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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWeapon Mastery as a single weapon skill stat
by Matthew Rossi 
Sep 4th 2008 at 1:00PM
Forum poster Exodeus has made a suggestion that I heartily endorse: abandon the weapon skill mechanic for a universal weapon mastery system. It's not just for the reasons he suggests that I'm on board. His examples (of a hunter having to go AFK on Dr. Boom after getting a new gun drop because he's always used bows, or a rogue having to mindlessly slaughter low level mobs to get that dagger skill up) resonate for sure... we have a talented DPS warrior in my guild who had to go buy a green 2h axe because he hadn't used one since the old Arcanite Reaper days and he was supposed to be using the 2h legendary in the Kael fight, so I know how ridiculous the skilling up process can be... but because his suggestion makes sense in light of all the other ways the folks at Blizzard are unifying things like spell power, hit rating, crit rating and so on. His point about how the introduction of Expertise effectively made the whole system obsolete is dead on in my eyes.I personally even like his proposed mechanic, but adopting it wouldn't be necessary: I'd be fine if they simply abandoned weapon skill entirely and just based everything on your character level to start with (so that if you were a level 80 paladin and you got a new hammer, you'd automatically hit with it as if you had a 400 weapon skill, no muss, no fuss) if you're dead set on keeping things simple. No matter how they go about it, since training dummies still don't provide weapon skill on use, I'd have to believe that some change or revamp of the system would be a very nice improvement to the gameplay. Getting a nice drop shouldn't send you into the Blasted Lands to find Servants of Razelikh. Those poor guys -- not only are they cursed to be unable to die, but they get smacked in the head by guys way higher level then they are all day. It's a hard life being an unkillable mob.
If Blizzard was a pixie one could make wishes to, this would definitely be one of mine. Also, I'd try and keep them safe from Captain Hook.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
roguedubb Sep 5th 2008 2:03AM
Sounds lame.
Skill up once and you'll never have to get that skill again. It's not like other games where you die and your skills can go down. Suggesting you shouldn't have to do it even once is just lazy.
Archenemy Sep 5th 2008 9:41AM
"Are you suggesting we be allowed to buy our weapon skill levels?"
I think it can be a solution. Thus people who dont like to level up skills can just buy them, similar to Primal elements. If you dont grind them, but you need them, you can still buy them. If you have neither time nor money to level up a skill, you dont really care about it anyways.
If you had the option to pay for weapon skill levels, that would be a goldsink for some, witch is also good. Also, somewhere they had to earn that gold witch they spend on this, so it does not reduce playtime, only allows ppl to do something different they more like, while not taking away the possibility of the sense of archievement from those who levelled it up the hard, old way.
Im just against the idea, that if something is boring/hard, just delete it. How much of the player population was in black temple? 2 or 3 percent? Shall we change the elites inside them to normal mobs to make it easier? How many ppl do fishing? shall we give lvl375 fishing to everyone, just to make fishing more popular? etc. I know im exaggerating, but i hope you see my point.
Actually, this "i give gold for skill levelup" works in all professions (leatherworking, blacksmith, etc), if you powerlevel them, or you can "normally" level them, by making things you can use or sell. Aye, i see nothing wrong in buying a weaponskill level for lets say 10 or 25 silver for lower levels, and 1 gold for each level above 300.