
Make sure the tools you bought are exceptional. My Lockpick was around 102 and with verite exceptional I could open greater paragons without much trouble.

If you've got the cores etc you could also unlock fortune which would increase your chances.

They're definitely exceptional tools... I mean 1) I wouldn't have bought them otherwise and 2) In my experience at least, no one sells crafted items that aren't exceptional. Thanks for the thought nonetheless, but I don't think it's the tools fault in this instance. As for the fortune aspect, unfortunately I started just over a week ago and have very few aspect materials. Although fortune aspect has some merits I don't feel that it'd be prudent to make it my first unlock.
 
As it turns out, the chest gump doesn't seem to be recognizing the gold tools I purchased. When I attempt to click the gump for either trap removal or lockpicking it tells me that I don't have the necessary tools or something to that effect. I believe this is a bug although I'm not certain. By manually applying the tools I was able to remove the trap in about 5 attempts while the lock itself took nearly 40 attempts to crack. Since there's no change from the 1% success rate displayed by the gump when I have only the gold tools in my pack I can only assume something is functioning incorrectly. If more experienced players agree that this sounds like a potential bug I have no problem writing up a report.
 
You actually need to click through the arrows on the gump, to get to the gold colored tools - that's a tough color because of bronze and other ones that are similar on those small graphics..
 
^Sifting for your tool type (initially) can be a challenge. It would be cool if a mouse hover would tell us the ore type of our tool.

With 95 Disarm/Lockpicking and Verite tools you can open Greater Paragon Chests.

Protip: Use a locked house and keep the paragon chest in a secure chest while working it. Never disarm things in your inventory imo!
 
You actually need to click through the arrows on the gump, to get to the gold colored tools - that's a tough color because of bronze and other ones that are similar on those small graphics..

Thanks for the reply AreYouKidden! I must just not have noticed the ability to select between tools through the gump. While I believed it could have been a bug, the potential for user error is, as demonstrated in this case, ever present; especially so for me considering I'm still fairly inexperienced with this server. My initial thought was that it just defaulted to the best tool in your pack. Anyhow, I made sure to throw you a like. Thanks again!
 
^Sifting for your tool type (initially) can be a challenge. It would be cool if a mouse hover would tell us the ore type of our tool.

With 95 Disarm/Lockpicking and Verite tools you can open Greater Paragon Chests.

Protip: Use a locked house and keep the paragon chest in a secure chest while working it. Never disarm things in your inventory imo!

These are some good tips and a potential baseline for Greater Paragon Chests Madcap. Hopefully this thread will serve as something of an impromptu guide for anyone looking to crack their own chests in the future. I was kind of surprised to find minimum requirements available for both T-Maps and Dungeon Chests on the wiki but nothing for Paragon Chests. Thanks for the info!
 
Thanks for the reply AreYouKidden! I must just not have noticed the ability to select between tools through the gump. While I believed it could have been a bug, the potential for user error is, as demonstrated in this case, ever present; especially so for me considering I'm still fairly inexperienced with this server. My initial thought was that it just defaulted to the best tool in your pack. Anyhow, I made sure to throw you a like. Thanks again!

I 100% agree - it's one of the clunkier systems in the game - the reality is some people will use lesser tools, due to costs - so you don't want it settling on the best tool in your bag - but they could definitely do a better job - like changing the tool dependent on the tool you click in your bag, or showing the color of the tool, beside the graphic - since some are so close it's hard to see colors.. I many times click and see it says no tool available, then click to the next one looking like that color and do it all over again! :)

Glad you got it going!

And I still don't know what the minimum requirements for Paragon Chests are after a year of picking! Partly because once you can pick them you don't worry about it anymore :p
 
^Sifting for your tool type (initially) can be a challenge. It would be cool if a mouse hover would tell us the ore type of our tool.

With 95 Disarm/Lockpicking and Verite tools you can open Greater Paragon Chests.

Protip: Use a locked house and keep the paragon chest in a secure chest while working it. Never disarm things in your inventory imo!
hey what skill are u referring to when u say disarm?