What’s The Point…
… of weapon skill?
As most of you are no doubt aware, weapon skill determines your chance to hit an enemy mob with a melee weapon. It starts out at 1, and your potential skill raises by 5 each level. So, at level 70, you have a potential weapon skill of 350. Of course, leveling it is not so easy. If you use one single type of weapon from 1 to 70 (which would be doable for, say, a Dagger Rogue, or a Sword/Mace/Axe spec Warrior), you will hit 70 with no weapon skill issues. The problem comes when you want to try out a new type of weapon.
Take McGraken, my warrior, for instance. He has been Fury since around level 25, and I’ve almost never used anything except one-handed weapons. When I recently started playing him again, I decided I wanted to try something different, and so I went Arms/Fury (this spec here - MS for PvP, Flurry for PvE). I grabbed a decent two-hander (Adamantite Cleaver), and then looked at my two-handed Axe skill… 50/350.
Well… it can’t be too bad right? I mean, you can just head out to the Blasted Lands and wail away on a Servant of Razelikh, right? It shouldn’t take too long, right?
Right…
Three hours later, I was about ready to kill something. My weapon skill was somewhere in the 290s (!) and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I finally got it up to 300 and then just said “Screw it. I’m heading back to the Outlands. If I can’t hit anything and keep dying, at least the scenery will be different.”
So that brings me back to the issue here. What is the point of weapon skill? Is there any good answer for that? There is no benefit to having weapon skill maxed out - there is only the removal of a detriment. That is totally different. It is assumed at 70 that you will have your weapon skill maxed out - no one ever puts “350/350 in Swords” on a guild app - but there is often a serious time commitment required to achieve it. I can see the point of it from an RP-viewpoint - if your character just picked up a sword for the first time ever, he would have no idea how to use it, and it would take him a while to get used to it (unless your character is an ex-Tinker named Aram) - but is it really worth putting it in the game?
Why not make weapon skill work the way that it does for Feral Druids? Ferals’ “weapon skill” (that’s in quotes since they hit with their paws, not the actual weapon) is assumed to be (their level x 5). There’s no leveling Cat Form skill if you’ve been in Bear a lot, or vice versa. Why not have all weapons work that way?
I mentioned some of this to Egwene yesterday evening. She knew generally what weapon skill was, but didn’t know too much about it, having never really played a melee character. This was our conversation:
Me: … so I grabbed a two-handed axe and started leveling it up.
Her: Yeah? How’d that go?
Me: Well, three hours later I still wasn’t done, but the good news is I didn’t care anymore.
Her: What?! Three hours!? That’s ridiculous! That’s why more girls don’t play this game. Stupid things like that that serve no real purpose. Can’t you get someone in China to do that for you?
Me: Yes, but that would be illegal.
Her: Well, it shouldn’t be for something that stupid.
So there you have it Blizzard. If you want to get more people playing the game, take out silly things like this.
Oh, and the really good news is that I’m going to run Sethekk Halls tonight, if I can find a group, and that means I’ll get Terokk’s Quill.
And it’s a polearm.
/sigh
Oh well, at least I don’t have to respec for it.
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I always considered weapon skill one of those annoying things you just ignore. But I am a Mage, so it’s not like it really matters for me =P
Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s definitely nice not to have to worry about that on my Lock though.