Lockpicking TipsFollow

Great post!!^^
Thank you so much!^^

Oh man! What have they done to me? I am so hooked.

EDIT: Didnt realize how long the post was. Sorry - just skip to the next post ^^

Hit level 50THF/NIN and finished GK1. I decided to take a swing at my AF coffers in preparation for the real deal later on. So I spring for the skeleton keys (30-35k a stack) figuring I'll need all the help I can get at only level 50. I hit Monastic, run around a bit with Tonko, spot a coffer and pop it with my first key for the old gloves. Kinda fun.

Castle O next. Wow, this place is like a thf playground. I swear it was designed specifically for THF/NINs. No wonder we just hang out there looking for Astrals. Again Tonko was the only thing needed. Hard to imagine any other job getting into the locked coffer room solo since you have to: wait for the Yags at the torch/switch to turn away - drop invis - light torch - flee - hide - then book to the door before is closes. I was grinning like a kid in a candy store once I made it into the room. Anyway coffer finally spawns in the middle of the leech pond, I pop a silent oil, open chest with 1st key - Hammer Time! - and perfect dodge/warp outta there with my AF pants.

Castle Zavhl Baileys - so visually cool, so dangerous, so much fun! Sneak and invis needed pretty much at all times. I opted for THF/NIN with tonko and silent oils. This one took quite a while - and one death - to get the hang of sneaking around safely between coffer spawns (Famke's guide helped tremendously for this one, thanks Famke ^^). Finally got into a rhythm and spotted a coffer - 1 fail and 1 Rouge's vest.

I know I got lucky getting these at 50 after reading previous recommendations to wait till 55-60 for coffer hunting, heh so for now I just sate me apetite for lock picking on chests in Fei Yin.

Anyway what I wanted to offer as far as lockpicking recommedaions go is the use of thf/nin and silent oils as an alternative thf/whm. This sounds expensive, but instead of leveling whm to 30, you can level Alchemy to 60. With alchemy at 56, I can get almost 4 stacks of silent oils for 3800 gil (3k for fire crystals and 800 for water crystals) and a bit of farming:

Bah, I'm too lazy to post recipes but all you need is 3 stacks of beehive chips (Maneating Hornets in N. Gustaberg) and 1 stack of slime oil (jellies in Korroloa Tunnel). These drop very nicely with TH2 (Read: almost every kill). With high alchemy you HQ enough beeswax and silent oils to consistently give you 3-4 stacks of silent oils.

As far as the advantages of this setup go:

- Tonko invis seems to consistently last 3mins while whm Invis in my experience can begin to wear off within seconds of being cast, it seems very random (this happens with sneak as well)

- Once I remove all my gear - silent oils last a long time. Many times I find myself recasting Tonko while I'm still on the initial silent oil application. Taking off all gear makes a huge difference in extending the silent oil duration.

- No magic aggro: in a tight spot it sucks to find a safe place to recast sneak and invis only to have that Jar/Doll/Elemental hit you from aroung the corner or from behind a closed door.

- No need for MP: lol, sometimes its hard enough to find a gap in which to reapply sneak/invis far less on where I'd want to sit down and rest to recover MP.

- You still get Utsusemi: In the event of aggro and/or making your escape this could be the difference between life and death. For those first three hits as you try to flee-deoderize and hide when 2hr is down. Or for that Ancient Magic that went right past Perfect Dodge.


Disadvantages:

Cost - yeah you gotta shave that 3.8k off your profit from the treasure hunt. Plus the Tonko tools cost and the time spent farming.

Healing and Other WHM utility spells - well I'm not planning on fighting or getting hit while sneaking around for chests/coffers, but stuff happens so you may miss these spells.


Oh well that's just my little ramble on getting into coffer picking - cant wait till 55 for more ^^.




Edited, Mon Oct 25 13:45:50 2004 by Simplicity

I was planning to take the same road as Simplicity, with Tonko and Silent Oils. I had the same thing in mind: Tonko seems to always last the same guaranteed time, and with nicely levelled Alchemy the cost of Slent Oils is reduced by a huge chunk.

I'm only a lv30 THF/NIN now, so I have plenty of time to work on my Alchemy-skills [lv6 now, haha]. And I believe that when I hit lv50 I'll be able to farm enough money so that the cost of the Silent Oil ingredients doesn't hurt ^^ Plus, I'm sure I'll get the money back from the chests and coffers anyway.

Also, I don't feel good about having two spells to keep up. Somehow it feels more safe to have one spell and one item to use in that kind of situations. I'm not sure why I feel this way though, I recall reading something about this a long time ago but I just can't figure out wth it was ^^;

i dont know if this belongs here butt i was in King ranpeers tomb and came out of a cave by about 10 gob leechers i noticed a chest in a corner i was wondering whats in the chest befor i tryed to open it. or is it random?

i just seen the link u posted on page 1 . do i need the king ranpeers chest key to open it or can i just use thievs tools?

Edited, Tue Nov 30 04:54:59 2004 by IronsideGIL

first post, but i've been lurking for a while ;P figured i'd share some info

tried my first lock picking last night in Gusgen Mines after 4 unsuccessfull hours of key hunting. grabbed a stack of silent oils and thiefs tools and went to work for my RSE.

lvl 25, Hume successful picks 3 out of 4 tries. used warp scrolls to get out after picking, was pleased with my results, i got 3 pieces of RSE in just under an hour. i have an ordelles chest key in my safe so i'll use that to get my last RSE piece when its available there.

i used these macros:

Silent oil:
/item "Silent Oil" <me>
(i had to wait for sneak effect to wear off or turn it off before reapplying)

Pick:
/item "Thief's Tools" <t>

Warp:
/item "Instant Warp" <me>

Panic:
/ja "Perfect Dodge" <me>
/wait 1
/item "Instant Warp" <me>

didnt have to use the panic macro, i was only agro'd once by a worm right next to the second chest i openned. it wasnt hitting me hard enough to bother me i still had ~200/410hp when i warped out.

i also used Flee to get around quickly and locate chests. i highly recommend getting RSE in gusgen as there was very few people there so really no competition for the chests. and very few mobs agro to sight (only bombs i believe) so you dont need invis when running around.

Edited, Dec 14th 2006 11:10pm by xKasterx

First, to the question about gil being split with your party if opened while in party. I didn't see it answered anywhere else. Yes, it gives everyone an equal share. Unfortunately i learned this while in an alliance in Eldhame Necropolis helping people get their papyrus. >.<
Second, whenever I go coffer hunting, I like to go /rdm for 2 reasons. You get more added int and dex than /whm, and its alot cheaper than using tools and oils. I use my RSE and dark staff to counter the lower mp pool.
As for my personal record of picking locks, I have been very lucky for what I've read here. I have had only success except for 1 coffer where I failed 5 times then gave up. I have found that while in a coffer area, if you can find at least SOME VT or lower, then you will have a good chance at successful pickings, as i have always used this as a rule of thumb.
BTW, I am a 56 elvaan theif for anyone curious. Good luck and happy hunting!

I have a little question request. The Treasure map on page 1 is nice and all, but i dont know Japanese. so...

Can anyone please post an english treasure map please.

Thanks :P Sirtan

I love picking locks!
Not because of the treasure, just love to see what will happen.
Unfortunatly, and I do mean unfortunatly, I have about a 90%
success rate so far with only 1 mimic, 9 fails, and 3 nothings.
I prefer thief's tools above all else (all the fails above except for the 1 nothing was from using skeleton keys).

I have a few stories about my lock-picking venture, oh man.

One was when I was wondering around Ordelle's Caves casually opening chest, stroper chyme hunting, ect. when I noticed 3-4 elves standing over a chest (dammit, rse week there ><) I asked them if they had the key and they said no. So I picked it (^^)
They got mad, go figure, so I told them it won't hurt to wait 10-15 more min. for another chest spawn (no point in holding back spawns if they didn't even have a key). So I move on, dudada-dada killed Stroper a couple of times (no drop ><) and ran across another chest.....with another elvan standing by it, lol.
I stoped and walked casually over to the elf. She screamed "No, stop, mine!" And was throwing one hell of a temper-tantrum. So I just told her " If you're going to be rude I'll just pick the damn thing, how about that?" You bet she calmed down real quick and said "I'm sorry, please don't" and I said that's better ^^
and walked off. Lost intrest in Ordell's, the Maze, and Gugsen for that among other reasons (junk in chests).

Another was when I was in Castle Ostroja for my af. I knew where all the coffer locations were so I kept my Tonko up and did laps around the vicinity. I knew the last room was notorious for always having the coffer inside ( which require you to randomly choose a torch to open door then to quickly flee/hide to make it to door in time). Then I noticed there was a lvl 75 japanese thf inside with the coffer (which he was there just for the Yags) I told him to get ready cause I tried using my first stack of skeleton keys (all those failures described above) The last skeleton key I used turned into a mimic and death traped me. Quickly, I had him invite me so he could destract it long enough for me to come to and to help him fight it.....except I underestimated the poison XD having about 220 hp I had no choice but to apoligize to him and warp out, making a mad flee to MH in Lower Jeuno. ( I made it inside at 45 hp @.@)
I asked him if he was alright and he said that he killed it but died from the poison <(;;)> (he also said half-jokingly that he'll never help another N/A again lol). I made a decision from then on to not only use only Thief's tools but carry a stack of antidotes as well! I gathered my courage again and ventured back to the castle. Inside it was empty so I had to do that torch->flee->hide thing again to get inside the door (yup, poped in the exact same place) I used the thief's tools and got my af 1st try! (stupid skeleton keys ><)

Well this post is long enough so I'll leave the other stories some other time. Moral of the story is: Higher the risk, higher the reward! (or somthing like that)

Nice thread.. wow!!!

In the theory of picking lock success rate, i do believe it reies on lvl and area. I havent getten a mimic since i was lvl 58 picking the Castle V coffer. That was my first and only mimic. And Why quit trying to pick a lock u fail at, if its worth treasure/AF keep going at it.

!!!!NOTE TO THIEVES WITH OTHER JOBS WANTING AF!!!!
You CANNOT pick coffers for ur other jobs AF UNLESS its the old gauntlets coffer for the darkspark battel, ive tried this for my RNG AF, picked coffer to obtain key item old gauntlets, later tried to pick Crawlersnest coffer for RNG Hunter Braccae, all i got was gil. so there. Getting AF for ur next job wont be cake like your THF AF was ^-^

I was wondering, if you're with a friend in a party, just you two, and your objective is to get their AF.. Could you pick the lock for them and retrieve THEIR AF?

1. Just to clarify: Invis only stacks if you are using NIN sub and Tonko to make yourself invisible. The white magic spell Invisible does NOT stack. If you cast it on yourself while Invisible, all you'll do is knock whatever invis time you had left off.

2. You are visible very briefly when you reapply Tonko. While unlikely, it is possible to get aggro'd by sight only mobs while doing this. Saw this happen to a RNG/NIN looking for his AF coffer in Monastic Caverns. He was quite surprised and none too happy.

You've contradicted yourself from what I read. If Invis doesn't stack and the first one always wears off as you first say, then you are visible briefly even if the status icon remains. Since I have personally seen someone get aggro during that brief second of visiblity during the Tonko reapplication, I'm not the one that is wrong.

EDIT: He started reapplying as soon as he got the 1st warning, so it didn't wear off in the middle of the cast. He was not aggro'd by a true sight mob, either.

Edited, Thu Apr 14 11:08:56 2005 by iniadelphinae

I can also comfirm that invisible does indeed stack! I just got my Rogue's Culotte last night in Castle Oztroja and while waiting the Yags to turn their back stand almost kissing one I recast tonko without aggro.

I've been coffer hunting for about 8lvls now and I only use Thief's Tools after my mimic encounter with living keys and skel keys. I have a 85-90% success rate with Thief's Tools. However at lvl 57 I have a DEX totaling 109 O.O.

Anyway good luck my fellow Thieves and happy hunting unless you're on my server =P

Wonderful. Thank you!

orz, forgot place: Temple of Ugly Pee
12000gil
chest: room with tonberry cook npcs in it
thf55/nin
thief tools
ice day 7:00

Edited, Sun May 15 10:17:15 2005 by MadKrownLove

yea, i do MCaves often cuz zone is right around the corner (2 corners, but dgaf) and is invis only, no doors or stupid obstacles. there is the warlord in that dead end, but u shouldnt have to go near that ne way. plus all the pops are RIGHT friggin close... Thidauge, how long was it after u opened the first that u found the second. i thought it was 30 minute delay til pop??
/logout

I have the following to add in:

Newton Movalopolis (Coffer) - Lvl 61 w/ Skeleton Key (got Map)

I got aggro just as I picked, so, I used Hide and dropped said aggro. ^^

Hi there sorry if this was already answerd but i dont fell like reading 4 pages of thread ^^: i was just wondering the sit with the chest locations does not cover many places. Im a 46thf(just got today ^^) and was wondering what is the best location to lock pic and if anyone had a map of the chest locations. im on the Shiva server my name is Pyste if you wont to contact me thanks alot^^

You can only pick locks when your main job is thf.

ummm in order for tonko ichi + silent oil to work youd have to use the silent oil first. invis wont stay up if you do actions like casting spells, attacking, or using items.
ur macro'd have to be

/item "Silent oil" <me>
/wait 1
/ma "Tonko: Ichi" <me>

Valefor Surreal
THF 45 WAR 35
NIN 32 RNG 16

send me a /tell if your ever on Valefor

ok yea, just finished reading thru the posts and yea, lots of ppl corrected the first person to say this so... yea... we all just reiterating the same thing. <(^^<) <(^^)> (>^^)>

Edited, Tue Jul 12 01:38:30 2005 by ahleyanna

hey i guess i kinda just decided to lvl thf as my main... im currently lvl 30 n just wanted to no if i could make ne gil off lock picking at my lvl or should i just wait until i am of higher lvl to start

Just letting you know, I picked the Garlaige Citadel chest today as a lvl 49 thf/nin mithra. I used a thief's tool.

this thread has serious pawnage

Well... I recently started my lockpicking fun about 2 weeks ago. Reasonably successful so far. I started in Ordelles Caves as 45 THF/WHM while on my RSE run. I picked 2 chests no problem using THF tools. The other 2 chests I actually used Ordelles Keys. I have since picked chests in there purely for looting purposes. I have failed twice... once a simple fail where I had to try again. The second was last night as 51 THF/WHM and I was weakened for a full hour! O.o

I am currently in Fei'Yin hunting the chests for loot. I picked the lock first time no problem (again THF tools) to get my Teleport Vahzl quest item. Since then I have picked the chests 4 times with one fail. And that was a weakness of 30 mins. The other 3 times I just got Gil. :( I want a Life Belt really. ^^

I have also picked one coffer in the Monastic Cavern as 51 THF/WHM using THF tools with no problem for my THF AF2 Rusty Gauntlets.

I have noticed that if I pick a lock for something quest related then I have yet to fail. But if I'm simply looting I have mixed results. I've yet to try out Living Keys or Skeleton Keys. Jeuno had no Living keys at all in AH before I set out on this run.

What I do myself is load up on DEX gear. I even equip my AF dagger to give +2 DEX. Currently my DEX stands at 54 +19. I think this may help somewhat but I cannot be sure. Perhaps if I switch to another type of key my chances of Life Belt drop will increase?

EDIT: Just done a 5th chest run today and finall got a Life Belt!!! At last!!! So that about 13K in Gil and one Life Belt.... not bad considering that they sell on my server for about 140K give or take a bit. I need to log for work now... but will be back again tomorrow for another run. ^^

Edited, Tue Sep 13 12:32:59 2005 by Darwinion