Neverwinter Lockbox History & Ranking 2019

Our historic lockbox ranking is a toplist of all Neverwinter lockboxes the game has seen so far. Although it considers their usefulness today, the ranking shouldn’t be confused with our guide of which lockbox to open today. This is more a look at the boxes’ standing in the game’s history. So let’s go through the ones the game has seen to date.

At the time of this writing both the New Opportunities Lockbox and Reborn Lockbox were too new to be fully judged. I’ll include them in a future revision of the article.

Fell Dragon Lockbox

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The Fell Dragon Lockbox was the second of the Tyranny of Dragons cycle and a major letdown in two areas. Back in the day campaign boosts played a vital part in the progression. Campaigns were longer than today, and it was a surprise that ToD lockboxes initially featured no boost. So players had to fully grind out ToD with all your characters. The devs additionally tried a new drop concept by introducing an additional “Silvery Dragon Scales” currency. Unfortunately the rewards you could get for it were non-special, making it fairly worthless.

Unearthed Lockbox

The Unearthed Lockbox poor ranking can partly be credited to it’s predecessor, the Rusted Iron Lockbox, being so great. The included Alchemy Special Pack ranked dead last in profession packs in terms of usefulness. And although I used the Beetle Mount on one of my characters, I never was quite fond of its look. This also marked the first lockbox to introduce the ultra-rare legendary drops, a new layer of RNG insanity.

The only thing it had going for itself was the Priceless Thayan Antiquity. It gave you additional chances to get the rare Eye of Lathander Artifact in Dread Ring. While not a factor today, it was a useful drop in Module 2.

Dragonforged Lockbox

The Dragonforged was part of a subpar Module 4/5 cycle. It brought a super-useful to BiS race to lockboxes, which is pay-2-win at it’s finest. Adding insult to injury, the racial was broken for a long time and players could shortly unlock the race through the preview server. This lockbox ranks among the worst in history.

Giants’ Lockbox

The second lockbox in Module 10 featured an Artifact as legendary prize, which even back then wasn’t a great reward. The Eye of the Giant has a decent power, but since refining has become incredibly cheaper over time, a legendary artifact is no longer a major incentive. The rest of the lockbox is ok-ish, but can’t come up for this huge flaw.

Soulmonger’s Lockbox

The Soulmonger’s is the weakest lockbox of the more recently released ones. It featured great Triceratops Mounts, but you can pretty forget the rest. None of the blue drops are particularly enticing, and some even outright bad. The reason why it’s not ranked lower is that it at least re-introduced Genie’s Gifts and a professions pack to lockboxes. Both had been missing for a while and based on the economy and needs in 2018 that made tons of sense.

Frozen Crystal Lockbox

While without some major flaws or complaints like all of the above, the Frozen Crystal ranks as pretty common and unflashy among the lockboxes, netting it a good-but-not-great status. During the level-cap raise of Module 6 the devs unfortunately failed to scale up the Slayer Ring of the Xvim to level 70. It’s a main reward of the lockbox, but utterly useless today.

Lockbox of the Nine

Another one of those good-but-not-great ones is the Lockbox of the Nine. It features ok-ish blue packs and a mount that looks decent (but has an equip bonus with the most useless stat: Regeneration). It also was the first lockbox to feature Stronghold decoration in its The Lord’s Stronghold Pack, which never grew into a popular pull.

Tyrannical Lockbox

The Tyrannical suffers from some of the same problems as the Fell Dragon lockbox above. Additionally the included artifact never had great use beyond PVP. At least the Drake Mounts were kind of cool. The only reason it makes a few spots up the list is that its resell value has always been higher than those of other boxes.

New Life Lockbox

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The same can be said about the New Life Lockbox. It always held value, but that had a distinct reason. The gear that dropped out of it was best-in-slot for some builds and for a long time the only real way to get stuff for companions. Stunts like this is why people hate lootbox monetization and attach labels like “pay to win” to games. Yes, you need to generate revenue, but not by selling more power. This game does very well for the most part by offering convenience only, but the New Life Lockbox was one of the worse ideas. Since the introduction of the Gambit Skirmish in Module 11, this lockbox is luckily no longer of great use.

Lockbox of the Lost

The Lockbox of the Lost had this interesting concept of introducing a passenger feature for its Legendary Carpet of Flying Mount. Plagued by a few initial bugs however it never grew a fan-favorite, also because the skin wasn’t particularly great. As successor of the popular Merchant Prince’s Lockbox it additionally had quite big shoes to fill, and failed miserably.

Howling Hatred Lockbox

The last Elemental Evil lockbox can’t trump others in the Mod 6/7 cycle. Although it got a slight upgrade in the form of additional refining points, the devs somehow did include a bound artifact in the drop table of its Artifact Pack. This is one of the very rare BoP items coming out of a lockbox or its packs.

Shaundakul Lockbox

The Shaundakul Lockbox also suffered from the fact that others in its cycle were much stronger. It was the first to feature insignias for the then revamped mount system, but the following Firemane Lockbox already made it completely obsolete. It featured better rewards in pretty much every area.

Dark Forest Lockbox

Although the third lockbox of Neverwinter introduced in Module 1: Fury of the Feywild has little viability today, the Owlbear Mount and the Pseudodragon are stylish and retro and I was actually a little pissed they reused the Owlbear skin later and diminished it’s uniqueness. It’s also one of the few lockbox to feature unique weapon skins. Looks are so undervalued in this game…

Eternal Flame Lockbox

The main price of the lockbox, the Armored Giant Strider, was the first mount to feature a passive ability (+4,000 Movement). It was the next major pay-2-win move after Dragonforged and legendary races (which I’m quite sure will be done again at some point) and is the main reason ranking this one below it’s actual usefulness.

Black Earth Lockbox

Although Black Earth featured the best Artifact Pack of the Mod 6/7 cycle and introduced new scaling level equipment for the 70s era, it can’t quite keep up with other lockboxes due to it’s mount being ugly and not featuring a passive ability at its introduction.

Feywild Lockbox

Just like the Dark Forest lockbox, the Feywild one has some retro style attached to it. I think the Stag is one of the best mounts they created from a purely visual standpoint and using it on my CW main, I frequently was asked where to get it.

Nine Hells Lockbox

Within the Mod 4/5 cycle, the Nine Hells finally introduced campaign boost tokens for Tyranny of Dragons. It might not sound like a big thing, but was a major relieve at a time were players still tried to keep up with many alts. It’s also worth noting that some of the included Artifacts are still very much useful today.

Undying Lockbox

The Ravenloft lockbox addition was a very solid one. All major prizes were at least serviceable and came with pretty unique looks. On top of that the Bloodied Companion Equipment Pack was a welcomed additional source of companion equipment. The box could rank higher if not for two annoying blanks in the blue line of drops. Both the Variety Fashion Pack and the Howling Adventure Pack contain items of little use for most players.

Many-Starred Lockbox

I’m actually not too sure here, but I think Many-Starred in Module 11 was the first one to feature much higher drop rates of legendary prizes. That way the Arcane Whirlwind became the first orange mount for many players, and featured a decent look and equip power on top of it. The rest of the box is unfortunately not too great, and the Ascendant Fashion Pack a fail that hopefully won’t be repeated.

Lockbox of the Magnificent Emporium

If not for the introduction of passive mount abilities, Tenser’s Floating Disk would still be THE mount to own at least in PVP. The Stag might be prettier, but the Disk came with the ultimate swag for a certain period.

Runic Lockbox

The first lockbox of Storm Kings Thunder featured Relic Packs that helped with the insane Voninblod grind in Module 10. It was an example of a premium drop offsetting a completely annoying grind mechanic, but it was still very welcomed. More than that however, one of the more underrated facts about Runic is that it introduced Mount Packs in the blue line of drops. That made it incredibly easier for players to fill their stables and get the insignia bonuses they want. It also dropped the highly popular Lightning Enchantment.

Nightmare Lockbox

The first lockbox belongs in the top five, if only for nostalgic reasons. Most of its content like the Plague Fire Enchantment however never even diminished, although some stuff has been made available elsewhere. That the Coffer of Runestones and Enchantments probably by far have the best chance to drop a Coalescent Ward (BoE!) is a little known fact as well. It’s very hard to get a hand on this one though, because its stock in the AHs is nearly depleted.

Crushing Wave Lockbox

The value of the Crushing Wave Lockbox lived and died with the OPness of the Flail Snail. Back then it featured by far the most superior passive ability. It even created a completely new line of builds that were able to keep dailies and their benefits up permanently. It’s no longer as significant, but was a severe balancing issue for a certain time. That makes the Flail Snail a prime example of “must have” loot from lockboxes. Everyone and their mothers wanted to get their hands on it. Otherwise the box wasn’t better or worse than others in the Mod 6/7 cycle.

Merchant Prince Lockbox

The first lockbox in Neverwinter’s Module 12 featured dinosaur mounts, which are some of the better ones the game has seen so far. This plus the fact that the Warded Enchantment Pack contains one of the best weapon enchantments in Feytouched made the Merchant Prince Lockbox an instant evergreen! It remains one of the more profitable lockboxes to open at the time of this writing.

Firemane Lockbox

The Firemane Lockbox is truly one of the better ones to date. Not only do the mounts and companion look great, but actually feature great bonuses. Especially tanks can find a lot to like there and the Swift Golden Lion was and maybe still is the meta in PVP thanks to its combination of shield and damage bonus. Add that the lockbox was the first to drop legendary tools and included the rare Dread Enchantment and you get why it still has great resell value. It’s actually one of the most expensive lockboxes to buy on the Auction House.

Rusted Iron Lockbox

The Rusted Iron is the best lockbox of the level 60 era, because it was the only one to feature the scaling Mulhorand Equipment. Combine it with an exploitable Leadership Special Pack and you know why all major lockbox resellers opened tens of thousands of these. For a long time the Apparatus of Kwalish has been the cheapest 110% mount, because it was sort of a byproduct of the insane value this lockbox generated. Of course its usefulness suddenly diminished with the raise of the level cap and a new set of scaling equipment, but the reign of this lockbox is and probably will be unmatched for a long time.


What’s your favorite or most hated lockbox? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit 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.

3 thoughts on “Neverwinter Lockbox History & Ranking 2019

  • April 2, 2018 at 11:20 am
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    Back in Mod 2 to 4 I usually opened Rusted and one of the others because there was a good chance of purple Alchemists and Heroes. I never knew about any exploit, though, and I never had a full Professions inventory. They just seemed like the best boxes to open back then as I usually got something I wanted.

    No idea what is the best now. I want Companion Kits and Purple Mount insignia, and a decent chance of Ultimate Marks/Enchanting Stones. I have over 100 VIP keys as I could not be bothered opening anything for the last few months.

  • December 18, 2018 at 5:56 pm
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    Glorious Resurgence Lockbox deserves a mention too in my opinion. It is definitely one of the most popular choice for players with VIP keys.

  • December 19, 2018 at 1:34 pm
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    That’s a whole lot a gambling mechanic. XD

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