lrn2ply

[Owltoid]

I thought the +int affecting weapon skill (or any skill) was debunked years ago...

Nope. I though so too, but it seems it was just the info on the Int mouseover

"It has been confirmed that intellect increases the rate at which weapon skills are learned. Before Patch 2.0, this was listed in the tooltip but was removed shortly after that. If you want to level a weapon skill, try asking for an intellect buff or using a scroll which can help the process."

http://www.wowwiki.com/Weapon_skill

there's a couple posts from back in the day on the WoW boards, but skilling up my holydin and then his tankadin made it pretty clear to me.

Wow, I thought this was an old rumor that never died, but if it's been confirmed then you're definitely correct about going for an int buff!

[Pippin]

I read here, EJ, and whatever pops up on search (litchborne series was great for dk) and I ask my co-workers. Still trying to get the warlocks to work right, so was bugging them about that. If that fails, trial by fire, rinse and repeat.

Warlocks Den has an unlimited amount of valuable info. It is EJ for Warlocks with out the Elitist...most of the time

[Tonuss]

What do you guys do to overcome this knowledge gap?

I keep multiboxing!

One thing to do is practice on mobs that are a few levels lower, so any mistakes you make as you learn are not instantly fatal. The classes in WoW are not really difficult to play, it simply takes a while to learn to play them efficiently, and to figure out which tools to use when the shit hits the fan.

As for weapon skills, I leveled a few of them one time by allowing some of the elites in Sunken Temple to beat on my level 70 shaman for a while, as the group of alts beat on them from the back. I'd aggro the mob with frost shock and then turn off attack and heal myself as needed, and since the alts were doing atrocious damage per attack, this was enough for him to keep the mob's attention. It might be worth it to do something like that again at some point, for the paladin at least since he will need to have decent weapon skills when he starts tanking again...

[ElJeppy]

Don't those test dummies in the major cities allow you to upskill weapons?

[elsegundo]

So....in power levelling our characters up to 60 using the RAF bonus, how many of us now have classes that they don't know how to play?

I've found hellfire penninsula quite unforgiving of even classes you know how to play and dread to think of how many corpse runs I'll be on with my new classes.

What do you guys do to overcome this knowledge gap?

Also....when it comes to levelling weapons/defense, where do you go to do so? I was thinking something like equipping a crappy grey weapon and heading to Scarlet Monestary. The mobs are mostly melee...and at 60, they shouldn't be able to do too much damage to you. As they're elite...they'll be able to take a good amount of hits before they die...allowing you to level up these skills. Sound like a plan?

This is why i quest most of my characters and only boost those i feel i have a handle on (either because its a class i've played before, or an offspec of the same class i've played before). Some classes will be totally new to me, im sure, especially when i grant levels with RAF. this has lead me to read a lot on the class. finding the right cast sequence, timing, and *ohSh!t* tricks takes a little bit of time, but its not much harder than starting a DK. HFP? bah... that's cake now. as for weapon skill and defense skill? yea just take your char to a low level instance.

and target dummies do not improve your skill.

[Bigfish]

and target dummies do not improve your skill.

I've gotten isolated skill ups from the ones in Acherus. Its never more than one, and I have no idea how or why.

Oh, worth adding, I seem to recall not being able to actually skill an underleveled weapon on the Acherus ones. Its always been when I stopped in with my normal weapon just after a level.

[Aradar]

For leveling weapons, try the Gordok Spirits in Dire Maul.

As for the affect of intellect on doing this, I was under the impression it was removed as well until I leveled my toons weapon skills. I decided to max all the weapons on my pally tank, resto shaman and 3 elemental shaman. By coincidence, they all needed to level the same number of skills. My shaman were maxed on all their weapons in the time it took my pally to do about 1/3 of his. The pally was unbelievably painful especially past around 350 and I wanted to shoot myself on the last 5. Some of the weapons literally took over an hour for the last point.

Edit: The bonus to the Gordok Spirits is they don't die and they don't fight back. However, make sure you don't aggro the boss or you will have to restart the instance to use these mobs. Also, your gear loses durability while hitting things which can make this pricey. But on the other hand, if your a class with tons of intellect on your gear, I would eat the cost for the much quicker skill ups. On my pally tank, it made more sense to remove the gear but be warned, these guys aggro from pretty far and once they do, you cannot remove your gear without resetting the instance.

[offive]

I agree with the reading up about classes that are new to you. You also can run one around solo and figure out the strengths and weaknesses; don't forget to apply the multiboxer rules to what you’re learning.

Also, as for skill ups, I am pretty sure Bliz nerfed the skill ups on low level mobs a while back, or maybe just the servants in Blasted. I used to use the servants around Blasted Lands for skill ups. I forgot about the nerf and ran my pally out and tried this a few weeks ago near the Dark Portal. One minute into the whacking... nothing. I remembered and took off for my other spot, the entrance to SL in Auch. Constant stream of mobs with tanking NPCs. You can multibox skill up there easily.