Lockpick

Lockpicks were released with the addition of hard mode. In hard mode all chests are Locked Chests and require lockpicks instead of keys. Lockpicks have a base 10% chance of surviving the opening of a Locked Chest. This percentage increases based on the character's ranks in the Lucky and Treasure Hunter titles.

Using a lockpick to open a high-end chest adds 1 point toward the Treasure Hunter title. If you successfully retain a lockpick after use, you gain 250 points towards the Lucky title. If it breaks, you gain 25 points towards the Unlucky title.

Lockpicks also work on all normal mode chests. If you try to open a normal mode chest with both the proper key and a lockpick in your inventory, the game will ask you which item is to be used. Each normal mode chest provides an inherent bonus to the probability of retaining the lockpick. The bonus is related to the value of the corresponding key so that chests with cheaper keys have a higher bonus. While opening cheapest chests with lockpicks doesn't provide valuable drops or points to Treasure Hunting, it is a relatively efficient method of advancing one's rank in the Lucky title.

Availability

 * Lockpicks are available from merchants for 1,500g (1,200 from a Discount Merchant)
 * In Pre-Searing, Lockpicks are not sold by Merchants nor do they drop there.
 * They are also available as random drops in hard mode areas.
 * Certain GWEN quests give lockpicks as reward:
 * Mano a Norn-o
 * Shadows in the Night
 * Plan A
 * Single Ugly Grawl Seeks Same for Mindless Destruction in Ascalon

Lockpick survival chance for Locked Chests



 * In Hard Mode, the percent chance of a lockpick not breaking after use is:


 * (Character level / 2) + (3 * Treasure Hunter ranks) + (2 * Lucky ranks)


 * NOTE! The "Locked Chests" found in Normal Mode during the Guild Wars Eye of the North Sneak Peek Weekend are actually normal chests with the same qualities as those requiring a 600 key to open but can only be opened with Lockpicks.

Economic value of using a lockpick on Normal Mode chests
When a normal mode chest is opened with a lockpick, the total chance of retaining the lockpick is a combination of the base chance, as given in the table for Locked Chests, and an inherent bonus specific to the type of chest. This bonus is directly related to the value of the corresponding key, and given in the third column of the table below. The economic efficiency of using lockpicks in normal mode depends on the value of the respective key relative to the value of the lockpick, and the number of uses one gets from the lockpick. The second column of the table shows what the total retaintion chance must be in order for the use of lockpicks to be economically viable as a replacement for the use of keys. The fourth column indicates the base chance required to reach this break even point. Having a higher chance of retaining the lockpick than indicated in the table means you should use a lockpick. Having a lower chance means you should use a regular key. 1 This is the bonus given to your chance of retaining the lockpick when using on a particular tier of normal mode chests. 2 There is an approximately 10% decrease in this retention break even point if one is going for Lucky/Unlucky titles. See lockpick lucky contribution note below.
 * the percent of bonus needed from titles can be found by:
 * 1 - (Price of Key / Price of Lockpick) - Inherent Survival Chance Bonus


 * Level 20 characters have a base chance of 10% even before titles are factored in, and thus using a lockpick is always a better deal than using a 1250 key.
 * If you purchase your lockpicks from a Discount Merchant, the base price of lockpicks goes down to 1200g per key, resulting in a substantial lowering of survival chance needed to break even. Discounted lockpicks will have a better value than discounted keys only if the regular priced lockpick had a better value than the regular priced key.
 * See also Luck titles guide for a detailed cost/benefit analysis.


 * Note that using lockpicks also contributes to Lucky and Unlucky title, so there is an added incentive to using them over keys which give slightly better value per use. The monetary value of this Lucky/Unlucky title contribution has not been factored into the above table. The value of a lockpick with lucky+unlucky points obtained from it added in is approximately 305.6gold's worth of playing 9 Rings.
 * If one is going for both lucky and unlucky titles in addition to wanting to know the least expensive way of opening treasure chests (and gaining Treasure Hunter points), the use of a lockpick would be advisable (take into account the above table, find the appropriate break even point and take into account an additional 300gold). For example, with a 26% retention rate it would be beneficial to use lockpicks for 600gold and 450gold key chests as well. Thinking of it another way, the lucky+unlucky feature of lockpicks reduces the retention % breakeven point by 8-11% (10% for most of the chest key categories), so you would need a 15% (25-10%) native retention rate or higher in order for a lockpick to be more beneficial than a key for a 750 gold key.

Similar Items

 * Keys