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Learn how to level a new weapon skill in WoW Forever in about five minutes using a simple method with tanky mobs and no seals or auras.
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Find a mob that can't hurt you, turn off your seals and auras, and auto-attack it while healing yourself to keep the fight going. That's how I brought a brand-new sword skill up to match my mace in the WoW Forever beta: four mobs, about five minutes, at level 20.
Weapon skill is still in WoW Forever. Blizzard's deep-dive panel at BlizzCon confirmed it works as it always has, and the change is on the gear side: items that give weapon skill now give less of it each, as Outputlag's panel round-up explains.
So if you switch weapon types, you still have to level the new skill the old way: by hitting things with it. Here's how I did it.
Purely for the look. I'm levelling Maple, an Undead Paladin tank, and a sword with a shield suits the theme I'm going for. I'd used a one-handed mace and shield since around level 5, so by level 20 my mace skill was high and my sword skill was basically nothing.
My coach , the AI assistant that reads my character's data , kept telling me not to swap away from the mace, and low sword skill was the reason. A new weapon type means you miss a lot until you've levelled it, and at level 20 that puts you a long way behind.
It makes you miss, and it makes your hits weak. My combat log from that day shows the difference clearly.
Just before the switch, with the mace, I was missing about one swing in five and hitting for around 40 to 45 damage. On my first fight with the new sword, I missed 20 of 28 swings , about 71%. The hits that landed did around 10 damage each. That's a quarter of the damage on the swings that connect, and most swings don't connect at all.
Weapon type itself made no difference to my numbers. My Night Watch Shortsword and my old mace both swing at 2.6 speed, so the only thing holding the sword back was the skill. Level that, and the sword does the same job as the mace.
You need a fight that lasts as long as possible against something that can't kill you. Every swing is a chance to gain a point, so the longer the mob stays alive, the more chances you get.
Here's exactly what I did:
None of the mobs ever put me in danger. I healed anyway to keep my health topped up and stretch each fight as long as possible, getting the most skill gains out of every encounter.
I did it in Silverpine Forest. My first sword fight was against a bear, then three Ravenclaw Servants on the way out to Fenris Isle , the island where the undead Rot Hide gnolls are. Any area works, as long as the mobs there take a while to kill and barely scratch you.
About five minutes. My first sword swings were on a bear, then three Ravenclaw Servants. Two of the fights lasted just over a minute each, and the last two took 10 to 15 seconds , because by then I was hitting properly.
Over those four fights, my hits went from around 10 damage to around 50 or 60, and my miss rate dropped from 71% back to about one in five. That's the same miss rate I had with the mace, after roughly five minutes of fighting.
The sword kept climbing from there as I used it, and four days later, at level 21, it hit 100 skill.
Your stats play a small part too. Warcraft Tavern's WoW Forever stats guide notes that Intellect "slightly increases your chance to improve weapon skills when attacking," so characters with more Intellect should skill up a little faster.
Yes. The sword was purely about the look, and it cost me about five minutes on mobs that couldn't hurt me. My coach changed its advice after seeing how quickly the skill came up: switching weapon type for fun is fine, as long as you level it first.
I've since picked up two-handed swords and polearms as well, and I plan to use the same method with those. Same approach: a tanky mob, no seal or aura, auto-attacks, and a heal when needed.
Yes. Blizzard confirmed it works as it always has, but gear that gives weapon skill now gives less of it per item.
Auto-attack a tanky mob that can't hurt you, with seals and auras turned off, and heal yourself to make each fight last as long as possible.
Yes. On my first fight with a new sword at level 20, I missed 20 of 28 swings and hit for about 10 damage per swing.
