How to Adjust to the Dungeon Key Changes?

With the Dungeon Key Changes the landscape of dungeoneering drastically changed this week. Despite some concerns it looks like players are going to have to live with the system for now. So we might as well try to make the best out of it! Let’s look at how players need to adjust to the changes. What should they do and avoid?

Spam your keys!

The good news is: Dungeon runs you own keys for received a significant upgrade with more loot. First reports indicate the drop rates are indeed nice and even unbound goods can be had. With the market bound to crash on the involved items it’s best to spam dungeons as long as you have keys. Most VIPs should have piled up on Epic Dungeon Chest at least, but you probably also have campaign ones that you never used due to bad loot. There’s no point saving them any longer.

Only run dungeons with keys!

After you’ve burnt through your leftover keys, it obviously makes little sense to continue farming. Now it’s no keys, no loot, no run. Do the content you have the corresponding keys for. If you only have the Daily Chest Keys, Temple of the Spider still is the best option. Some might throw in CN here, but don’t forget Rank 8s only drop from the second chest and are a significant part of the revenue.

In case you’re completely out of keys, probably because you are no VIP, then you want to turn to the content that offers free chests. All Skirmishes and Trials other than Svardborg have them. In most cases you want to look no further than Shores of Tuern though. It’s easy, completable in light-speed and offers some Seals, guaranteed Salvage and daily ADs for the first two runs.

Demogorgon and Svardborg farming is gone…

DemogorgonDemogorgon and Svardborg is the content where the new system really hurts a lot! Without the ability to generate chests you can peek into by farming the Trials, you are completely dependent on RNGesus to deliver the shiny orange Marks and Rings. Even with increased drop rates, it’s probably going to get harder to farm for the Legendaries because you’ll do way less runs.

While Svardborg is only a pain to farm the keys, the Greater Demonic one additionally competes against Castle Never. With the latter arguably being the more lucrative run, it’s incredibly hard to justify spending keys in the Trial.

Legendary Dragon Keys are progression only!

Legendary Dragon Keys are only viable for progression now, because it’s impossible to get equal value back. Make sure to only use them if you absolutely want to fast forward. Granted, we don’t know all details and drop rates from the new system yet. But we would be very surprised if dungeons returned loot worth 25,000 AD per run. In any case make sure to get a sufficient amount of runs in with free keys to properly be able to assess the situation. The same applies to the Epic Dungeon Keys in the Wondrous Bazaar.

Which keys are worth it?

If you don’t want to use the bought keys than all you can do is farm for additional ones. Now obviously if you’re aiming for a piece of the new gear, you need the corresponding keys for the dungeon. But if you just want to get the most out of your daily runs, the suggestion is to farm Dread Ring for T1 and Faerzress for Castle Never and Underdark Skirmishes. The good thing about the Tower Key is that you only need to run the daily lair for it. And doing Castle Never and Underdark Skirmishes generate the necessary currency while running the content.

If you’re Fishing in the Sea of Moving Ice and doing the dailies, keys for Fangbreaker should be a non-issue. It’s not so easy for Svardborg. Especially the Heroic Encounters are a noticeable time commitment and the Fish from Treasures alone don’t net enough to keep pace with the other chests. There will be a point where you have to ask yourself whether these orange weapons are actually worth the trouble.

I personally am not a big fan of Tyranny and Well of Dragons dailies. They take too long and you have a very competitive choice for campaign currency in Lessers. Same can be said about Fey Blessings and Sharandar. The Enchantments are a guaranteed 10,000 AD net plus without the need to run a dungeon and get a lucky RNG roll. Icewind Dale isn’t worth the effort either.

ALT characters

The game essentially switched to hard cap on available dungeons per day. Runs are limited to the number of free or farmable keys per day, which makes alternate characters important. The more you have, the more keys you can forge and claim, and the more runs you can make. This is not really a big change in the game though, because ALTs always had their role due to the daily ADs, but still worth mentioning.

Double Campaign Currency Events

With campaign currency becoming more important to forge keys, the attached Double events will as well. Unfortunately this directly competes against Stronghold and Campaign progression so players face some choices down the road. Again the Underdark event might be the way to go in terms of keys because you are not limited by dailies. In any case you’ll probably be spending much more time revisiting campaigns than you used to.


That’s it for my dungeon run adjustments to the changes! I’m very interested in your experience with the changes, so leave them in the comments below or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.