World of Warcraft 2.0.3

[Quark]

If this had been in on the beta server, I had not heard about it until now. I guess this was done to address the fact that weapon skill isn't as good anymore. How does the math on this look, Quark?

If not in the beta, it was confirmed by Kalgan beforehand.

Pre-2.0, 10 Weapon skill basically negated glancing blows. So for level 63s, the 40% of white damage doing 70% damage effectively become 40% doing 100% damage. Since white damage borders on 60% for well geared Rogues, that's over 10% increase in damage. So equate 2 points in WeapEx to be a 5% increase in damage (versus 63s, less versus anything else). Add in some minor amounts since each Weapon Skill added .04% hit, crit and subtracted .04% dodge, parry, block.

Early 2.0, no matter what Blizzard claims, has shown Weapon Skill for melee to basically equate to special skills now. That is, .24% hit instead of .04% hit as a bonus. So for 2 talent points, you basically get 2.4% hit and .4% crit. Which would be nice if hit didn't cap out. But since, even lacking Precision, my specials have not missed in over a year, the usefulness of extra hit that deep in the Combat tree is suspect at best.

If this fabled "better against higher level mobs" characteristic for weapon skill finally appears, yeah, the numbers could be different. But I haven't seen it yet.