Whether getting a big weapon upgrade or just hitting max level, maximum weapon skill is a an important milestone for your character to perform at a higher level.
When leveling weapon skill, I would prefer to be completely AFK and not have to worry about healing my character or anything like that. In order to do so, the Dire Maul North Gordok Spirits are my go-to.
Below I’ll go over my favorite spots to level weapon skill along with some tips to improve the speed at which you gain skill.
Dire Maul North: Gordok Spirits
First thing to note is that the Gordok Spirits are only able to be attacked if you’re not currently the king of Dire Maul North. You can only attack the spirits if you do so before talking to Mizzle and becoming king. If you’ve already killed the king and your party members have received the king debuff, that’s OK. You will still be able to attack the spirits so long as you have not become king or re-zoned into the instance after party members have become king.
In order to farm weapon skill on the Gordok Spirits, you’ll need to get to the very end of Dire Maul North. There’s a couple ways to do this:
- Clear the instance with a group and attack spirits at the end of the run. Do not talk to Mizzle and become king. Clearing Dire Maul North only takes about 30 minutes – 1 hour.
- Get to King Gordok’s room (final boss) through stealth or other means. Basically if you’re a Hunter/Rogue you can do this. Any other class will need help from a Hunter/Rogue in order to unlock the Gordok Inner Door. Even if it’s unlocked, non-stealth classes will have a tough time making it through the instance and will need a ton of invis pots. There’s a few ways to break through the door as a Hunter/Rogue:
- Use a Seaforium Charge (Engineering)
- Pickpocket the key from Guard Mol’dar (Rogue)
- Lockpick the door (Rogue)
- Unlock it with a Truesilver Skeleton Key (Blacksmith)
Using any of these means will break stealth, so assuming you’re a Rogue you’ll need to Sap/Blind the two guards near the door and Vanish after the door is open.
Hunters – look up Dire Maul Tribute Runs on Google and that should give you all the information you need on how to get to Gordok’s Room.
Dire Maul North: Doomguard Minion
In a cleared DMT, the Doomguard Minion behaves strangely. If you attack him and it does no damage, he will simply ignore you while you level up your weapon skill. If you attack him and it does damage, he will attack you. If you run away while he’s attacking you, he will stop attacking you and reset. The mechanics make this a perfect mob to level up Weapon Skills along with Defense Skills. Whenever you get low on HP, simply back off and eat some food to regenerate. The Doomguard Minion is killable, so be careful. There are more Doomguard Minion’s throughout the instance.
This is my 2nd favorite way to level up weapon skill since the Doomguard resets extremely easily and, while attackable, is not aggressive. In order to get the mob in this state, you will need a cleared Dire Maul instance. Simply find someone selling DMT buffs in world chat and pay the small fee (usually 5g) to join their cleared instance.
If it’s a busy time of day, you might want to try and buy a DMT instance lockout instead of paying for buffs (10-20g). You have to know that the instance can only accommodate 5 players simultaneously, so it’s not cool to sit in someone’s instance for an hour leveling up your skill if they’ve got a line of players waiting to buy buffs.
I was able to find a Hunter selling DMT buffs early in the morning without much coming-and-going of players so I didn’t have any trouble during my testing.
The Doomguard Minion is located a little ways into the instance in the first narrow hallway. If you are in a DMT that was not specifically advertised as “eyes non-hostile”, you will need to watch out for Eye of Kilrogg that spawns every ≈ 20ish minutes and patrols through the hall. If he sees you and you don’t kill it quickly, he’ll spawn a couple voidwalkers that are tough to kill. The Eye has low HP, so give him a good whack and he’ll be dead.
Blasted Lands: Servants of Grol
As probably the most popular location to level up weapon skill, Servants of Grol are Blasted Lands mobs that are only killable through the use of a quest item. Even though they are not killable, they will still attack and kill you if you are not careful. If you’re a pure DPS class, it might be a good idea to bring along a healer buddy if possible. Otherwise you’ll need to continually reset the mob as your health drops low.
How to Level Weapon Skill Faster
Fast Attack Speed
Before heading out to level up weapon skill, I always scan the Auction House for the weapon type I need and try to purchase a cheap weapon with very fast attack speed. If you hover over the weapon, you’ll see “Speed” and then a number. The lower the number, the faster the weapon. For one-handed weapons, I usually look for something less than 2.00. For two-handers I look for anything below 2.50.
Intelligence Buffs
Intelligence stat increases the rate at which you gain weapon skills. Try to look for a mage to buff you with Arcane Intellect and maybe throw on some +Int gear if you have it.
Does Weapon Skill Matter in PvP WOW Classic?
In battlegrounds, your weapon skill will be artificially improved to maximum level. While in world PvP or duels, your weapon skill will be represented by your actual weapon skill. So if you have low weapon skill, you will likely miss all of your attacks in world PvP and duels. Weapon skill does not skill up in any PvP occurences.