Blade & Soul has a specific process in order for you to obtain loot. Loot can start at a locked chest, an unlocked chest, or a sealed drop. Locked chests require keys, unlocked chests just require inventory space, and all loot must be unsealed with an unsealing charm. The specific type of key you use determines the outcome of weapon chests, whereas any other type of chest or loot won't specifically matter. We'll go through the process starting with the locked chests and move to unsealing, which you should read because it's important to know what you should and shouldn't unseal.
Like, seriously important.
Weapon Chests - The Keys of Evil
Anytime you receive an upgrade or breakthrough weapon, used for enhancing your hongmoon set, then it will come inside of a chest. There is two options on how to open the chest. The first is a regular 'ol key from the vendor, quest rewards, or the daily spin. Regular keys will give you a random chance at a weapon, which is bound to you. If it's not for your class, then you'll save that weapon for use in upgrading later on. If you get a weapon for your class then yay, you can now upgrade your weapon. If you use any key but the market key for the specific zone, then you will get the RNG drop.
- Hongmoon Brilliant Viridian Key: 80 NCoin / Hongmoon Coins
- Hongmoon Brilliant Cinderlands Key: 240 NCoin / Hongmoon Coins
- Hongmoon Brilliant Moonwater Key: 600 NCoin / Hongmoon Coins
If you want your weapon the first time around, invest into one of the keys from the Hongmoon store. You don't have to and you'll face RNG luck, but it makes some parts of the game go by faster. Obviously, early in the game there is no need. In Everdusk, when you have your first chance to get an upgrade weapon, you can farm tokens for the wheel very easily, so you can burn your keys that way.
Keys can also be used to just unlock treasure chests, in which case you won't really need the Hongmoon shop key.
Loot Bidding
When you get a drop, if your group is set to default (especially in the group finder), then you'll enter into a loot bid. You'll see the item and can bid money on it. Depending on who wins the item, the rest of the group who are still at the bidding window will get a share of the final proceeds. Be very careful, as you can bid up very quickly, and players can be sneaky and if they notice you spamming the bids, they can increase it by a large amount, then you click to accept, and they get tons of cash and you get the loot.
Unsealing
All items in the game are sealed. The only reason to unseal an item is to either equip it (especially in the case of soul shards) or to use it in the Hongmoon Item breakthrough system. All Unsealing Charms in the game should work for any item up to level 50 and are sold by vendors, so never worry about running low (the Hongmoon version). The regular version often sales for 10s on the marketplace.
You'll use the unsealing charm to either equip the item or otherwise to use it in the upgrade system. Otherwise there is no point. Early on you might want to unseal everything, but it's better to just not. Unsealing doesn't impact the upgrade level and the Unsealing Charms are rather valuable in their own right. Hongmoon Unsealing Charms will need more for epic items than the regular crafted version, which is why you'll see Unsealing Charms on the marketplace for 10s, and then Hongmoon Unsealing Charms on vendors. So if you're unsealing a blue or green, use your Hongmoon ones, but if you're unsealing an epic, use the regular ones if you got 'em.
That's about all of the interesting bits to Blade & Soul's loot system! Remember, you can buy Hongmoon Unsealing Charms off of vendors, but Unsealing Charms need to be crafted or obtained through quests.
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