Regarding gold chests

[sharkantropo]

I'm quite fan of loot everything and leave nothing behind. And after cleaning a floor if there's a chest or vault, I prepare always escape routes before open any of it (dig my way to any exit mostly). Then, when I open those, these are the most common scenerarios:

- 10% of times-, big relief, nothing appears but the loot.

-20% of times-, mi character is surrounded by weak normal monsters. Not big deal.

-30% of times-, a weak or two rares appear (with "weak" I mean something with a set of skills you can easily handle like a melee monster without rush against an Archmage or Archer or something which main move is inflict status effects you are immune to). Manage to kill them with being careful enough.

-50% of times-, something nasty appears a boss/a strong rare (mostly with corruptor,doomed,necromancers,summoner,temporal skills or worse ). My wisest move is to gave up the loot and just escape, leaving it hanging around in the floor. When I feel foolish,confident and strong I try to bring them down and most times I ended up One-Shotted. I rarely have an entertaining long battle whose final outcome is guaranteed thanks to advantages the local terrain has to offer.

Since most of my deaths are due RNG being an usual douchebag, I decided not to open gold chest in early game ever again, specially those whose spawns in Golem Graveyard/Assassin Lord Hideout/Labyrinth/Dark Crypt. Even opening vaults aren't as traumatizing as it is with golden chests.

My questions are the following: Do you find opening gold chests worth the risk? And for roguelike players, do you afford the risk or skip them?.

[Atarlost]

The reward is commensurate with the risk. You can get very good items from floor chests, up to tier 5 as early as the maze. Randarts are associated with randboss (not merely rare) chest guardians.

[HousePet]

I always open the chests.
But I play on normal and adventure mode, and enjoy risky behaviour.

[Matanui3]

What difficulty are you on?
I play on Normal, and have only very rarely had a problem with things spawned from a chest.

[Davion Fuxa]

Chests are definitely worth looking into - especially on Normal or Nightmare difficulty. Even if something pops out that you can't handle, just run from it and leave it for later - or never return. The Rewards can usually be worth it.

[sharkantropo]

What difficulty are you on?
I play on Normal, and have only very rarely had a problem with things spawned from a chest.

Well I mostly have problems with chests in early game during the so called tier-2 with rares casting instantaneous skills.
Since I started more or less a week ago. I play normal/roguelike Adventures, trying different classes.

I always open the chests.
But I play on normal and adventure mode, and enjoy risky behaviour.

I used to always open chests. But since all my roguelike characters died due to chest guardians(have to admit these death are by overconfidence, right now when I glimpse a major threat I try to escape and leave the floor behind, like a lvl 40 unkillable eternal bone golem in the halfling complex that forced me to skip an entire floor) I have been wondering if really worth it to risk a playthrough at early stages of the game.

The reward is commensurate with the risk. You can get very good items from floor chests, up to tier 5 as early as the maze. Randarts are associated with randboss (not merely rare) chest guardians.

Often is in the maze where mostly I died or ran away against chest guardians. Gold Chest does scale with your level at the moment you open it or when you enter the zone?.

Chests are definitely worth looking into - especially on Normal or Nightmare difficulty. Even if something pops out that you can't handle, just run from it and leave it for later - or never return. The Rewards can usually be worth it.

Indeed. I have been doing that with my last character.

To be fair. I have improved my map awareness by Dying againts rares in general. But I always trying to not commit the same mistakes from a previous playthrough. I never died against Urkis, The Master or the weirdling beast and even in the dark crypt. But always against chest guardians that in theory must be clearly weaker than those, I feel a bit dumb .

[Atarlost]

One thing that helps is to open chests after you've cleared the level so teleportation is safe.

[xnd]

i always do every chest, dont think ive ever had trouble at them but the vaults murder me.

[xSeQueL]

I open every single chest as well, very rarely do I die to them but the rewards are worth.

[Isotope-X]

This is one of the reasons that I love Paradox Mages...just look into the future and see what the chest guardians are.

[sharkantropo]

One thing that helps is to open chests after you've cleared the level so teleportation is safe.

That's what I'm doing lately. Saving a slot for teleport in early game even for characters I planned to make them antimagic aftewards (movement infusions with 300% speed or below don't help to escape at all, so I take the quest when I hit 20 level and found some good one that scales with primary stat).

Recently I have been succesful with this strategy in regards of opening chest.

i always do every chest, dont think ive ever had trouble at them but the vaults murder me.

Indeed the monster inside vaults are quite tough. But I never died inside one because I always open it after reach a level +5 or +10 higher than the leveled zone after entered it.

This is one of the reasons that I love Paradox Mages...just look into the future and see what the chest guardians are.

Yeh. Unfortunately the number of times you can use it is limited.

[jaumito]

This is one of the reasons that I love Paradox Mages...just look into the future and see what the chest guardians are.

Yeh. Unfortunately the number of times you can use it is limited.

Wormhole makes PMs even better at dealing with chests, since you can cast it ON the chest and choose an exit location out of LoS (you can even raise a barrier first if there isn't anything nearby to hide behind.) This way you can open the chest and insta-port to safety in the same turn, and the chest guardian(s) isn't/aren't even aware you were here.

[Herode_]

I played "normal adventure" for my first games (always died before lvl 25) then normal roguelike games by now (still dying, btw...).
And I always open chests. I died once or twice the first times, but even if some guardians are tough, I've always managed to eventually beat them.
And believe me, I'm far from being an elite player.
The chest guardians are not the ones who kill me. I very much fear vaults and crypts.
Never, never open a coffin, there are unholly things sleeping inside !!

Also, most characters have escape options : teleport, phase door (spells or runes), evade, shield repell, etc...
Even surrounded, it is often possible to stun part of your opponents, kill one and disengage in order to find a better tactical position.
Except if you open a coffin...

[sharkantropo]

I played "normal adventure" for my first games (always died before lvl 25) then normal roguelike games by now (still dying, btw...).
And I always open chests. I died once or twice the first times, but even if some guardians are tough, I've always managed to eventually beat them.
And believe me, I'm far from being an elite player.
The chest guardians are not the ones who kill me. I very much fear vaults and crypts.
Never, never open a coffin, there are unholly things sleeping inside !!

Also, most characters have escape options : teleport, phase door (spells or runes), evade, shield repell, etc...
Even surrounded, it is often possible to stun part of your opponents, kill one and disengage in order to find a better tactical position.
Except if you open a coffin...

i always open vaults at +35 lvl. And yes, having an escape option is crucial with any character, And I have to admit that's the road to victory playing with any combination race/class.

Whith unholy things you mean unique eternal bone guardians?! Because that thing prevented me weeks ago to achieve my first victory in Normal Adventure, so close.. at 5fth floor of high peak

Wormhole makes PMs even better at dealing with chests, since you can cast it ON the chest and choose an exit location out of LoS (you can even raise a barrier first if there isn't anything nearby to hide behind.) This way you can open the chest and insta-port to safety in the same turn, and the chest guardian(s) isn't/aren't even aware you were here.

I only played a little PM and never tried wormholes . Sounds worth getting though.

[mikekchar]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think it's not so much a problem with opening chests as it is being able to deal with rares/uniques. On normal mode, I think you should be able to handle pretty much anything that comes out of a chest. Now, normally I am about 12th level before I hit any chests (or possibly 10th or 11th if I am using a race with a huge XP penalty, but then they are OP anyway). At that point, there are only a very few things that should present any problem.

To be honest, I used to have a great deal of difficulty, but now I look forward the worst that a chest can throw at me. I'm very disappointed if nothing pops out to fight. I'm ecstatic if I get a boss. Here are a few tips for dealing with them:

1) Inspect every rare/unique/boss and *read* the descriptions of any talents they have that you aren't familiar with.
2) Anytime you get a debuff on you, hover over it and *read* the description.

These 2 things will help you more than anything else. You may still die at first, but you can start recognizing the talents/debuffs that are going to be a problem and start to think of counter strategies.

3) If there is only one rare/unique/boss, stun/confuse or otherwise shut them down immediately. *Check* that you have succeeded by hovering over them. Keep them debilitated by keeping track of when their stun/confusion wears off and replace it with another debuff. Multiple opponents require a similar strategy but also requires that you move so that you can only be hit by one of them at a time.
4) Keep track of the number of talents that are likely on cool down on the rare/unique/boss. For example, stun puts 3 abilities on cool down for the duration of the stun. Keep track of which abilities have been used and hence are on cool down. Look at the list of talents that they have and decide whether you need to double up on debuffs (stun & confusion, 2 x stun, etc).

Normally at low levels a rare will only have a handful of talents and once you have them sort of perma-stunned they pose almost no risk.

5) Fight carefully and abuse whatever inability that a creature might have. Many times I have come up to a Jelly Berserker or something that can completely own me if I stand next to it. But even if I am a melee character, it's easy to keep distance from a Jelly and slowly whittle down its health.
6) Similarly *look* at the resistances your opponent has. Some monsters have 100% stun resistance. Trying to stun them is going to do absolutely nothing except probably get you killed.

It is very easy to get to a stage where you have gone 1 or 2 turns without paying attention and find yourself in a situation where you are just going to die. When fighting rares/uniques/bosses, you must *think* about every turn and pull every trick out of your bag.

7) Figure out a safety margin. For example, how much health do you need to feel 100% safe? How many debuffs can you tolerate? How much posion/disease, etc can you deal with. (Be very careful about diseases which lower your strength because if you are carrying lots of crap, you will be immobilized). Once you are below your safety margin, run away.
After you have run away, heal up and then scout out the situation again. If your opponent has healed up too, then chances are *you can not beat this opponent without dying*. If not, you might be able to take the "chop down the tree" approach and slowly take away health while frequently running away (although it is quite risky).
9) *Use* your tools to extend your safety margin. Wild infusions are *better* for reducing damage than for clearing debuffs. A 15-20% damage reduction means you can stand in there 20% more time. Similarly, thorny skin can often give you 7 turns where you will take very little damage. Shields will give you 4-5 turns. If your opponent is hitting you for 20 damage per turn, then popping a regeneration immediately can mean that you essentially suffer no damage (rather than waiting until you are already half dead).

Knowing when you are "safe" and being able to extend the time in the "safety zone" is key to chopping down opponents. Do *not* stick around when you get into the danger zone. Run away. Do *not* come back if you have very little chance of controlling the fight while in the "safety zone".

Finally

10) Practice. This requires you to be fine with sacrificing a few characters in order to get better, but you are going to anyway, so might as well do it on purpose. Get yourself to 12th level and then go hunting adventurer parties and ziguranth patrols. You get 2-4 rares in each go. I've done it so much now that I'm sure I only die once in every 20-30 attempts.

Hope that helps!