Not sure if it's still the case, but it used to be that weapon skill didn't matter at all. It was assumed maximum for your level. At level 60 you could pick up a weapon you had a skill of 1 in and do just as much damage as if you had 300 skill.

Correct. Inversely, you can do full damage and have a normal missrate wielding a weapon with which you have 1/300 skill.

I read on the test forums they reduced the proc rate from 30% to 20% +the things you mentioned. seems like a reasonable change, could have been even more.

Conversely, does Defense have any effect in PvP?

Yes, defense still adds the standard 0.04% chance to dodge/parry/block/not be crit'd per point.

Huh.

Well this goes back to my question on the other thread of whether there's a good combat mechanics reference anywhere.

Cool. PM or hamlet at sigilguild dot com.

Correct, the only thing weapon skill effects in pvp is your crit chance, something like .04% crit per skill point. We shamans know this all too well from having to relevel 2h axes and maces every time we respec.

I should start taking bets on whether or not we'll have to relevel 2h axes and maces when we get our talent redo and all our talents refunded. I will be a sad panda if they haven't fixed that by then :(

Some time ago someone parsed the effects of 425 defense in pvp and the crit rate of the opponent remained the same, however the blocks/parries/dodges increased in turn, revealing that a crit is a guarenteed hit in pvp.

The data broke down to if opponent has 25% crit, 5% miss -> 70% normal hit, and the defender has 50% chance to either block, dodge or parry, the next 1000 hits come out to 250 crits, 50 misses, 200 normal hits, 500 blocked or dodged or parried (depending on their individual values in the spell book) thus the conclusion was made that a crit is a guarenteed hit. This was some time ago, months before the defense "nerf" (which shouldn't have any effect, obviously, but illustrates a time frame). So, +1 for the axe spec folks, and probably explains why when I use recklessness on Fenix and he pops evasion, I still make him cry. >:]

no don't :(

so it doesn't have an effect on pvp crit rate either?

edit: i shouldve read the whole thread

I'm pretty sure that they said this was true a while ago when they were talking about combat mechanics and the effects of defense. :eng101: