How Does Loot Bonus Work Anyway?

I considered getting into the loot biz when I got a Jera. Regularly, i'd stop by selchar and pick up a tier 4 chest that was sitting there. I noticed that sometimes, I'd get some fabulous stuff, and sometimes, I'd get a few emeralds and a bracelet (this happened once i kid you not). I was told that lb doesn't work on chests. Later, I head to freezing heights wearing jera and grind for a bit, but i didn't get any appealing items. All my time i thought lb increased the chances of getting good items from chests and mobs, so how DOES it work?

 

nobody. knows. if. it. affects. chests.

 

It doesn't, I and multiple others before me have tested it and it doesn't do anything to chests.
Works fine on mobs though.

It increases the chance for an item to drop from mobs. Not the rarity, just the general chance of them dropping, thus decreasing the average time spent to find a mythic.

EDIT: Jpresent has fixed this, it works now.

 

Excellent answer from Stag.
To add to that, the amount and quality of loot found inside chests is massively boosted by the amount time the chest has been standing there. The older the chest, the better to loot.

 

Loot bonus effects the quality of drops.
EX: You have a higher chance to get legendaries/mythics by lets say 50% loot bonus gives you 5% of what it was added onto the percent of dropage.
Lets say the Legendary drop is 1/100, this becomes 101/10000 which is obviously better. Obviously this is not the exact formula but it makes sense In my brain. Sorry if its too confusing.

 

No. This is not true. It increases the quantity, as stated by Salted himself.

 

Yeah, i nearly cry everytime when i think about the hours i invested in creating own loot runs and open 20k chests with my self-collected 300% loot bonus build, just to get a 147% disco on the first run without the set and only days after the loot run in corkus got publisged so all noobs run it 24/7 (i actually laugh about the thing with the discoverer :)