Lockpicks

Hi I'm new and I'm trying to figure lockpicks out... seems to be more than I bargained for. I was looking at way to increase retention and got confused. It says when you open a chest and retain the lockpick you gain 250 *points* toward lucky title. But the levels of lucky are all based around *tickets* it seems. yo no comprendo.

Also, when should I start using lockpicks? All the guides just throw equations at you and don't really explain it plainly.

When you use a lockpick you have a chance of retaining it aka keeping it for another use. If you happen to retain it you get 250 "tickets" or points towards the Lucky title track.
Opposite of the Lucky title track is the Unlucky title.

Use lockpicks whenever you want. since you're new just keep em.

AS for a why...The lucky title was originally only achieved through games of chance (nine rings and rings of fortune?) in which the rewards were given in tickets. The text in the title was just never changed when lockpicks were added.

You get 2.5 unlucky point for each 1% retain chance on the chest so lets say.. you have 21% to retain thats 21x2.5=52.5 unlucky points

Also I started using lockpicks when I started vanguishing(or other things in HM). But its up to you really when your going to use them.

~Sarah

u mean lucky right??

u will have more breaks than retains...i got r5 unlucky and r3 lucky lol

she forgot to put that you only get the unlucky points if you dont retain, but ya it's 2.5 X whatever % you have to retain.

Your retain rate for lockpicks is affected by your rank in Treasure Hunter and Lucky titles, the level of the chest (by key cost) and whether you are playing in Normal Mode or Hard Mode
.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lockpick

If you are low level, just use them to open every low level chest you find to advance your lucky title. Treasure Hunter is based on opening high-end (600+g key) chests.

Lockpicks give you Lucky points (tickets)

1) lockpicks are 1250g from other players and 1200g from merchants if you own towns.

2) Chests in the games - GW:EN excluded - have keys that you can by form merchants to open the chests as you run around.

3) If you are in an area that the chest key costs 50 gold, this is called a "low end" chest cause the price of the key is at the low end of the price range.

4) these low end chests or 50g chests as they are some times called will yield the highest rate to retain the lockpick and yield 250 (tickets) or points when LP is retained.

5) Also these chests offer the highest Unlucky (tickets) points because your retention rate for the LP is the highest on these chests. As stated above it is 2.5 times the retention percentage. What is your percentage? Well you can calculate it or.. get a lockpick and just go and open a chest and it will tell you "You have XXX% to retain your pick"

6) When you choose to start to use lockpicks is up to you. But remember most of the time a 50g chest will drop an item worth 25-35g (if that). So you will need to retain the pick 42 times at 30/drop to buy another pick for the one you just broke.

Most people choose to get their lucky titles started on special weekends to decrease the initial cost of the lockpicks and gain lucky points.

As an example my retention rate is something like 90% on 50g chests. So yielding 42 retentions in a row sounds very possible but in reality I might break 10-12 picks every other chest I open for a series of bad luck. And then again I might go 200 chests without a break. So the over all average is correct but not rote..

I hope this helps.