There are two issues with the current implementation +skill.

1. When it was initially balanced in the game (based on itemization formulas and racials) it wasn't considered to be a very strong skill. Edgemaster's Handguards should be easily replaced by UBRS loot. If Warriors are wearing them in BWL or AQ40, then there's a problem with the itemization formula. This is also incredibely huge when it comes to racials. I've heard of people buying Human 60 Rogues (in Tier 1/2 gear) to replace their AQ40 geared Rogue just for the racial.

2. When it was added as talents for classes, it was rebalanced to work correctly with DPS formulas in comparison with other talents.

If Blizzard wants to rework +skill vs glancing blows, now would be the time. But it would also require relooking at the talent trees, racials, and itemization. All of those should be looked at carefully anyways, or Humans will always be the best PvE Rogues and Orcs the best PvE Warriors.

ACLG and EMHG wouldn't be such a big deal if +skill wasn't so rare. You think I *like* swapping in a blue belt to go with my 4 piece Bonescythe bonus? Hell no. It's stupid. However, it's the only way I can recover 3% of my damage. It's a stat like +hit; once you cap it, it's nearly worthless, but until you hit the cap, it's everything. If they sprinkled +1 skill across a wide range of gear, like they've done with caster +hit, you'd still hear complaints, but at least the complaint would be "Aw, man, I already have 5 skill from these pieces; couldn't they have put +hit or +crit on my new X instead of +skill?", just like casters currently. It wouldn't be ridiculous, because it *isn't* overpowered in the context of the game; simply in the context of raiding, it's a vital stat, just like +hit is minimally useful in PvP past 4%, but for raiding that other 12% is kinda nice to have.

The racials are ridiculous, yes. Does that mean melee should have its damage downgraded as a result? I'm already less useful than a mage half the time; if I can't even outdamage them on ideal fights, then Wodin's right: there'll be no reason to bring a rogue.

I have no faith whatsoever that melee will be compensated for this quite significant nerf to their damage capabilities. Anyone who's been playing a rogue for longer than a few months probably feels the same way.

That is wholly innacurate. 40% of melee swings will glance and do less damage through glancing blows. When you remove +skill from affecting glancing, +skill literally does nothing. Look at Death Sting. A drop from c'thun, which by the way we havent seen in 25+ kills, that adds 3 points of skill. If you remove the glancing dmg reduction portion of skill, that means Death Sting gets +0.12% hit, +0.12% crit, etc. Thats nill. You stack enough +hit and the resist %s go down an incredible amount. Casters also have a lower resist mod on items. +skill is also capped on usefullness, fighting a mob 3 levels higher than you, +10 skill in total is an effective ceiling to melee dmg increases.

The massive issue with weapon skill is its itemization is crap. Its terrible. +1 weapon skill adds ~1.2% melee dmg for a rogue. That is less of a bump than +1%hit would net, closer to 0.6% hit I think. That is not an overpowered stat. Rather the affect it gives the wielder is gained from so few items, it feels overpowered, when you see warriors using lower lvl boe purples, etc.

There's a level based resist on non-binary spells that comes out to around 5% less damage on +3 targets (If I recall correctly). Currently, there's no way to work around that resist and it is theorized that the resist comes from a difference between spell skill and the target's level.

Yeah, and all mobs have at least a 5% chance to dodge.

Mmm, no, that's not what Copernicus was saying.

Cop is saying that there's a 5% decrease in our damage (despite being hit-capped vs. lvl 63's) that appears in the form of 25%, 50%, and 75% resists. These resists account for a 5% overall decrease in DPS. We still have a 1% resist rate, but some of the 99% of bolts/balls that land have their damage reduced through partial resists.

Thats against ANY level...

I consider your losses to be greater - but I can see how even at the highest level of gear in both cases the damage decrease is almost the same. It's almost the same because our damaging spells still LAND (and can crit, btw) but since your's are dodged, you lose the Energy, and you get nothing in return.

Of course, in our case, it's 5% vs level 60s as well. 5.6% vs 63s. We see less of a change from +0 to +3, but the loss is equal once you get there.

(Incidentally, I expect that the loss is 3.5% over a long enough parse.)

I wouldn't say it's overpowered, but it is what I consider an "additional" stat. It's another way that melee classes have to increase their dps potential. In this way, the fact that it's an "additional" stat and can serve to be such an increase in dps until, as Kalman said, you cap it out, I don't think it's intentional. Even more so are the orc and human warriors running around with +axe and sword skill respectively. It doesn't make sense.

Am I happy about the change? No. Merely resigned to the fact that it was probably long in coming.

And it's possible we're crying over a basket of eggs before it's been overturned; it may just be bugged instead of changed.

I do not, however, see them increasing itemization TOO much for +weapon skill (things like The Hungering Cold and Death's Sting exempt) so the only assumption I can make if they do change it is to compensate in other ways.

As Kalman said, wearing things like Mugger's Belt is pretty sad just to make up some dps.

What Naxx gloves? Do you know something I don't?

For pure dps, edgemasters still beats Gauntlets of Annihilation if you don't have a racial +skill. +skill itself isn't stupid, it was just stupidly itemized.

That would be nice.

On live your base chance to miss a 63 mob with a 2-hander is around 8.6% even if you get your weapon skill to 315 vs a 63 mob you won't see a the player vs mob difference even out to 5% base miss chance, because you're still getting a -hit penalty for attacking a mob 3 levels higher then you. Maybe the new weapon skill does do that.

Yes as Wodin and Kalman have shown, weapon skill is equivalent to spell hit for casters. The problem is not that weapon skill exists, it is that it is so rare on items. I'm hoping this is a bug. The mechanic has been shown that its 12% dmg loss for both casters and melee with no hit/skill. The itemization in both cases makes up the gap. If this does go through, it would be a major nerf in melee dmg in comparison to caster dmg.

I fail to see how blizzard would make such a large change to +skill so soon after our review which added WE, as well as the beta trees for warriors and paladins which also add skill. This really just seems like a bug to me.

That'd be pretty awful. 5 weapons skill would come out to +1.2% increase to white DPS after the first 5%, making the weaponskill talents horrible, and we'd still be losing like 6% overall DPS, which would also be terrible. It would only work if they removed glancing blows, but then the weaponskill talents would still suck.

Same could be said with hunters. They're changing EVERYTHING around just a few patches after they unlinked auto from aimed, etc. Alot of stuff is retroactively changing it seems.

And Kalman, I said exactly what you said. You wish you didn't have to wear Mugger's Belt, be it for whatever reason. You wish there was better itemization so yes, wearing a blue to make up dps because it is "poorly itemized" would be, the same thing to me. Don't put hostilities in my mouth. ^^

Edit: Why oh why does everyone refer to the talent trees? NOTHING is set in stone; so much is changing and so many things requiring others to change that you can't say because rogues/warriors/paladins have weapon skill they won't nerf it.

They've done similar things with other classes. If this is indeed a change (and not just a "the sky is falling" bug, it's VERY possible they'll either scrap the weapon skill talents or move them down some teirs.

Geez.

+skill is NOT fine if the itemization formula makes it super cheap. Edgemaster's Handguards should not be replacing BWL+ gear. Racial passive abilities should not be at the level that +5 weapon skill is at.

One of the recent Blizzard blue posts ( http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/en/75297770.htm ) has said that they are examining DPS based on gear, class, talents, and situations. It's perfectly reasonable that they're changing the way the game works on glancing blows vs weapon skill to make +skill give a bonus more in line with how much it costs on an item. If they do that, it would require changing the +skill talents and reexamining the way melee DPS works. And realisticly, this would be the perfect time to do that testing.

So there are two options right now.

1- Blizzard is examining +skill's effect on DPS by changing what it does to not work with glancing blows. At the same time they're examining DPS in general for all the melee classes.

2- It's a bug.

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As far as the issue with casters...

Glancing Blows happen on white (normal attacks) damage dealt to targets that are higher level than the attacker.
Partial resists happen on non-binary spells, when the caster is lower level than the target.

Both are an example of damage being lowered when attacking a higher level target. +Skill lowers the damage loss due to glancing blows. There is no mechanic that lowers the damage loss from casting spells on a higher level target, not even -resist gear. It's one of those things that has caused me to wonder if Blizzard knows what is going on with their game's engine, due to the PvE specialized Naxxramas gear with -resists on it.

No. There's a difference between wearing Mugger's to make up some DPS because the stat is worthwhile, and *having* to wear Mugger's because there's no other way to make up that DPS. If it was a matter of choosing to wear Mugger's because my other +skill items were okay, but I had better options for those slots? That'd be fine. I'd take no issue with that. The fact that no matter how good my belt option is, no matter how good my glove option is, one of them is going to need to be ACLG or Mugger's? That, I take issue with.

I highly doubt that they'll keep glancing blows the way they are now, aren't there rumors of level 74-76 mobs in the expansion? Or is that just speculation?

Itemization or bugged, either way it should be dealt with. Arguing the difference between them is mostly semantics since you can fix both in different ways and claim its the other. The sheer amount of conversations and fighting over mechanics that have been known for a year above is a detriment to the thread.

Blizzard appears to be deciding its a bug/overpowered.

I don't think anyone has said overpowered.

+Skill is, like I said, an additional stat. It should be a bonus on gear pieces, not a one stat trick horse that you specifically itemize for until it's capped for dps gains.

They just recently changed the RAP ratio for hunters, and one of the reasons was this, that hunters had VERY little reason to itemize beyond very heavy agi items. Now with the change we do.

It's highly possible they're simply doing the same with weapon skill.

Given Blizzard's track record, it's either a) a bug, or b) intended because they'd rather change mechanics than create new items with bonuses people want. (Look how long high dmg gear took to enter the game.)

Ah, ok. I'm sorry to hear that - I could have sworn I remembered them being better from one of the old threads. I guess my brain is turning into swiss cheese. :(