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.