Weapon Skill affects Melee Damage?

[htabdoolb]

Hello all. I've been playing a warrior alt recently, and having quite a bit of fun with her. I recently got a nifty new 2hb weapon, a Sarnak Battlehammer, which has an amazing 30/40 dam/delay ratio. The only issue was that I hadn't worked on my 2hb at all. So, I fixed that by simply equipping the hammer and swinging away.

As my 2hb weapon skill went up, I noticed that my max damage was steadily increasing too. At 0 skill, my max damage seemed to be a steady 60, which was double the weapon's listed damage. By the time I got to around 50 skill, my max damage had increased to 80-ish. And as the skill nears my current maximum at level 25, which is 130, my max hit has increased to be over 100 points of damage. All of this skill gain has taken place over the course of just two levels, 24 and 25, with my warrior's strength hovering around 200, depending on available buffs. This seems to indicate a direct relationship between weapon skill and melee damage.

The information in the wiki seems to contradict my observations, though. It lists a formula for damage which takes into account the Offense skill, not any particular weapon skill when the game calculates max damage. Does anyone know what the actual equation for damage is? And has anyone else noticed something similar to my own experience? I'm rather curious about it all.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

When you look at your character sheet, you should see an ATK (attack) stat. Increasing that stat increases the max damage you can do. Your weapon skills and offense skill increase your ATK. That is why you are seeing your max damage go up as your skills go up.

Increasing your strength also increases your ATK, which is why melee DPS classes want to stack strength. Once your strength, weapon skills, and offense skills are capped, your only way to increase ATK is with buffs or worn effects that increase ATK directly. This is why melees love the Aura of Battle worn effect, for example. Each item you wear with Aura of Battle gives you +10 ATK, even if your strength and skills are capped. The blazing gauntlets from Ragefire have worn firefist, which is another +7 or so. And a few buffs increase ATK, like grim aura, which is easy to obtain with a shrunken goblin earring.

[htabdoolb]

Interesting. Thanks very much for the information.

[Gwaihir]

[The "noobie dmg cap" of 2x weapon dmg is lifted gradually based on skill, to where, after passing lvl 19's max skill (101+) the dmg follows the attack rating formula. Between lvl 10 and 19 (51 to 100) that hard limit of 2x weapon dmg is gradually rescinded in increments of 5 skill, as reflected by each character level's max skill.