Legendary items are copies of "regular" items but come with a minimum of HPs, Mana, Endurance, depending on their Tier (e.g. 140 for Tier 6) and an additional augmentation slot of type 6 for weapons or type 15 for other items. Legendary weapons often have improved proc rates (150 instead of 100%). Legendary items with a click-effect sometimes have the cast-time of the effect reduced.
Boss NPCs can have none or up to three different chests (legendary, mighty and mythical). If a treasure chest appears and which one it is, depends on the difficulty mode, the rarity of the chest and bit of luck.
Many chests have a rarity of "common", which means if the NPC is defeated the difficulty mode "Normal" or above, a Legendary Treasure chest appears. If defeat in a lower mode, the chest may or may not appear.
When an NPC has access to multiple treasure chest types, there's a chance for the superior variant, the Mighty Treasure Chest, to spawn. This likelihood increases as the difficulty mode rises. Typically, a reasonable chance begins at Hard-, while Intense mode offers a significantly elevated probability of encountering it.
Rarities:
Rare chests are unlikely and generally appear only at higher difficulty modes
Uncommon chests may appear from Hard- mode upward
Common chests are guaranteed at Normal and above
Tier+ chests always appear from Normal- upward and are typically linked to NPCs one tier above the instance
Tier++ chests are guaranteed from Easy+ and are usually tied to NPCs two tiers above.
Tier+++ chests are guaranteed from Easy and are usually tied to NPCs three tiers above.
Below table shows all NPCs who can spawn legendary treasure chests.
Example:
The Fabled Lord Nagafen (common : 2)
This means:
common: If defeated in Normal or above a Legendary tresure chest is guaranteed
2: This NPC has a total of 2 possible treasure chests. The chances for the Mighty Treasure chest are slim in Normal and get higher with every increase of difficulty mode. They are very high on Intense.