WoW experts

[Sphexi]

I recently got ahold of a pretty kick-ass two-handed axe for my 36 hunter. I didn't have two-handed axes trained up though, so I started out around Ironforge just killing low level mobs to get it up.

What's confusing me is that I should be able to get it up to 180 or near there pretty quickly, but I'm at around 160 and no matter what lvl monster I kill it just doesn't seem to go up. Worse yet, I do next to no damage to higher level mobs, like anything around 34-37, I miss constantly and when I do hit it's always glancing.

Also, in the character screen I see this and this. What's with my attack speed being 0.00 and my DPS being 1.$? Yes, a friggen $ in there. It's the same no matter what two-handed axe I have, but I put my bow on and it goes back to normal.

Bug in the game, something I'm doing wrong? What's the best way to get my skill up higher other than using a faster axe with +7 intellect?

 

[DangerAardvark]

It doesn't matter what level of mob you hit. And in the character screen hit the arrow to the right of "Ranged" to change it to show your melee damage. And the last few levels of weapon skill always take the longest.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
It doesn't matter what level of mob you hit. And in the character screen hit the arrow to the right of "Ranged" to change it to show your melee damage. And the last few levels of weapon skill always take the longest.

Goddamn I'm a stupid bastard. It says fricken Ranged right on it, with a drop down menu

 

[Rastus]

Also, when grinding weapons, stack a little intelligence to make it go faster. I play a warrior and I will put a couple of pieces of pally gear on to level up a weap because warriors are downright stupid.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Rastus
Also, when grinding weapons, stack a little intelligence to make it go faster. I play a warrior and I will put a couple of pieces of pally gear on to level up a weap because warriors are downright stupid.

yes Int helps alot, even crappy int scrolls help a bunch when lvling wep skills

better yet if you can have a mage give you the lvl 70 int buff your skills will lvl insanly fast

 

[Aikouka]

Leveling anything the last 10-20 points can be quite painful. Even for my Shaman, who has some intellect (not as much as elemental or restoration), I have such a hard time leveling my defense mostly.

Weapon skills aren't too bad because of how often I hit (windfury ftw), but even sometimes they can be a pain. I remember how painful it was to level 1H swords and then later on level 1H axes on my warrior. Fortunately, 1H axes were 250 or so when I started (I went from an axe as a tanking weapon to a sword and back to an axe). The secret there is to fight mobs that knock you down like the rock elementals in Nagrand. That way, they proc second wind and practically keep you at full health. But since I'm lazy, I just had my priest there... which actually turned out to be hard keeping aggro off him since I missed... a lot.

Oh and why are you worrying about melee weapon skill so much as a hunter? I mean it's nice to have when you gotta use it.

 

[Narse]

Find a bugged or perma banished mob and just have your toon autoattack all day.

 

[lupi]

The closer you get to your current weapon max skill the longer it's going to take. I'd use the faster 2h axe while grinding quest to get a slight increase in rate of skill advancement.
Given the increased rate of sub 60 level gain, outside of walking around nude or in grey's the exact values of your gear won't matter much.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Leveling anything the last 10-20 points can be quite painful. Even for my Shaman, who has some intellect (not as much as elemental or restoration), I have such a hard time leveling my defense mostly.

Weapon skills aren't too bad because of how often I hit (windfury ftw), but even sometimes they can be a pain. I remember how painful it was to level 1H swords and then later on level 1H axes on my warrior. Fortunately, 1H axes were 250 or so when I started (I went from an axe as a tanking weapon to a sword and back to an axe). The secret there is to fight mobs that knock you down like the rock elementals in Nagrand. That way, they proc second wind and practically keep you at full health. But since I'm lazy, I just had my priest there... which actually turned out to be hard keeping aggro off him since I missed... a lot.

Oh and why are you worrying about melee weapon skill so much as a hunter? I mean it's nice to have when you gotta use it.

Because even with my pet pulling aggro and keeping it, now and then I gotta get in there and go face-to-face, more than I'd normally want to actually. It's just easier to have a good melee weapon to use like this axe, it's doing about 59.9dps right now, as opposed to my bow which does 51.9dps or so.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Aikouka


Oh and why are you worrying about melee weapon skill so much as a hunter? I mean it's nice to have when you gotta use it.

apperently you havent been hit with a 2K+ raptor strike crit before have you

also max wep skill means you land wingclip when you want to

 

[Sphexi]

Well I've been hanging around Kurzen's compound, killing pretty much everything I see, I've gotten it up to about 175 now with a Int3 scroll and an axe with +7int. Some lvl30 people came by and keep aggro'ing more than they can handle, I try not to jump in and take their kills but I did once or twice to keep them alive. The rest of the time I just kept an eye on them with my hand on my healing scrolls, one of them got all upset and called me a noob for just watching, instead of killing everything for them lol...he asked if I was trying to level my watching skill

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Anubis
apperently you havent been hit with a 2K+ raptor strike crit before have you

also max wep skill means you land wingclip when you want to

Yes, I have and I have a hunter too. To me, what it sounded like is one of those hunters that likes to run in and melee everything. It reminds me of this one hunter that thought he could beat any rogue in melee only combat (no ranged, but other hunter spells such as traps were fine). He never beat any of us rogues

Originally posted by: Sphexi
Because even with my pet pulling aggro and keeping it, now and then I gotta get in there and go face-to-face, more than I'd normally want to actually. It's just easier to have a good melee weapon to use like this axe, it's doing about 59.9dps right now, as opposed to my bow which does 51.9dps or so.

Never had that trouble so I really can't comment on it. I tend to kite a lot of mobs since my bear is nothing more than DPS as he can't keep aggro off me at all (even giving him time to build aggro). It got to the point where I just kite and use freezing traps and concussion shot to keep them off me. Not too sure what my 1H sword skill is at... I 'd have to look.

 

[Xavier434]

I tend to find that sporting two one handers as a hunter is better in almost every PvE situation simply because that means you can double up on the enchants. However, this may not apply as often in the lower levels since you may not have two weapons which are worth the enchants.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I tend to find that sporting two one handers as a hunter is better in almost every PvE situation simply because that means you can double up on the enchants. However, this may not apply as often in the lower levels since you may not have two weapons which are worth the enchants.

I did that for a while too, figuring it was faster/did more damage, but the one I have now beats that no problem.

What I'm working on now is dragonscale leatherworking, I have artisan leatherworking and up to 250 soon to be 300, I'll be 40 within a few days, and I got all the mats needed to finish up the quest easy.

Now, at some point can I start wearing mail, or am I always going to be limited to leather?

 

[Wuzup101]

Should have sold that thing and just used the sword of serenity + vanquisher's sword that you would get from quests in RFD/SM in the next few levels. Good luck though, I'm done with wow... got rid of my 70 hunter and 70 rogue! Ah... those were the days...

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I tend to find that sporting two one handers as a hunter is better in almost every PvE situation simply because that means you can double up on the enchants. However, this may not apply as often in the lower levels since you may not have two weapons which are worth the enchants.

I did that for a while too, figuring it was faster/did more damage, but the one I have now beats that no problem.

What I'm working on now is dragonscale leatherworking, I have artisan leatherworking and up to 250 soon to be 300, I'll be 40 within a few days, and I got all the mats needed to finish up the quest easy.

Now, at some point can I start wearing mail, or am I always going to be limited to leather?

yu get mail at lvl 40 IIRC

 

[i3arracuda]

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Bug in the game, something I'm doing wrong? What's the best way to get my skill up higher other than using a faster axe with +7 intellect?

The best way I have found to level a melee weapon is to buy one that you can swing at a faster rate, and attack monsters that are green to you (a few levels lower than your character).

Starting a new weapon skill from scratch, you will hardly damage the character at all while you gain weapon skill. This ensures that the fight will last several minutes, which is a good thing. Camping low level monsters is just rude to lower level characters. Most of the monsters in the starter zones are related to quests, and by one-shotting everything that moves, you prevent them from completing the quests and progressing through the zone. It's also horribly inefficient. You won't have to wait for respawns, and the noobs get to quest their merry little hearts out.

Just find a lvl 30-32 mob and attack it until you kill it. Use Aspect of the Monkey to increase your dodge rate. Whenever you dodge, use Mongoose Bite (essentially a free attack, which leads to more weapon skill gain). Once the monster drops you down to half health, place a Freezing Trap. Bandage. Resume attacking. Re-trap and bandage as necessary. If the mob brings you close to death, Feign Death. Star the process all over again. By the time you manage to kill the mob, you should be 30 or so odd points away form capping your skill with that weapon type. You can either repeat the whole process on a few more greens, or just go back to questing.

As a Hunter, you really shouldn't ever be in melee combat, unless it's to pull off a Wing Clip to get back to range, or a Raptor Strike to finish off a mob that's about to die. If you pull aggro from your pet, you can Feign Death. The mob will run back and attack your pet. I don't think your pet can learn a new level of Growl until lvl 40, so your pet isn't going to be as efficient at tanking as it was when it was in the low 30s. You should scale back your own damage a bit so the pet can build up more threat on the mob. Using an Owl-family pet helps, too.

A good addon that you should use to monitor how much threat you and your pet are doing is Omen. This will give you a good visual indicator of when it's safe to pile on the DPS, or when you are about to pull aggro from your pet, so you can back off when needed.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I tend to find that sporting two one handers as a hunter is better in almost every PvE situation simply because that means you can double up on the enchants. However, this may not apply as often in the lower levels since you may not have two weapons which are worth the enchants.

I did that for a while too, figuring it was faster/did more damage, but the one I have now beats that no problem.

What I'm working on now is dragonscale leatherworking, I have artisan leatherworking and up to 250 soon to be 300, I'll be 40 within a few days, and I got all the mats needed to finish up the quest easy.

Now, at some point can I start wearing mail, or am I always going to be limited to leather?

It will do more melee damage, but over all DPS should be higher with 2 one handers since the majority of your dps will be ranged. Of course, the best hunters will have both a good 2 hander and two 1 handers to cover all situations.