Lockpicks / Keys

I just started vanquishing HM with H/H (Spiritway) and just wanted to ask if it pays off to buy a whole bunch of lockpicks or keys, and use them for every chest, or only in specific areas, or not at all?
And which would be better, lockpicks or keys?

It doesn't pay off. Not in normal mode, and of course not in hard mode, since in hard mode your retain chance is way lower than in normal mode. You always spend more money on lockpicks than you gain by selling the stuff. In hard mode, there is no key that opens chests - you have to use lockpicks.

In case you look for valuable loot you can sell to other players, for example rare inscriptions - count the time you have to spend to sell stuff manually. Consider how much you can vanquish in that time instead and get the bonus gold at the end of the vanquish - and advanced in the vanquisher title.

You get closest to the break even, if you have maxed lucky and maxed treasure hunter title (43% lockpick retain chance in hard mode), but you still make no profit.

Its only worth it if ur going for treasure/wisdom/lucky/unlucky titles at same time while VQing.

The chance of getting something good is very small seeing as almost all skins r worthless :P

doesnt pay off however in some areas you get good some rare weapons.
and always use lockpick as its good for the title.
i always have a 50+ on me where ever i go.

buy lockpicks at discounted rate frm owned towns to use if you are going for chesting, lucky, unlucky, wisdom titles. Doing it all while vanquishing, etc. is much easier than running chests later ;-). if ur not interested in the titles, then no, it is probably not very profitable.

While neither are worth it unless your going for the title...or you get em as a drop...

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lockpicks#Statistics

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lockp...kpicks_vs_Keys

Those two will help with which is more cost effective in normal mode (irrelevant in hm)

but in general...I'd go with teh lockpicks...

Um, if you're vanquishing, lockpicks are all you can use - no keys in HM...

If you are vq'ing, they have to be lockpicks.

A lot of it depends on what you mean by "pays off". If you mean "make a profit", it's very iffy these days. Back when, you could get rare drops, mods, etc., out of chests that were worth something. Even a +30 health mod for some weapons could be worth 5k. But these days, there is a glut of perfectly modded weapons around (gold and green).
These days, about the only thing that seems to be really valuable are new greens and rare minis - at any rate, not much that comes from a locked chest.

On the other hand, if you are looking for mods, weapons, inscription, etc., for your own use, it can "pay off" as opposed to buying the things from others.

And, of course, there's always the fun-factor. I like to open chests because it's fun - and I still make money anyway (overall).

There's always the resale market, if you're lucky enough to get golds from chests (unlike me), then you could sell them unid'd for 600gp+ each item.

Overall you will still lose money over time, but this is generally made back by the drops you'll get whilst VQ'ing and the VQ bonus's