Sunday, October 18, 2009

October 18, 2009
4
Ah, such a frustrating mechanic. Back in the "old" days where it was still a desirable skill for melee classes it at least made some amount of sense to have to raise it manually. Having +5 or +10 extra weapon skill on top of the base 300 meant that you ended up with a LOT less glancing blows. As a rogue, that meant loads of white damage extra. Weapon skill got changed. A few times even. Currently it's equivalent is called Expertise. But in 4.0 (The cataclysm) it'll get removed yet again. However, we still have Weapon skill. No longer as a bonus stat, but still as a dated mechanic that we need to work through on every character when they gain a level. Be it mains or alts. Unarmed skill, Axes, Defence, Maces, Polearms, Swords, Two-Handed Axes, Staves, Wands, and more. Warriors, rogues and hunters have it especially bad as they got nearly a full range of weapons to choose from. And luck would have it, you'll end up wielding each weapon every so and then as you upgrade them from greens, to blue, and epic. Or in the modern days of alts from Hierloom to dungeon blue, to raid epic. At 1/400 weapon skill you'll miss, miss, miss, miss. Starting from 350 or so, you'll hit more, but only do 1% of the weapon's damage if you hit. And you can forget about getting crits. Those numbers steadily increase as your weapon skill increases, but... So does the time in between gaining skill points in that skill. If your class doesn't have any instant attacks - Such as rogues training bow or crossbow skill, well damn, you'll be taking HOURS for those last few skill points. Luck would have it though, you've found this post! Personally I'd prefer weapon skill to be removed entirely, but for a lack of that option I'll give you a few weapons with a "fast" attack speed so you can hit mobs more often, and get skill points more often. Indeed, weapon speed increases the rate at which you gain skill. So, let's see: If you run into a nice epic / blue item that nobody during a dungeon run is interested in don't be afraid to roll greed for it. After all, it'll save you hours of time at any point in your character's development stage. On overall though, you should be able to find most weapons easily on a vendor. Simple white junk you can grab and re-sell again later. You also want as low dps as possible, since the monster you're trying to raise your skills on will then survive for longer, and thus give you more skill points. Daggers: * Poignard. Can't beat this one really. Low dps and widely available. Fists: * MH: Dalaran Knuckles * OH: Left-Handed Brass Knuckles Axes: * MH: Dalaran Axe * OH: Marshfang Blade Axe * OH: Biting Axe * OH: Icy Quick Edge * OH: Tomahawk Maces: * Furious Saronite Beatstick * Dalaran Cudgel Swords: * Dalaran Sword Polearms: * Ethereum Phase-Spear * Dalaran Spear Staves: * Dalaran Stave Two handed Axes: * Mag'hari Battleaxe * Dalaran Great Axe Two handed Maces: * Manual Crowd Pummeler * Dalaran Hammer Two handed Swords: * Barovian Family Sword * Dalaran Greatsword Bows: * Dalaran Bow Crossbows: * Frigid Crossbow * Dalaran Crossbow Guns: * Dalaran Rifle * Moonsight Rifle Thrown: * Dalaran Dart Wands: * Consecrated Wand * Cookie's Stirring Rod * Wand of Onyx Dr.Z's cooking tips The trick is to get your meat to turn crispy brown. If you are ending up with 'crunchy', then you should really pull it from the pan sooner.

4 comments:

Simon said...

Weapon skill is more relevent to levelling characters than max toons. Its why its incredibly difficult to take on mobs more than 5 levels above you because you either can't hit them or do feeble damage when you do.

It is a measure of control to stop people tackling mobs and quests significantly out of their level range. In this age of crazy glyphs and whatnot, im sure my baby lock could solo mobs 10 levels higher than him with his souped up glyphed voidwalker tank if he could actually hit the mob to kill it. That is, however, not what was intended.

Simon

bbr said...

Casters have more trouble with it due to spell hit chance. 17% miss at 3 levels above you, and that steadily increases.

My young paladin was whacking away mobs 5-6 levels above him though. Not as fast as equal level mobs however.

Rehio said...

It's not that difficult to get the skill up, at least. Well, if you can heal yourself, that is. Poor melee fools. Find a mob and hit it for an hour or so and you're at 400 (though you'll have to switch mobs every once in a while).

The only strategy I've seen for melee is to work on it in a raid, as the elites make leveling up the skill really easy. Probably not the best choice for your DPS (or relations with the rest of the raid), but supposedly it works.

Now that I think about it, that is a really annoying mechanic.

Jon said...

Actually, I don't think it is weapon skill per se that is the problem. It works as a measure of skill and level as you level up.

What is annoying and feels dated is having to manually skill it up when you use a new weapon. The only effect that has is a long, annoying, pointless grind until you can be useful with the weapon.

The sensible thing would be to simply set Weapon Skill at level x 5, so that it improved automatically as you leveled up.