Chest

For items equipped in the chest slot, see Category:Chest items.

A chest is a world object that usually contains money, tradeskill materials, food and drink, or the occasional piece of equipment. Some chests may be locked and will need to be opened with keys, an explosive charge made by engineers, or by the rogue's lockpicking ability.

Since patch 2.1.0, lootable world objects (such as chests) follow group loot rules, meaning that group members can distribute loot found in chests just as they would on drops from ordinary mobs. For a time, opening chests takes a bit of time, and they cannot be opened while in combat but since around Warlords of Draenor or Legion, they open after a cast bar and kneeling animation. Since patch 7.1.5, opening chests became more of an instant-interact.

From vanilla through Wrath of the Lich King, chests were of abundance throughout the world and dungeons. However, between patch 2.1.0 and patch 3.0.2, dungeon chests were quietly removed or relocated such as being moved behind bosses to prevent solo farming. Player recollections remember the Mechanar chest farm being dead by patch 2.4.0.^[1]

Chests from vanilla through Cataclysm may contain various kinds of items up to equipment while in later expansions since at least Legion, chests typically contain the expansion's resource (e.g. [Order Resources]), junk, money, and possibility for tradeskill materials.