Why Do We Even Bother With Weapon Skill?
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Monday, August 3, 2009 - 14 Comments Tags: developer choices, end game, expertise, expertises, leveling, master of arms, pointless stats, weapon skill
iTZKooPA on Monday, August 3, 2009 - 14 Comments Tags: developer choices, end game, expertise, expertises, leveling, master of arms, pointless stats, weapon skill 
It Takes Longer To Find All The Weapons Than To Level The SkillLove it or hate it, Blizzard has been changing the leveling aspects of World of Warcraft with each additional expansion. As the level cap continues to be raised, the developers feel that blasting players through levels is a reasonable solution. Sure, the slow to level players, and highly casual alt creators may feel a sense of abandonment, but according to Blizzard, the game begins at max level. With increased XP gains from questing and grinding, lower level access to mounts and cheaper training costs and Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, leveling has become nothing more than a quick chore. So why is it that we still bother with Weapon Skill?
From what I can tell Weapon Skill was part of the combat calculations for two reasons. Mainly to limit a players ability to take on much higher level mobs than themselves. Perhaps your skill would let you drop a beast 10 levels higher than you, but all the dodges, glancing blows and misses from your puny weapon skill (still hardcapped at 5*level) negated your epeen. The second attribute is to please our incessant need to see our character "progressing". Even though we'd only see an increase of five in between levels, the great driving force of rising statistics kept many of us cracking skulls.
Now, at level 80, the statistic is completely meaningless. Yes, it does impact your DPS when you aren't capped, but does anyone not have max weapon skill with their weapon of choice? If you grab a new weapon of a skill you aren't proficient in you can have that skill capped within the hour. The incoming influx of axe wielding rogues are a perfect example. So what's the point? Why is it that we have to bother with a relic from vanilla WoW that has ultimately lost its purpose to Expertise? Is it hanging around for archaeological reasons and the achievement?
Unfortunately, we can't completely abandon the system since its main purpose is still in use. But it'd be nice if Blizzard made it an actual task to accomplish, rather than a challenge to find an elite mob to swing away at. Of course having to invest additional time into a pointless statistic, repeatedly no less, wouldn't make much sense either. Make it so once one class of weapons (melee and ranged) is leveled they all would be? That wouldn't please the RPers out there. How about giving the statistic back some of its stats that Expertise now possess? That would require additional dev time and rebalancing for no actual change. Hmm.
The state of Weapon Skill is a sticky situation. Ultimately, its pointlessness for 'when the game begins' just bothers me, and frankly, reeks of a poorly planned change to a former core mechanic.
Reader Comments (14)
Good point ..... It can be slightly annoying if you have used one weapon your whole leveling career and then at the end you need a new type and its needs training.
I PvP with my melee characters making weapons skill unbelievably insignificant.
I will admit one of my proudest achievement is getting the Did Someone order a knuckle sandwich achievement after spending ages slapping stuff about for an amazing 30 crit. (i'm a lock so generally slap with the force of a wet tea towel)
A thing you never pointed out is that for spell casters the weapons skill is pointless because you generally shouldn't be using a weapon, except maybe a wand. The stat has no influence on being able to dps or heal, (i know because my resto shaman has a staff and 1 staff weapon skill) so it's redundant for many classes.
I suspect weapon skill will be phased out eventually, as language skill was.
...but what about Language Skill? Even more pointless.
@ Kalcifer: You gave me the image of a Warlock having a sissy fight with an abomination. I just had to laugh.
But yeah, it doesn't seem worth it. Unless you get a weapon that you don't have a high skill lvl in, but it's an up. Save it, finish the raid/instance, then go out, find some sad mob (preferably one that can cast a heal on it's self) and smack away.
Did you know you can level weapon skill at the Argent Tournament? Simply auto-attack someone's jousting target. No muss, no fuss, quick levels since they're high level elites.
@kalcifer i laughed so harrd what you i woke my dad up in then next room langauge skill what is taht
i dont find a very big problem when get a new wapon i take all of my close b the worst type wapon whihc skill i have to level i go in to stocks and use nothing but my melee ability it takes 5 minuters to kill at first and then around a minet i usualy pull a big group then sit back and let my guys hammer away the prisoners but this would be a minor improvement for me i wont have to do that anymore
wrote*
at what you wrote*
Why dont they just bundle some of them together, like have a One-Handed category, Two-Handed, Ranged, Unarmed, and Defense,that way you still are leveling for RP sake but when u switch from an axe to a sword u wont have to worry about having a low skill in the new weapon
@ Ashmodai
Plausible, acceptable and an overall /agree!
The weapon skill should be changed in this way:
If you stick to a kind of weapon for a lot of time (i mean after lvl 80) it would still increase to a bigger value than 400.
This increase would be very slow or depedent on conditions (meaning kill high level creatures) and it would increase the damage using that kind of weapon.
This would be fair because somebody using the weapon for 1 year at lvl 80 would be stronger than a fresh lvl 80...
Good sugestion i think
COCK MEAT SANDWICH