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Pick Pocket

Pick Pocket
Melee Range

Instant	0.5 sec cooldown

Requires Rogue
Requires level 15

Requires Stealth
Pick the target's pocket.

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Physical

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

None

Range

5 yards (Combat)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

500 milliseconds

GCD

0 seconds

Forms

Stealth

Effect

Pickpocket

Flags

Guides

Comprehensive Ashran Guide

Rogue PvE
compendium - the
do's and dont's

Shifty Hands: A Guide
to Pickpocketing

Comments

Comment by Kaij

If you aren't picking every possible pocket yet, you should be. Yes, picking pockets adds a second to each target you'd much rather be Cheap Shotting or Ambushing, but trust me, those coins add up! I will sometimes grind for a couple of hours and not pick any pockets just to maximize my experience point gain, but, in the end, I always miss out on that "2s x 400 kills... aww, man, I could've had another 8G!"

Picking Pockets is also a must to improve your Lockpicking and Poison skills, as you will sometimes find Junkboxes (to unlock) that contain poison reagents!

Comment by lukeh

This skill is essential, insanely usefull, and fun. To not use this is like a mage not using blink. It's awesome.. also an insane help to poison reagents such as blinding powder.

Comment by darkarsenic

Macro it with Cheap Shot for quick painless cash.

/cast Pickpocket
/stopcasting
/cast Cheap Shot
you can switch Cheap Shot with whatever you wish, it only works while blizzards autoloot is on.

Comment by Squirldude

If you have imp sap you can pickpocket w/o chance of being discovered.

Comment by oblivion

I don't know about anyone else but it seems the above macro causes me to only loot the first item on the window (usually the money).

I've determined the best course of action is the following macro:

/castsequence reset=combat Pick Pocket,

This way, it will cast pick pocket when you click on the button once, and your intended skill when you click on it again. This sequence is reset after you leave combat. This only works if the target is valid for Pick Pocket.

Comment by Foxpaw

Some lovely updates as of 2.1.0 that might want to be noted:
-Since sap will no longer break stealth, you no longer have any excuse not to pickpocket mobs. >:p
~~-The drop rate of blinding powder in junkboxes is increased even further; I've got 4 or 5 stacks of extra powder in my bank for all the stuff I'm getting.~~
-You have almost the same chance getting a gemstone from boxes/direct pocketing as you do mining against higher level mobs (almost always an Aquamarine/Blood Garnet)
-POTIONS AND FOOD! (nearly forgot this one) I can rely on picking up a lv 55 potion from 65-ish mobs regularly. You can get a potion or food roughly 7-11 levels lower than the mob you loot something around 1 in 8 tries. Very handy if you're combat spec and use potions as an 'oh shi-' tactic.
-If you dont pickpocket, you're missing out on a huge amount of awesome flavor items! The raw cash, mats, and vendorables from pickpocketing are undisputably a handy bonus to your gold intake.

Some of my favorite pocket-drops:
Empty Wallet (I give one to people who beg me for gold >:P)
Shark Bait (Oo-haha!) http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29576
Shiny Dinglehopper (more aquatic lols) http://www.wowhead.com/?item=5435
~~Pet Rock (Sell to stupid people) http://www.wowhead.com/?item=20030~~ See, if you'd just been pickpocketing them, you'd be making bank on items that are no longer acquirable in the game.

Other fun items are the Steamy Romance Novel, Exotic Cookbook (How to Serve Man), and... god. Too many to list here. Get picking!

Comment by Phelia

A mob takes abit under 10min to respawn their pocketstuff if you pick pocket them but don't kill them.

Comment by billymx

After you hit 22, start to use Distract w/ this, it when you distract a target two things happen:

1) They stop moving (I've stopped just one or 2 members of patrols w/ a well placed distract).

2) They look towards the center of the radius of distract.

With those 2 it can easily take alot of the time & difficulty of walking up behind someone and making it no excuse to not pickpocket.

BTW, for those who say "Distract takes energy its not worth it", it takes very little energy & by the time you walk up & pickpocket you'll already recover it.

Comment by Nicklaus32780

I would recomend sapping them and then pick pocketing them because there is a slight chance they might resist Pick Pocket and attack you.

Comment by Glenngunner

I just pick some pockets from some slimes. I guess even a loogie has to get some eats.

Comment by Collypso

also, since you only need to be in stealth to pickpocket you can still do it if a mob detects you and attacks

just as long as it doesnt break your stealth, so if you dodge/parry or it misses you can still pickpocket

Comment by sharp89

Pick Pocket can't be used against players, but some of them do not know about it. So if you want to get on newbies nerves make a macro like:

/e has successfully pick pocketed You for 15s and 39c!

or similar.

PS. Use it at your ow risk :)

Comment by Trellian

As of this patch (2.4) it seems that a couple of things to Pick Pocketing have been 'stealth' (pun intended) buffed.

You can now recieve 'Blues' (only seen gems so far, a Talasite for me, and a Noble Topaz for a guildie) - there could be Blue/Epic items too, but I haven't tested enough with it yet.

Lockboxes now apparently contain green quality items again. Unconfirmed by myself, but I'll do some more testing tonight.

Comment by corvato

post 2.4: You get an error message now trying to pick pocket a mob that has recently been pick pocketed.

Comment by Azmodanrom

i use

/script SetAutoLootDefault(1)
/cast Pick Pocket
/in 2 /script SetAutoLootDefault(0)
/cast Cheap Shot

this will autoloot even if u don;t normally use autoloot.

but just as was previously said, if by some lag problem, u don;t autoloot, u don;t get to pickpocket again.
just used this macro on a mob, saw something blue in the loot window (for a milisecond) but it didn;t get into my inventory. Vanish. tryed to PP again.. that msg. waited 5 mins... got different loot (no blue)

Comment by Brighid

Humanoids seem not to be the only creatures whose pockets can be picked. Oozes (or slimes, sludges, whatever you'd like to call them) also can have their "pockets" picked. Makes me wonder if there are other creatures as well who have some hidden coin.

Comment by Inygma

I found a useful way to counter the lag / not looting all the itemsbefore your move goes off with this macro.

Instead of making you push the button twice you can do the following:

/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcast
/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcast
/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcast
/cast Cheap Shot

This gives you a little more time to autoloot the mob and still makes it do the move in just one click!

Comment by asna

#showtooltip pick pocket
/console targetNearestDistance 5.000000
/cleartarget
/targetenemy
/script SetAutoLootDefault(1)
/cast pick pocket
/in 1 /script SetAutoLootDefault(0)
/console targetNearestDistance 41.000000)

this is the almost perfect macro

Comment by Sharburg

I pick pocket all the time... it's just plain worth it. I've gotten 5 Nighteye gems from pick pocketing so far and that's just free money.

Comment by phille52

I found a little "bug/exploit" with pickpocket. You can first sap the mob if u want, so he wont aggro u if he resists... Then put Pick Pocket on a hotkey like 1 or something and spam-click it. You can pickpock the same pockets 4 times. So if its 10s you can get 40 silver for pickpocking ONE mob

Edit: This was from ogres in Nagrand, might be higher for higher lvl mobs :)
Edit #2: Only works for money, not Junkboxes or other things.

Comment by kpuyo

My macro is simple but good for leveling. With autoloot activated:

/castsequence Pick Pocket,Ambush(Rank x)
(where x is the rank of ur ambush, depending on level)

Stealth.... put ur macro in a hotkey and... first hit will pickpocket and second will ambush, with your mob (if you have +45% crit on ambush) starting at 50-70% health :)

I just change my Ambush hotkey with this Macro continously depending If my targets are humanoids or not.

Comment by Valdis06

I just got the pick pocket with my rogue, What am i able to pick pocket at such a low level?

Comment by ate94

Counts toward http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=1181

Comment by Sorvtyl

Cmon and list some good places myself havent looked so long but Ivalds Ruin in Howling Fjord was pretty good, a subtletly lvl80 could prolly make gazzilions in Sholazar Basin, The Avalanche.

Comment by Arpeggio

Ok, So I am having a little problem. I am using the

#showtooltip Cheap Shot
/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcasting
/cast Cheap Shot

macro. Most of the time (not all) I will pick the money out of an enemies pocket but if there is any loot in there (lockboxes for example) the starting of combat and breaking of stealth will pull me out of the loot window before it has been auto looted. I play with autoloot on all the time so that isn't the problem. Is this a serverside lag problem? Is there anything I can do on my end to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Comment by T3hZ10n

I tested this and found out that the text (You loot # silver # copper) will show 1-4 times if u spam click pickpocket but you only get the money once.

Confirmed.

This is also common when looting in a hurry... If you attempt to loot a mob immediately after killing them and take a step almost simultaneously, you'll notice the message "You loot (x) silver" where (x) is whatever amount.

If you do this quickly enough, the mob will still appear un-looted and you will get the loot message but the the amount will not be added to your backpack and you can loot the mob again to get the same message and the actual amount.

After having this happen a number of times I confirmed both the pickpocketing and looting bugs with Titan Gold Tracker by resetting it before the kill and checking it after the message "You loot (x) silver"... only to find that I wasn't actually getting double.

Comment by Enjubi

if you are farming humanoids, this is an awesome way to earn some extra money.
look at the other comments for macros

Comment by Xandyx

Just a small caveat, even though I know it's been mentioned before:
Pickpocket CAN be resisted, and it WILL aggro the mob on you (except in certain cases.)
When this happens, it shows up as a "Miss"

(confused the hell out of me at first)

Comment by staan

I just have one question about thus...

Can you pick pocket mobs that are much higher level than you? (The ? levels) ?

Comment by Jrubzjeknf

For people who like to have auto-loot turned off, but want to automatically loot pick pockets (so you only have to press one button to snatch his belongings), I present you the following macro:

#showtooltip
/script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 1)
/cast Pick Pocket
/in 1 /script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 0)

This one works as of time of writing. Note however, that /in is not in the default macro system. You need the framework addon Ace2 for that. Other versions of Ace might work too, but I tried it with this one and it works grand.

Happy Pick Pocketing!

Comment by rabarberskurk

Does hit rating increase the chance of successful pickpocketing?

Comment by Fungalsporebat

how good are teh items u get from pickpocket ?

Comment by Jaxx

How often can a mob be pickpocketed? What is the general cooldown? thanks!

Comment by siikalord

Becouse you pre-FoK AOE DPS is going to suck anyway, you might aswell tab trough trash packs in instances.

Comment by Lolstorm

Macro's - UPDATES FOR WOTLK - All of these macro's will turn on autoloot as soon as you use the ability, pick pocket the target if it's a humanoid, loot it and turn autoloot off after. And cast the openener/sap. Update: Now also gets rid of those annoying error messages whenever your pickpocket can't be cast for any reason, plus it tries to use Premeditation if you have the skill.

Sap:

#showtooltip Sap
/stopcasting
/cast Sap
/stopcasting
/script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 1)
/cast Pick Pocket
/in 1 /script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 0)

Ambush:

#showtooltip Ambush
/stopcasting
/script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 1)
/use Pick Pocket
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/in 1 /script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 0)
/stopcasting
/cast Premeditation
/use Ambush

Cheap Shot:

#showtooltip Cheap Shot
/stopcasting
/script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 1)
/cast Pick pocket
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/in 1 /script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 0)
/stopcasting
/cast Premeditation
/cast Cheap Shot

Garrote:

#showtooltip Garrote
/stopcasting
/script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 1)
/cast Pick pocket
/in 1 /script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 0)
/stopcasting
/cast Garrote

Comment by HaloMythbuster

You won't believe the ridiculous things people keep in their pockets!
http://www.wowhead.com/item=14540#pick-pocketed-from

http://www.wowhead.com/item=1179#pick-pocketed-from

http://www.wowhead.com/item=7682#pick-pocketed-from

That last one sounds both unpleasant and dirty...then again MOST of the things you can pickpocket would be fairly unpleasant to have in your pockets.

Comment by Slunko

What i find funny is pickpocketing in Stockades. Those prisoners don't carry anything on them (prolly cose they r half naked and they dont have any pockets), but when you pickpocket them, you get all sorts of stuff like gems and ore(yes, copper ore). So I'm wondering where are they keeping all of that? Am i giving every one of them a full cavity search? O.o

Comment by craftyard

As far as I can tell, pick pocketing can still be resisted, which will cause them to attack you if they aren't sapped or otherwise incapacitated.

This ability also can't miss (may need testing...)

Comment by tasuki

A little odd this has not been mentioned yet.

You could argue the reason why rogues are able to pick pocket from a pragmatic in-game perspective (lore is not a reason for many things in the actual game) is that on all other classes, even feral druids who can tank multiple mobs continually if they wished, you gain gold from the amount of mobs you have to clear while levelling. As someone else said, this can really add up fast.

Since rogues are fairly dependent on stealth as a means to level but are also the most fragile melee class (especially against chain-pulling multiple enemies), Pick Pocket enables you to catch up to the loot everyone else is getting while levelling.

Comment by Cyno01

By xechran on 10/18/2008 (Patch 3.0.2)

The /in function is not part of the standard UI. To use that in macros you must download Chronos:
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info4328-Chronos.html

Thank you so much, i spent 2 hours futzing with things trying to get my macro working to no avail, autoloot would turn on but not back off. Just a tip, chronos isnt the only thing that makes this work, somewhere else mentioned Ace2, i installed that and the macros started working.

This is my opener, pretty standard.

#showtooltip Ambush
/stopcasting
/script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 1)
/cast Pick Pocket
/in 1 /script SetCVar("AutoLootDefault", 0)
/stopcasting
/cast Ambush

This is another nice one i use for large packs of mobs, it clears the target at the end so its spamable. A favorite spot is in Uldum at the Obelisk of the Moon. Theres the nazis marching in formations of 10 down the long ramp for that daily. Toss a distract, run around em spaming this macro, move onto the next group. Drop rate is pretty good, i usually get 2 boxes per group.

#showtooltip Pick Pocket
/console targetNearestDistance 5.000000
/targetenemy
/console targetNearestDistance 10.000000
/script SetAutoLootDefault(1)
/cast Pick pocket
/in 1 /script SetAutoLootDefault(0)
/cleartarget

Hopefully with these macros working ill get my spinerender and/or twilight blade asap just doing my dailies.

Comment by stonird

For subtlety rogues, make sure this is bound to Ambush, Cheap Shot, and Garrote on your Shadow Dance action bar. This will allow you to pick pocket any mob you didn't have a chance to sneak up on in stealth.

Comment by Anuunrama

Simplified macros for Cataclysm (these are assuming you have auto-loot turned on in the Blizzard Interface menu):

Cheap Shot and Pick Pocket

#showtooltip Cheap Shot
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Cheap Shot

Ambush and Pick Pocket

#showtooltip Ambush
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Ambush

Sap and Pick Pocket

#showtooltip Sap
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Sap

Replace any of the abilities on your toolbar and you'll pickpocket, auto-loot, and perform the action. I recommend getting the Glyph of Pick Pocket to increase the range to 10 yds so that if you are outside of melee range, you can still pickpocket without using the indicated attack instead of vice versa.

Comment by grant0193

this is a newb thing im asking..
how do we pickpocket and what can i pickpocket at lvl 12

thanks

Comment by Sorvtyl

UK/Utgarde Keep netted me 8g20s, theres worgs that can sniff you out if your not high level.
Gjalerbron, Howling Fjord gave 4g but its a nice cosy place to pickpocket.
Buff pickpocket!.

Comment by Vrominelli

Yoink!

Comment by Xhukari

I've tried a myriad of different macros to get this to work off my Ambush, but I find only a small faction of my PickPockets actually gain me any loot; yet if I go around and Pickpocket the olde fashion way, I have no issues.

Update:
I believe I found the solution! (An issue that others suffer with if my research has anything to go by...

Do you find your macro works very rarely or not at all? Regardless of format and the like?

Your issue could be with targeting! I've recently began targeting my mobs before opening upon them; and every time I successfully pickpocket!
Of course, this targeting works with the 'Target nearest enemy' keybinding, etc. Or the classic left clicking ;)

(Those who might think this is ridiculous; if you went within range for your macro then used it, you would actually perform your Ambush as standard, seemingly the macro working but some unknown issue with the /cast pick pocket portion... obviously this no longer is the case!)

With this in mind, a simple edit to your macro could make it work! Before the /cast pick pocket line, place a /targetenemy line.
Voila!

Comment by untossable

Macroing this into Ambush/Garrote does no longer (as of 4.3.2 ?) reliably work.
I often see the pick pocket loot window shortly popping up, but although auto-loot is on, pockets are not always looted. Missed quite a few lock boxes. So I'm now back to doing it the classic way, i. e. pick pocket then ambush.

Comment by Riptor820

With patch 5.0.4, it is no longer possible to use this ability while moving. There's also an odd error message when trying to pick pocket mobs that have already been picked which says, "You don't have permission to loot that corpse."

Comment by Mormolyce

You've got to pick a pocket or two!

Comment by AtomicKitty

The latest fad:Glyph of Disguise on bosses, then chilling in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.

Don't be surprised to see a change incoming that limits the targets eligible to use Glyph of Disguise on.

Comment by BigZZZ

Does pickpocketing before killing a target reduce the money you get from killing it?

Comment by rebjorn

For maximum speed and efficiency, Svisj's fabulous Pick Pocketing macro:

#showtooltip Pick Pocket
/stopattack
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast burst of speed
/cleartarget

Explanation:
/stopattack
- Makes sure you're not poking the mobs with anything sharp.
/cast Pick Pocket
- Casts Pick Pocket when mousing over an npc, OR if you're targeting it as usual.
/cast burst of speed
- The Rogue level 60 Talent Burst of Speed. Make sure it's an active talent.
/cleartarget
- Clears your target. You'll understand why once you're up and running.

Talents:
Nightstalker, Burst of Speed.

Glyphs:
Glyph of Pick Pocket, Glyph of Disguise.

Other stuff:
Errorfilter AddOn
- This AddOn does one thing: Removes the red spam text.. 'You can't do that yet', 'Not enough Energy' etc.

Wowwiki's macro guide, in case you're a bit stuck on the whole macro thing.

Prepare for some sneaky action!

Comment by Aveliia

Anyone have a good pick-pocket location? They removed the pocket from the bugs that were in stealth and now its worthless.

Comment by ainotna

You can pickpocket mobs that are already engaged in combat. I never had the opportunity to find this out until today, and bam, I was able to.

Comment by kgurnhill

A tip for you guys!

If you're on a Low-level rogue, I'd reccomend heading to the Kor'kron places in Northern Barrens - Pre-85 the mobs are Neutral, but still level 90, meaning you can get an amazing amount of cash from them, just go around and sequentially pick every mobs pocket, you'll end up with a few dozen gold easy! :)

AND, because they're neutral, it doesn't matter about your level, or positioning as they won't see through stealth or attack you, unless you attack them :)

Works great if you're starting completely fresh on a new server, it can be a nice income of gold to get you started :)

Comment by Jarolleon

None of the Ordon mobs on the Timeless Isle can be pickpocketed.

Comment by Damonra

I'm in Blackrock Spire pick pocketing everything there. As I go through, I tend to hit the same mobs more then once. Usually I get a message saying the pockets have already been picked, but at times, it feels like I'm picking some pockets more than once, with success. I'm guessing there's a timer on how often they can be picked.

Can someone verify there is a timer on this?

Comment by MrJumpingBean

Beware if you pocket a flagged NPC from the opposing faction you will get flagged if you are not already. I pickpocketed one of the low lv SW guards in Elwynn and had to wait for the flag to wear off. So much for glyph of disguise! D:

Comment by Eightballz

Be sure you add /cast Pick Pocket before every opener! Interesting loot and extra silver never hurts.

Pick Pocket

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