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WoW Archivist: The pointy end of weapon skills
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Have you ever picked up a real-life sword, axe, or powder rifle and said to yourself, "Yeah, I know exactly how to kill people with this?" Me too -- all the time. I mean, there's only one thing you need to know, right? But in actual reality and not the reality in our heads, we don't have the first clue. Most of our ideas probably come from movies or TV, where the fights are choreographed to be exciting rather than true to historic fighting methods. Why do I bring this up? In vanilla WoW, and for quite a long time afterward, your character couldn't just pick up a new weapon and instantly know how to murder dragons with it. Your character had to learn. Slowly, painfully learn. Let's look back at weapon skills.
Servants of Allistarj no longer good for weapon skilling on Beta
If you play a melee or physical damage class or spec that is not a Feral Druid, you have probably experienced this most excruciating of mechanics that is the leveling of class weaponry skill. We all know the tale: You find a spiffy new weapon, you go out and use it, and find that your damage is abysmal. Then you realize it. Your skill with this weapon is 1! Thus, you're forced to go trudge off to find some grey or green mobs to solo and thwack mindlessly for a few hours until you can finally get some decent damage out of the supposed "upgrade" that you were so pumped to get a few minutes prior. One of the ways people have made this strange little grind somewhat bearable is by using the servants out in the Blasted Lands. Because they can't die from normal weapon strikes, you can simply set yourself in front of one and swing away. If you're max level or if you have a self-healing proc or ability, you can spend a long time just wailing away mindlessly at the guy, leaving one eye on the screen while you do other things. Some people have even been so ambitious as to drag one of them to Stormwind for a skilling up free-for-all in the trade district. Unfortunately, it looks like the ride's over. People are reporting that the Servants are no longer giving skill ups, even after 10 minutes of wailing away on the mob. There's no blue post confirming or denying the change as of this writing, but if it's in, it would seem to be deliberate.
