A case for Pickpocketing

 For years I have been advocating for rogues to pick pocket as a way to level their lock picking with out having to wander all over Azeroth looking for boxes, however with the recent changes to lock picking effort is no longer required. So why bother taking the time to riffle through those humanoid pockets? It is only a few silver after all right? Wrong. If you are not one of the sticky fingered set who can't seem to stop the compulsion to see what that mob or boss just may be hiding you may be missing out on some really nice goodies added this expansion.

Flame-Scarred Junkbox is our newest pick pocked locked box, it is what you can sometimes find in these boxes that may be of the most interest to us. I will try to cover the vast majority of them but Blizzard has granted us an unexpected treasure trove you shouldn't miss.

Three epic weapons, all of which are good for us. They have about a 1% drop rate, so it isn't going to be every day you will find one, but they are all BoE. The Spinerender is a throwing weapon, The Twilight Blade is a nice slow dagger, and the Krol Decapitatior is the upgraded version of the Knol Cleaver we saw back in Wrath.

As before you will occasionally find trade supplies such as uncut rare quality gems. You will also find some Inscription supplies which otherwise can only be obtained via limited supply off select vendors. Deathwing Scale Fragments, Bleached Jawbones, Silver Charm Bracelets, and Perserved Ogre Eyes are all used by Scribes to create blue level items at the higher end of Inscription and will fetch you a nice price on the Auction house. These aren't the best trade items however. Located ONLY through pick pocketing are the Polished Bronze Rivets. ANYONE wishing to have a Tailor craft him a High Society Top Hat is going to need 8 of these babies. While the location of the actually recipe is still unknown start stock piling these if you get them because they will be worth their weight in gold shortly.

I can hear you now, well ok Dar, I can see the money making opportunities your presenting but those are still few and far between. What about all the other pockets I have to go through trying to GET those? Fear not. Today's high level rogues will find more than just empty wallets. There will always be the prerequisite few silver but they have also added another item which is just for us. Rogue's Draught is a BoP Health pot. This means not having to fork out cash to your local Alchemist for Mythical Healing Potions. Now we have always had the chance of getting healing pots from pick pocketing. These however are the only ones that have been designed specifically for us and with the recent changes in Cata where mobs are no longer dropping them VERY useful to have.

There is one other thing to consider in regards to pickpocketing. At present gear levels Crowd Control has returned and a great many rogues are out of practice in placing saps. Some have never done it before period. Pickpocketing is a great way to practice outside of a raid or instance situation. Personally I found my saps to be one of the more consistent forms of CC in my guild runs as while glyphed they can last almost 3 minutes usually allowing us time to kill a full pull before getting to the sapped one. Practice placing saps without all the advantages of Subtlety spec. Those who farm places like Grim Batol or the Fractured Front in Deepholm specifically for boxes will highly advocate for using Subtlety, and it does make box farming easier, but all specs should know how to sap with out relying on Subtlety's extra advantages.

There are lots of macros out there you can use to assist you in pick pocketing, for those who are concerned about mobs noticing you with your hand in their pockets there is the following:

/cast Sap
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Ambush

A popular one I have seen credited to Lilyn  for those who just want to farm but not kill anything is:

#showtooltip Pick Pocket
/console targetNearestDistance 5
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/cast Pick Pocket
/cleartarget

So is it really worth losing a minor slot just to pick up the Pick Pocket glyph? That is a totally personal choice but I try to have a least one spec with it. Then again I have always had sticky fingers and the ability to pick a pocket from the same distance I can place a sap appeals to me.