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Friday, June 26, 2009

Low Weapon Skill? No Problem!

... if you're 80, that is. Close to 80 will also do.

My 80 Protection Paladin found himself in the predicament of just having purchased Teldrassil Protector from the Argent Tournament and realizing that his weapon skill was 1/400. Leveling weapon skills always throws a spanner in the well-lubricated gears of our WoW lives.

To make things more enjoyable, I always try to find an interesting location in which to grind said weapon skill. On my Death Knight I went to the zone where the Azure Whelpling pet drops. This time, I decided to go to Barrier Hills, which is an area reachable only by flying mount, right above Shattrath.

I like Barrier Hills because it's filled with "friendly" Ogres that re-spawn often and drop nice stuff like silver, Netherweave Cloth, green items and valuable vendor trash. There's also a patrolling elite caster that's easily taken down. Most importantly for a high level character, there's also a Son of Gruul called Slaag. This elite dude has 140K HP and is a pleasure to grind your weapon skill on.

In summary, here are the advantages of grinding weapon skill in Barrier Hills: mobs respawn quickly, there are patrolling elites with lots of HPs and there's an uber-elite with major HP. In 30 minutes I went from 1 to 370 skill, not to mention some cash and loot on the side.

7 comments:

Savin (Nay) Wangtal said...

Ah, grinding weapon skill. That's what Hogger is for, haha. (Not that it actually works)

It also helps if you buy a white/gray weapon of the same type to use for leveling, since it does so much less damage.

Darth Solo said...

That's a good tip Savin. Many people don't realize that, including yours truly.

Aggrajag said...

For ranged weapons go through the Dark Portal into Hellfire and shoot at the scores of attacking elites. You'll not get aggro and can simply stay there as long as you can be bothered.

My hunter (which was already capped with guns) went there to level Crossbows and Bows for the achievement where you have several skills at 400. I did both of them in under 20 minutes each! Admittedly it's easier for a hunter with autoshot and any other shot counting as 2 shots per cycle but even so, it's dead easy.

Aggrajag said...

Additional to Savin's comment: Use Wowhead (or similar) to search for the FASTEST weapon of the type you're levelling. That way you get more hits and more levels in a shorter time.

Darth Solo said...

@Aggrajag wow dude, awesome tips, thanks! Particularly the one about the Dark Portal.

I would add something extra to your tip: buy the cheapest ammo you can find. This way it won't hurt your pocket while leveling the weapon skill.

Marlinspike said...

Alternatively can go to the ogre king boss in Dire Maul - he is surrounded by mobs that cannot attack, and you can just level up all your skills there.

Darth Solo said...

But isn't he a bit out of the way? I have yet to solo Dire Maul. It's so far away that I'm always putting it off.