Should I not use my lockpicks for locked chests?

I'm working on my Treasure Hunter title and I'm aiming to save as most gold. Would it be most efficient to not open locked chests and only 600g chests in NM?

You will retain picks more easily in normal mode, but hard mode gives better loot. I suggest running in HM because you will have more golds to sell unid if you so choose, not to mention elite tomes and stuff like that. Your Xunlai chest will deplete less quickly that way, I think.

Mainly depends on whether you wanna go for lucky or unlcuky more. Running HM increases ur unlcuky faster, where as NM increases lucky more. Id probs go HM because of tome drops, they probably the only thing you can actually make money off unless running in an inscribable area and manage to hit upon the few valuable inscriptions left.

HM cantha, best way, tomes and rare skins, and if ur lucky they might have good stats.

I ran my Max treasure completely at HM cantha and wont regret, quite slow but had few nice drops and its fun

What area do you recommend I only really just started grinding out the treasure hunter title myself.

The area part with the 13 worms in NM outside Boreal station has often 1 or 2 Locked Chests, and in EotN NM u have +30% chance to keep LP.

For gold, kill the worms and salvage the items for Iron, Dust and Granite.
Steel may seem interesting, but dont bother sell that to a player, not in demand.
U can do the worms solo ofcourse.

Nevertheless, in the beginning u will need alot gold to buy new LP, cos u keep losing enough of them. But the gold u make with selling Iron, Dust and Granite (to other players) should cover that.

Oh yeah, buy Lockpicks in Kamadan from players that sell them for 1250g ea!

Look at the Treasure Hunter article on Wiki. The cost analysis shows that opening 600g chests using lockpicks in NM is the cheapest way to max TH. Opening HM chests will cost twice as much. Using picks in NM will also max Unlucky by the time you reach TH, though you will still be about 1m points short of maxing Lucky.

You should use keys to open 600g chests untill you hit 45% or 50% retention rate. If you dont care about money then use lockpics and HM to reach unlucky faster. You shouldnt care about those 2 lucky titles for now , they are bloody long and your best bet is 9 rings or opening low chests ( like ascalon foothills ) till you puk .... i mean reach max lucky.

Actually, running chests in hm and nm will result in the same rate of gain for the unlucky track. It'll be cheaper in nm (aka the cost/unlucky point is lower), but the unlucky gain per chest is the same (aka the unlucky point/chest is the same).

As for that treasure hunter article, it neglects the fact that you receive better drops in hm, which could be a big incentive (if pursuing wisdom at the same time). Thus, the difference in cost is smaller than presented. Regardless, in my experience, I found that it is still cheaper to run nm chests, even including drops (aka maximizing profit from all drops). Don't care enough to provide data, so take my word for it or disregard me.

I would start off in NM until you have built up sufficient bonuses from treasure hunter and lucky titles. Then you could switch over to HM. You will end up breaking a lot of picks in HM early on. This is all irrelevant if you don't care about money and have a few mil saved up for this title.

For this, In Normal mode luck/unluck goes around the same rate.

For Hardmode, u move almost 2 x faster for unluck then luck..

Also u will max Unluck if u completely The title in HM, but if u do in NM u probably wont max either luck or unluck..

Doesn't anyone know how to do arithmetic any more?

Why? It costs a little more to do it that way. Assuming picks cost 1.25k and you buy all the keys from a merchant, your way will cost 4,757.5k. Using only picks will cost 4,705k. Simple arithmetic.

Why? You will more than max Unlucky by the time you get TH opening chests in NM. What is the benefit of maxing Unlucky faster than that?

Furthermore, you do not reach Unlucky faster in HM. You break more picks in HM, but you get fewer points per broken pick, so it's actually slower. You would have to open 9,702 chests in HM to max Unlucky. In NM, using only picks on 600g chests, you will max Unlucky after opening 8,608 chests. 8,608 NM < 9,702 HM. Simple arithmetic.

That is not correct. See above and do the arithmetic. If you open 10k chests in HM you will max Unlucky. If you open 10k chests in NM, you will max Unlucky. It will cost you more in HM, but it is not twice as fast. Also, you will be much further from maxing Lucky if you do the runs in HM.

those are best chests to open with LP for title in my humble opinion. most retention rate.

You may ask yourself: How much time will you dedicate to painfully inspect every chest drop if it is worth keeping, worth salvaging, worth selling to other players? How much time do you want to spend with selling things to other players? Is this time better spent selling, or it is better spent continuing with chest runs and playing the game?

I answered for myself: I don't want to inspect every item. I want chest runs and my title going up as fast as it can. I salvage good upgrades for self-usage, nothing more.
So I did chest-runs in normal mode at 600g chests. All 3 connected titles (treasure, lucky, unlucky) went up equally and were maxed within the same month. Wisdom took a few weeks longer.

If you go for chest runs in had mode, your lucky title is lagging way behind, so your retention rate doesn't go up, so you spend even more money on lockpicks.

My money at the time came by doing vanquishs for GWAMM, by doing Kurzick hfff (not possible any more: do Faction Farming by doing DTSC/MQSC) and farming Zelnehlun (better farm now: Vaettirs or Raptors).

Other ways to save your money for lockpicks, see the How to make money! sticky. It's not only for beginner players.

If you're looking to get the most out of your lockpicks go Normal mode chests, imo I don't see HM chests giving you better loot. Sure you can get elite tomes that are nice but the items you get from the chests are going to be mostly the same (unless you are running places under 600g chest).

Personally I like running factions areas for amber aegis, ornate, and echovald shields - melandrus hope is a pretty nice run and easy with a W/A with shadow form spawns 3-5 chests atleast.
I got most of my points in chest running from Hells Precipice, that used to be a lot of fun and or so very profitable.