Master of Arms No More

I was perusing the World of Warcraft (WoW) general forums the other day, reading some of the upcoming changes coming in the Cataclysm Expansion. Nothing too crazy, and a lot of what was there I didn’t care about or had already caught wind of. After all the class changes, I went to the Cataclysm Stat & System Changes thread.

As a five and a half year veteran of WoW, this little tidbit caught my eye:

Now this change is not really a big deal, and definitely makes leveling a bit easier; it also saves a little bit of money early on, and as any Hunter knows, we have one of the most expensive skill purchases at the level 40 milestone. Any money we can save early on helps to get all those skills, without having to come back later when you have the extra cash. It also means there are a lot more options starting at level 1, instead of one ranged, and one melee weapon type.

Long gone are the days of grinding mobs just to raise the weapon skill of that upgrade you just picked up, of a type you had never used before (I am a Dwarf and have pretty much exclusively used guns). I can relate, and actually had to do this very recently. It was a bit annoying, and seemed like a waste of ammo, but it’s a part of WoW that I’m used to.

Something of note that some of you may remember: Intellect used to impact how fast your weapon skills leveled up. That was a long time ago, and the tooltip was removed from Intellect in Patch 2.0.

In any case, it also got me thinking about the two Achievements associated with weapon skills: “Master of Arms” and “Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich?” Up to this point I really had no reason to level my other weapon skills, and I’m not really a big Achievement farmer. With the expansion removing the leveling of weapon skills, it means that these will most likely become Feats of Strength; pretty exciting indeed!

As of yesterday I had 3 skills leveled to 400, and debated on which skill to level to get that fourth for the achievement. Unarmed seemed the most logical since that would knock out two at the same time. I was also in the queue for heroic Pit of Saron. The window popped up, and off I went.

It was a pretty solid group and in no time we were at the second boss. Krick and Ick is by far my favorite boss of the three 5-man Ice Crown Citadel (ICC) heroics. It’s very dynamic, and for a lumbering oaf, has a good variety of attacks. While not terribly difficult, it is incredibly fun, even for an overpowered group. We made quick work of the boss, and the loot window popped up:

/NEED

While I have only been back for a short while, I finally have an upgrade to my trusty True-aim Long Rifle!

Thanks to the wonderful assortment of viable scopes available *rolls eyes*, I quickly crafted one up and slapped it on my new toy.

Let me tell you, that was a very satisfying moment, and will definitely help in the effort to stop doing less DPS than some tanks, and get me one step closer to getting into ICC.

Needless to say, this solved my dilemma of which weapon skill to level, and it wasn’t long before I would call myself Master of Arms.

As with any upgrade, I switched the new item with the old item several times to see just what kind of impact it made on my paper doll stats.

Overall there was a 95 damage increase on the upper damage, but more importantly, a 172 damage increase on the lower damage; a little bit more RAP by way of some extra agility as well. The only thing I lost was 1.51% crit, yikes! (I’m a Dwarf, and was using a gun). With the loss of so much crit, I don’t know how much of an upgrade this really is, but I’m sure I won’t regret making the change. If I get the chance I will grab The Diplomat (it’s a gun, did I mention I’m a Dwarf?) from Trial of the Crusader, but until then, this will have to do.

I’m stoked to use this new ranged weapon, and with the 2 piece set bonuses for both T8 and T9 rocking, I should see a nice increase in my overall DPS. Now if you’ll excuse us… I believe Tempest and I have some Emblems of Triumph to farm. 😉

-Drack