Rogue Lockpicking guide for WoW Forever

Lockpicking lets a Rogue open locked chests, doors, lockboxes and strongboxes. WoW Forever keeps it as it was in Classic: you learn it at the trainer, level it yourself and earn gold, gear and recipes from what you open. This guide covers how to start, where to level from 1 to 300 and what it opens.

Learn	Pick Lock from any Rogue trainer at level 16
Tools	Thieves’ Tools, from a quest or a Shady Dealer, never used up
Skill	5 points per level, 300 at level 60
Fastest start	Practice Lockboxes of the starting quest, up to 80
Needed for	Poisons (80) and dungeon doors (150 to 300)

How Lockpicking works

Lockpicking is a skill of its own, like Poisons. It goes up to five times your level, so you reach 300 only at level 60. Each lock you open gives a point as long as it is not too easy for you.

You open three kinds of things:

• Chests and footlockers in the world. Many hold gold, gear, consumables and recipes. Some lie deep under water.
• Strongboxes from Pick Pocket. Mid-level and high-level humanoids often carry one. Pick their pocket, then pick the lock.
• Boxes of other players. In a Trade Window, the other player puts the box in the slot Will not be Traded. You cast Pick Lock on it and hand it back. In capital cities, players ask for this in General chat all the time.

Learning Lockpicking

At level 16, train Pick Lock at any Rogue trainer, in a capital or a small settlement. Without Thieves’ Tools the spell does nothing. You can buy the tools from a Shady Dealer, but the starting quest gives them for free and leads straight to the best spot to start.

1 to 110

The starting quest of your faction is the fastest way. Both lead to Practice Lockboxes that respawn very quickly. They hold only 1 copper, but give a point every time.

Alliance: Redridge Mountains

1. Pick up Redridge Rendezvous from Renzik the Shiv in Old Town, Stormwind, and travel to Lakeshire.
2. Lucius stands by the pier in Lakeshire. He gives Alther’s Mill and the Thieves’ Tools.
3. Follow the road east to Alther’s Mill. Inside are several Practice Lockboxes and Lucius’s Lockbox.
4. Open the Practice Lockboxes until you have at least 80. Then open Lucius’s Lockbox, take the Token of Thievery and bring it back to Lucius.
5. For 80 to 110, dive into Lake Everstill and open Waterlogged Footlockers. It is slower, but every footlocker can hold something useful.

Horde: The Barrens

1. Pick up Wrenix of Ratchet from Zando’zan in the Cleft of Shadow, Orgrimmar, and travel to Ratchet.
2. Wrenix the Wretched in Ratchet gives Plundering the Plunderers. Use Wrenix’s Gizmotronic Apparatus next to him for the Thieves’ Tools and the E.C.A.C. It only gives them once you have learned Pick Lock.
3. Go south to the pirate ship on the Merchant Coast. On board are several Practice Lockboxes.
4. Open them until you have at least 80. Then open The Jewel of the Southsea in the lowest deck. Polly appears: use the E.C.A.C. to turn the parrot from elite to normal, kill it and loot the Southsea Treasure.
5. Turn in the quest in Ratchet. For 80 to 110, open Waterlogged Footlockers along the north of Zoram Strand in Ashenvale.

110 to 300

Skill	Where	What to open
110 to 150	Windshear Mine, Stonetalon Mountains (Horde)	Battered Footlockers
110 to 150	Durnholde Keep, Hillsbrad Foothills (both)	Battered Footlockers, upper and lower level
110 to 150	Murloc camps northeast of Menethil Harbor, Wetlands (Alliance)	Battered Footlockers
150 to 200	Sar’theris Strand, Desolace	Waterlogged Footlockers under water
150 to 200	Angor Fortress, Badlands	Battered Footlockers upstairs to 175, Dented Footlockers below to 200
175 to 200	Temple of Atal’Hakkar, Swamp of Sorrows	Mossy Footlockers
200 to 250	The Slag Pits, Searing Gorge	Dented Footlockers, upper levels from 225
225 to 250	Bay of Storms, Azshara	Mossy Footlockers
225 to 250	East of the Caverns of Time, Tanaris	Dented Footlockers
250 to 300	Tyr’s Hand, Eastern Plaguelands	Scarlet Footlockers, plus strongboxes from Pick Pocket from 280
280 to 300	Blackrock Depths	The three doors near the entrance

Under water in Desolace, bring a Draught of Water Breathing: the footlockers lie deep and the mobs there do not leave you alone. Angor Fortress is quick but often full of other Rogues. In the Slag Pits, pick the pockets of the mobs for extra boxes on top of the footlockers.

Tyr’s Hand is dangerous: the mobs are elite and hit hard, but their pockets hold boxes you can open from 280. From 280, Blackrock Depths is safer. Open the left gate as you enter, then the two doors after it, leave the dungeon, reset it and do it again.

These are the classic spots. The lockboxes and footlockers are in the data of Forever, but the world has changed in places, so a spot can be emptier than it was in Classic.

Doors in dungeons

A Rogue with enough skill opens doors that otherwise need a key. That saves the group a key, or a long quest for it.

Dungeon	Door	Skill
Gnomeregan	The back door (Workshop Key)	150
Scarlet Monastery	Armory and Cathedral (The Scarlet Key)	175
Blackrock Depths	Shadowforge doors (Shadowforge Key)	280
Dire Maul	West and North wings (Crescent Key)	300

Lockpicking and Poisons

Both quest chains for Poisons at level 20 ask for 80 Lockpicking. Level it right after you learn Pick Lock at 16, and you are ready when the poison quests start. More on leveling a Rogue is in the Rogue leveling guide.