Blizzard luckily made leveling lockpicking 1-300 a relatively painless process in Vanilla World of Warcraft. Here’s the least headache inducing method for leveling your lockpicking:
1-75 – Redridge Mountains (Alliance)
Pick the lockboxes located inside the mill in eastern Redridge Mountains. There should be little-to-no mobs to impede your progress.
1-75 – The Barrens (Horde)
Head to the ship anchored off The Merchant Coast in The Barrens. You’ll need to hop on the front in order to board it. Once you do, head to the “Captain’s Room” downstairs to find a bunch of lockboxes.
75-150 – Westfall (Alliance)
While completing the level 20 poison quest, keep repeatedly picking the chest containing the quest item. You’ll need to delete the quest item each time you loot it, which is certainly annoying, but this is by far the fastest way to level lockpicking at this level. Edit: Using the poison quest like this does not appear to be viable in Classic, since destroying the item abandons the quest. It is best to use the footlockers below:
If you have already done this quest, or don’t want to wait to complete it, you can alternatively use the following options. Pick the highest one you can (based on your skill):
Item | Required Skill | Location |
Waterlogged Footlocker | 70 | Redridge Mountains [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 70 | Stonetalon Mountains [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 110 | Stonetalon Mountains [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 110 | Durnholde Keep, Hillsbrad Foothills [map] |
75-150 – The Barrens (Horde)
While completing the level 20 poison quest, keep repeatedly picking the chest containing the quest item. You’ll need to delete the quest item each time you loot it, which is certainly annoying, but this is by far the fastest way to level lockpicking at this level. Edit: Using the poison quest like this does not appear to be viable in Classic, since destroying the item abandons the quest. It is best to use the footlockers below:
If you have already done this quest, or don’t want to wait to complete it, you can alternatively use the following options. Pick the highest one you can (based on your skill):
Item | Required Skill | Location |
Waterlogged Footlocker | 70 | In the lake, Redridge Mountains [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 70 | Windshear Mine, Stonetalon Mountains [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 110 | Windshear Crag, Stonetalon Mountains [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 110 | Durnholde Keep, Hillsbrad Foothills [map] |
150-175 – Footlockers
For this level range you’ll need to rely on footlockers or picking the Workshop Door (backdoor) in Gnomeregan, Footlockers tend to be less annoying than the Workshop Door, due to its long respawn time.
Item | Required Skill | Location |
Waterlogged Footlocker | 150 | Desolace, in the water off the northwest coast (Sar’theris Strand) [map] |
Battered Footlocker | 165 | Angor Fortress, Badlands – upstairs level [map] |
Workshop Door | 150 | Backdoor entrance to Gnomeregan [guide] |
175-200 – Scarlet Monastery Doors
Now is a good time to put on a movie. The Scarlet Monastery is a dungeon located in north-east Tirisfal Glades. Although the Scarlet Monastery doors are consistent, they are slow. Here’s the best method:
- Pick the Armory Door.
- Pick the Cathedral Door.
- Enter the Cathedral and stealth to the actual big Cathedral door (northern side of the courtyard) and pick it.
- Run outside and reset instances (right click on portrait > Reset All Instances).
200-250 – Searing Gorge (The Slag Pit)
Jump down into the caves in The Slag Pit and stealth around looking for the small black lockboxes. They are all located within the area with the miners and the upstairs area near the elites. A good route is to check by the Dark Iron miners first, head upstairs and check the hallway, and then jump down from the elite platform back to the area with the miners. Rinse and repeat.
250-300 – Blackrock Depths Gates
Now would be a good time to finish the movie you started at Scarlet Monastery. Head to Blackrock Depths (dungeon within Blackrock Mountain between Searching Gorge and Burning Steppes) and follow this route:
- Enter Blackrock Depths and immediately pick the gate on your left.
- Be careful of the patrolling mob and pick the second gate on your right.
- Pick the next door on your left and enter the room.
- Pick The Shadowforge Lock (gate mechanism). It’s possible to stand very carefully between the two mobs and not pull aggro at level 60. Make sure you stand as far away from the mechanism as possible and err a little bit toward the right.
- Run outside and reset instances (right click on portrait > Reset All Instances).
Here’s the positioning for The Shadowforge Lock:
Not completing the poisons quest until level 35, REALLY ??
Why would you wait until level 35? I never say that in the guide.
Edit: thanks for the feedback guys. Although the poison quest is still the best method, I understand some may not want to wait (or may have already completed it). As such, I’ve updated the guide with alternate methods for those levels.
170 in Westfall and the box is grey, so what now?
That was a typo, thanks for catching it. Guide has been updated with alternate methods for the tough levels.
LoL to get ur lockpick skill that high, u must be 35
Its not about level…. its about box… at 170 and the box is grey for me = no skill
You have to wait until 35 to get up to 150, or close to 35. You can’t get lockpicking up to 150 and get the poisons at level 20. This guide is flawed, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
youre wrong, I got it to 200 at 31 and poisons at 20
How did you get lockpicking 200 at 31 if i have on 41 limit of 205?
What about 150-175 on the horde side ?
I’m currently lockpicking the Gallywix’s Lockbox but what to do when i hit 150 ?
Great, but in Westfall i can do only 170 and the box is grey.
So what now?
You can use poison box chest after competing quest. Can’t right click, but you can click on Pick Lock and hover over it and click. At 120, the lock boxes turn green, and take forever to get to 150 because of the long respawn timers. Go back to poison chest to get to 170 easy.
That is the best guide there is online. I searched and compared a lot of them.
75-150 does not work in classic wow, it drops the quest whenever you delete the item.
If that’s the case, then the next best method would be picking the footlockers I mention in the same section.
Don’t follow this guide on Classic WoW. If you destory the quest item at the top of the tower during the Rogue poison quest, it will break the quest, and you won’t get poisons. You can’t pick the quest back up either. I’m still waiting for GM to fix it after 2 days
In Classic DO NOT DELETE THE QUEST ITEM FOR HORDE GOING 75-150 It will abandon the quest and all progress
I am 106 lockpicking and can’t open the ones described as below in guide.
Battered Footlocker 70 Windshear Mine, Stonetalon Mountains [map]
The Stonetalon boxes are reversed – you do what he has labeled as 110 first (outside the mine around the lumber yard) and then the 110+ are in the mine.
I have 103 now and go to the Footloockers in the mine of Stonetalon and cant open O_O appear red. What can i do? did the quest alot time ago im lvl 38
ok 1º is out the mine and then insine the mine
06.09.19 I was training lockpicking with this guide 🙂
Battered Footlocker LP 150 skill up in Durnholde Keep, Hillsbrad Foothills [https://i.imgur.com/IXC8e5U.jpg]
Angor Fortress, Badlands – There are two types of boxes:
– upstairs around 150 LP skill to open ( you still get green LP skill at 228 [https://i.imgur.com/caLEmNX.jpg][https://i.imgur.com/ptpuvgA.jpg]
– downstairs around 175-180 LP skill to open ( you still get green LP skill at 230 [https://i.imgur.com/9en39o1.jpg][https://i.imgur.com/DiOQxm0.jpg])
By doing boxes im Angor Fortress in Classic you can skip SM doors. I think in this spot downstair boxes will carry you for up 250 LP. I had 20k xp+ per hour, with lots of silk cloth, chests, some green items. Dwarfs were respawning soo quickly i could do rounds killing them and looking for chests to LP all the time.
Well, there are some easier ways.
first points are ofc correct. but you can go with 150-200 Desolace, 250-300 EPL in Tyrs Hand