Where are the uber items…?

Let me get this straight…

The best items (ie Rune shield, Pure ore Blank, Paladin Shield, Crown of Myrtana, the helms, the staffs, the good swords (ie Innos Wrath) etc) are all random drops of metal chests? Or are they put in specific locations?
It really is getting frustrating to open tons of metal chests and find nothing but transformation potions…makes one feel sorry fot the 70 points spent in thieving

Reading this, I'm sure you would definitively loathe Evil Islands.

The best weapons there are huge clubs made of stone, bone and wood. metal is *really* rare there.

Dude, I think the way it works is that the more chests you open that have a lock of the highest difficulty, the more likely the chance of phat lewt . It's cumulative, i.e. the number of chests is adding up and so is the % chance for the awesome loot. But it needs to be chests of the highest difficulty, not just regular or medium difficulty metal chests. So keep on popping them toughies open. Good luck!

As far as I understand it, it's not totally random - you will always find a katana in chest #13 (random number), but the minor stuff might vary. But yeah, you'll just have to keep finding those chests.

Would saving an reloading help ? Before opening the chest, I mean ?

Yes, with the minor loot (which transformation potions you'd get, will it be 30 or 50 gold and such), but not with the major stuff you are probably after (katanas, pure ore blanks etc).

The best weapons are crafted - they get higher base damage than normal weapons of the same type.

I think the best overall weapon comes from crafting but you can get higher damage 2 handed weapons from the chests (not to mention the best recipe is from those chests).

The chests were without a doubt one of the most frustrating bits of Gothic 3 for me, and I am very pleased that PB has recognised this and promised not to do it for their next game.

Actually, the highest damage is the orc halberd, and it also has the biggest range, making it an excellent weapon. If I use 2h weapons I always aim for that one, as it's amazing once you learn the spin combo (I think it was hold right mouse button, tap left, been a while since I played G3).

I was referring to 1h weapons, I should've specified that, my bad.

how much damage does the orc halberd do?

210 if you sharpen it.

The chests are in a sequence, and 2 different categorizes: Weapons & Magic and each chest you open gives you the next item in the sequence (13th weapon chest = Kanatana, 23th or so magic chest = scroll of bless magic) and theres about 40 of each in the game, while this is kind of annoying I can understand the thought behind it, work and explore to get the good stuff…. If they didn't have the firesword in Ardea…. and the fan patch didnt have to add another Kanatana…

An Ogre Morningstar does 250 damage but it is extremely slow to swing. I am imagine that 360 degree spinning attack is pretty devastating as I've been on the receiving end of it before from Orc Elites (especially when they start spinning endlessly and kill you in a about one second).