Question on WoW Combat

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:48 am

My main character is a 22nd-level shaman. He does lots and lots of melee damage, but I'm having a hard time understanding how the game decides how much damage a hit does. Unfortunately all the numbers I have were generated by attacks using a weapon with the shaman spell Rockbiter cast on it, which adds 80 to the attack power. I have three weapons that I use and I switch them out to keep my skill up in their categories (staff, two-handed axe, two-handed mace).

Last night I picked up a pretty nice two-handed mace from a chest and it has much better stats than the axe or staff. I travelled to Ogrimmar to get my skill up (my skill was 1) by attacking 9th-level boars. When I attacked my first boar I missed most of the time and when I would hit it would do 9 or 10 damage. By the end of the night my skill is up to 91 out of 110 and I'm able to hit in the 90's and low 100's pretty regulary. Does anybody know how weapon skill determines damage with your attacks? At level 22 I could do max damage to a level 10 beast when my skill was at 50, yet if I took on a level 22 beast that skill would do very little damage to it.

Also, I was fighting last night in an area populated by bears and lions. Against a 22nd-level bear I would do about 80-95 damage per swing with my axe. Against similar lions I would only do 60-75 damage. Does this have something to do with the lion's armor? Also, if I fought a lion two levels higher my damage dropped to 50-65. Can anybody help me understand this?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:58 am

actually, i would love to see an answer on this as well. i experienced similar issues when training my lvl 21 druid the other night in one handed maces (need to be able to use some of those nifty off-hand items to boost stats and a two handed stave ain't cuttin' it).

Mr. Fed · Post by **Mr. Fed** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 12:27 pm

Here's what I've gathered from experience and from (::shudder::) the WoW forums:

1. Damage improves with your weapon skill. If you take a new weapon and quickly level up the skill, you'll notice damage increasing to a plateau as the skill reaches your level max.

2. Damage decreases significantly with the opponent's armor. I notice this all the time with my rogue's expose armor skill -- it can make a 2x difference.

3. I'm not sure if damage increases/decreases with level disparity, or whether that's simply a function or better/worse armor.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:29 pm

You'll realize how much armor affects damage reduction soon enough.

Last night I died 5 times in under 1 hour. A rare thing for me and by the end of it almost all my armor was broken. I'm thrown into another fight against what is supposed to be an easy mob one level below me and nearly get killed when its damage is suddenly 2x-3x what it was before.

Skill has a big effect as well, but luckily, weapon skill in WoW is easy to get up to mid ranges where the damage reduction isn't that much.

Faldarian · Post by **Faldarian** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:43 pm

If you mouse over your AC it will say what % damage reduction your armor gives; as far as I can tell, AC doesn't affect how often you get hit as much as it does just reducing the amount of damage you take.

So the damage output you see seems to be strongly affected by the opponent's armor, where your max damage variance before armor reduction (the top and bottom end of how much you are capable of doing) is affected by skill.

Fretmute · Post by **Fretmute** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:54 pm

Damage improves with weapon skill because your base damage amount is multiplied by a constant determined by comparing your weapon skill to the target's defense skill. This is why it's so hard to damage things that are much higher than you in level; their armor isn't the primary factor in those cases, it's their higher defense.

You can fight mobs that con red to you and deal very little damage, and then come back in a few levels with the same weapon and start hurting them. It's also why gear with +defense on it is desirable; you increase your effective level when opponents are determining damage.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:58 pm

don't mean to hijack this thread, but can i ask one question regarding weapon skills and classes?

i found a dagger and two handed mace trainer in the orc capital last weekend and trained my druid in these two skills. can i effectively train in ANY weapons skill as long as i find an expert to train me? i.e.: can i get two handed sword? or am i limited to certain weapon skills?

thanks!

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:58 pm

Fretmute wrote:Damage improves with weapon skill because your base damage amount is multiplied by a constant determined by comparing your weapon skill to the target's defense skill. This is why it's so hard to damage things that are much higher than you in level; their armor isn't the primary factor in those cases, it's their higher defense.

You can fight mobs that con red to you and deal very little damage, and then come back in a few levels with the same weapon and start hurting them. It's also why gear with +defense on it is desirable; you increase your effective level when opponents are determining damage.

I think this is the answer I was looking for. I guess even a +2 defense can make a world of difference in the damage you take.

Chesspieceface · Post by **Chesspieceface** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:08 pm

hepcat wrote:don't mean to hijack this thread, but can i ask one question regarding weapon skills and classes?

i found a dagger and two handed mace trainer in the orc capital last weekend and trained my druid in these two skills. can i effectively train in ANY weapons skill as long as i find an expert to train me? i.e.: can i get two handed sword? or am i limited to certain weapon skills?

thanks!

You are limited by class. In the manual under each class description it lists starting wepon skills and 'Advanced' trainable weapon skills for each .

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:13 pm

Demosthenes wrote:
hepcat wrote:don't mean to hijack this thread, but can i ask one question regarding weapon skills and classes?

i found a dagger and two handed mace trainer in the orc capital last weekend and trained my druid in these two skills. can i effectively train in ANY weapons skill as long as i find an expert to train me? i.e.: can i get two handed sword? or am i limited to certain weapon skills?

thanks!
You are limited by class. In the manual under each class description it lists starting wepon skills and 'Advanced' trainable weapon skills for each .

thanks again. i appreciate the info. i thought that daggers weren't listed in the weapons list in the section of the manual you mention above, but it looks like i was wrong.