Keeping track of EVE Online skill training with Capsuleer

The new certificate system and planner in EVE Online offers a far more interactive and engaging method of character progression than the basic character sheet skill interface. The character sheet is still there and remains the tool for selecting which skills to train but the certificate system and planner gives more immediate and substantial feedback than comparing statistics about fitted systems on information screens.

Both the character sheet and the certificate system have their uses. I'm still finding my way around the certificate planner and I enjoy seeing that I am closer to or can receive a new certificate, just as much as I am pleased when able to replace a now-unneeded coprocessor with a more useful module or know that my missiles are doing 2% more damage.

One aspect of the skill system that is still left wanting is a better indication of when a skill will finish training. Certainly, the character sheet has a countdown to when the skill completes, in days, hours, minutes and seconds, and although I can work out in my head when this will roughly be I am left wondering why I am sitting in front of a powerful computer capable of performing millions of calculations per second and I am left with the task of determining when I need to change skills.

This clearly isn't an unwanted feature or difficult to implement, as the excellent Capsuleer application for the iPhone and iPod Touch shows the date and time the skill is set to complete along with the familiar countdown, which in Capsuleer even changes colour based on how close the skill is to completion.

Having the completion date and time of a skill in training is awfully handy, to the point where I will have my iPod Touch running Capsuleer sitting next to me whilst I am playing EVE Online, as a secondary character sheet. It also serves as a good reminder when logging off to ensure a sufficiently long duration skill is in training.

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Tags: capsuleer, eve online, ipod, mmorpg

More plans for skill training and certificates

My first mission back as a lone capsuleer in high-sec goes smoothly, even though I find I need to relearn some aspects of combat, so I hassle my agent for more work. In-between picking up missions, blowing up everything in a deadspace pocket and salvaging dozens of wrecks I examine the certificate planner again. I may have set a skill training that will take a week to complete but there are a vast number of skills available to learn and different ranks in the skill make different certificates available. It is no longer the case of learning a skill until the time/reward benefit of learning it becomes too great, or learning it purely as a pre-requisite to another desired skill. Simply being awarded certificates offers a third reason to learn a skill.

When I first poked around EVE Online's in-game certificate system I was only really looking for certificates that I thought were pertinent to my immediate aims in the game, looking to be awarded some quick certificates for a minimal time investment. I looked at passive and active shield tanking, along with missile control certificates, all because I was piloting shield tanking missile boats. This was good in a way, as it gave me a reason to use the certificate planner without it being an overwhelming or confusing experience. That the planner is also nicely constructed and laid out is a good help, with a hyper-linked interface for simple browsing. Having gone back to the planner several times now I am finding even more useful information.

For a start, I find that I am lacking in some core competencies, nearly all of them in fact. I don't have the complete skills to be awarded the basic level core competency certificate, and no core skills are at the standard level. Even if it is arguable whether I will make direct use of them all they are called 'core competencies' for a reason and there are a few, particularly the core capacitor skills, that would be useful to train.

I also take some time to read the text that is presented along with each certificate. Rather than being some corporate nonsense blurb that can be ignored the text tries to offer useful reasons why a capsuleer would want to be awarded the certificate, such as if you are a Minmatar or Caldari pilot flying a cruiser, for example. The certificate may even highlight which ships are ideally suited for a capsuleer awarded the certificate, letting you catch up on some vital training you may have missed or learn some new skills in advance of a future purchase. It's all rather handy.

With my time spent looking through the certificate planner I find I have another dozen or so skills I would quite like to improve. I may have a skill in training for a week but learning skills is never that simple. Because the skills are learnt in real-time, and the time needed to learn skills can vary between a few minutes and a few weeks, it is important to be conscious of your own schedule when planning skill training. I make note of which skills will take longer than eighteen hours to learn and which don't, where the former can be left to train overnight and whilst I am at work and the latter are better learnt during sessions I am in New Eden.

Even if a skill takes eight hours, which is too long for a single session, I can set it to train for a few hours one evening, change to a longer skill overnight and learn the rest of the first skill during another session. Using this method I can pick up new skills relatively quickly whilst also making substantial progress in the skills that take much longer to learn. I just need to make sure I keep on top of what I am learning and how long it will take.

After all this poking around the certificate planner and making plans to learn just about every skill in my character sheet I give myself one last task for the night. I realise that training takes quite some time and that the time can be reduced if my abilities are increased. Increasing abilities is unsurprisingly difficult and I already have my learning skills, which boost ability scores, at their optimum levels. However, another way to boost abilities is through implants.

With quite a few level three missions completed I was previously getting storyline missions granting implants as quest rewards. Unfortunately, I lost my +2 implants when I thrust my Drake in to a gate camp. My pod death slowed down skill training a little as I only bought +1 implants as replacements, as implants are expensive on the market. But with a healthy wallet that isn't being put to use I think it's time to treat myself. After a bit of procrastination about spending so much ISK I buy almost a complete set of +3 implants, only leaving out the social set for now.

With the new implants plugged in the decrease in learning time is noticable and probably worth spending almost thirty million ISK. I had best continue running missions to replenish my ISK reserves quickly, as I'm feeling a bit dizzy from spending so much.

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Tags: certificates, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

A return to level three missions

Trying desperately not to repeat myself, I made the journey back home to Caldari space, got my mission-running and salvaging ships to an agent's station, and set a skill training that would take around a week to complete, thus stopping me from poking around the EVE Online certificate planner, at least long enough to be able to complete a mission. I have no more excuses, it is time to talk to my agent and get some work.

'Hello Mr Agent, I know it's been a long time and you've probably forgotten about me, but I was wondering...'

'Oh my goodness, Cadet Ibramovic. Didn't you go in to low-sec? I thought you'd gone in to low-sec. Look, the replacement limb hasn't been rejected by my body and I'd really like to keep it this time so, uh, why don't you take care of this smuggler interception. It's really dangerous.' He throws a file in my direction that misses me by a few feet and skids out the door of his office. I suppose he's still getting used to the new arm, but unless I'd been there during the unfortunate incident I'd never guess it was a replacement. I pop out to get the file so I can read over the mission. 'It was good to see you again', my agent says as his door closes, and locks, behind me. Holy cow, I'm on a mission.

I'm not just on any mission, though, I'm on a level three mission, which is quite a change from the level one missions I have been running in Minmatar space, the best my poor standings with The Republic could muster. My skills have advanced a little, but not as much as they could have over the time I was away from Caldari space as I was training PvP skills mostly. Mind you, I was regularly running level three missions before I left so I must be capable of completing them still. My ship is not the same, as I lost the old Drake after carelessly running in to a gate camp, but it is equipped with good fittings. I should be just fine.

I realise I am not just out of practice with level three missions but mission-running in general when I remember only after I am warping to the deadspace location that I could have checked what faction resistance I was likely to run in to and tailored my active shield hardeners for the specific damage types. I've been out of space for too long. I have kinetic and thermal hardeners fitted, which is pretty much a generic Caldari space set-up, and the last thing I want to do is head back to a station to give me the chance to procrastinate some more. I cross my fingers and wait to drop out of warp.

I said previously that I wanted explosions and I'm getting them, mostly from missiles hitting my shields. There are a couple of dozen red crosses, big and small, and they are all shooting at me! Luckily, my passive shield tanking set-up is holding excellently for now, my shields barely registering damage, so I start locking on to targets and firing off my heavy missiles. I also launch my drones and watch them happily fly off to wreak their own damage. Soon enough, I get some real explosions as enemy ships are destroyed beneath my barrage.

A second wave of ships comes in and I get another realisation that I need to learn some old lessons. My drones are picking their own targets aggressively, even though I'm sure I told them at one point to be passive and only attack under orders, and the second wave of enemy frigates sees the drones as more of an immediate threat than my battlecruiser, particularly with some of their own cruisers to engage me. The frigates attack the my drones and I lose all of them one by one. I needed to build up more initial threat on the new wave of hostile craft before setting the drones loose on them. It is a minor set-back, as I can always buy more drones, and I manage to clear the deadspace pocket of enemies and probably intercepted the smuggler in doing so. My journal is blinking happily at me, suggesting that my mission has indeed been completed.

It has been quite a while but it looks like I can still throw a Drake in to the middle of wasps' nest and come out the other end unscathed. My shields didn't fall below 90% during the mission. I may have lost the drones but at least I know why it happened and can apply my experience to future missions. I also have another two million ISK sitting in my wallet from the mission reward and bounties, even before I take my Cormorant back to the battlefield to salvage the wrecks. I'm finally back in the action.

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Tags: deadspace, drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Keeping off the cold with handlebar muffs

The first frost of Winter happened back in late-Autumn last year, quite an early frost, and it was the perfect time to use the heated hand-grips on my motorbike. At least, it would have been the perfect time to use them if they actually still worked. I rode in to work with only one grip heating up, which then failed a few days later. I only bought the heated grips a year previously and I expected them to last longer. Sadly, the garage that supplied and fitted them is out of business so I can't go back to complain.

With Winter creeping up and promising more bitterly cold weather I needed to find a new solution to trying to keep my hands from freezing on my commute. As effective as the heated grips were I was not going to get a new pair fitted every year. It is quite possible that I got an unreliable set but I'd rather find a solution that I can be more confident will work for more than one season. When I bought the heated grips I was told that handlebar muffs may be a good option as well. A friend had recommended the grips so I went for that option initially, but now I'll investigate muffs.

I buy some handlebar muffs and fit them myself, using the nylon straps, velcro and buckles to secure them in place. The first thing I notice is how the straps don't really locate the muffs sufficiently, letting them slide about a little too much. It is simple enough to get my sewing kit out and stitch another seam that holds the straps better in place after my first test-ride, when the muffs let in too much cold air from not being wrapped around the handlebars tightly enough. With the muffs securely held to the handlebars and I am getting the full cold weather protection all I need now is the weather to test them.

To be honest, I would prefer that we don't have another frost and I won't need to test the muffs. The Winter's first frost was early enough that it almost looks like I will get my wish but, sure enough, the weather gets colder as we move in to December. Before that, I find another benefit of the muffs, their being waterproof. Biking gloves are meant to be waterproof themselves, but throw enough water on them and they can get soaked through, which is rather unpleasant. The muffs, however, don't suffer from needing to be flexible and are an extra layer between my hands and the rain. Being able to get off the bike at the end of a rainy journey with dry gloves seems quite the luxury and is certainly a good reason to get the muffs in itself.

I still need to find out how well they work in cold weather. And it is difficult to tell. My hands still get cold, but I haven't found any way to stop that from happening completely, and I think my hands are mostly getting cold from gripping the freezing handlebars and clutch lever, which have the whole night to get as cold as possible. I cannot be sure how much of an effect the muffs are having. At least, not until today.

It seems like a normal cold morning out of my window when I get up. The roads look a little damp and there is some mist hanging in the air, but there is no frost on the cars or grass so I think it will be fine to ride the motorbike in to work. It turns out that the mist is heavier than it first appeared. The fine droplets gather in such great numbers on my crash helmet's visor as to obscure my vision but without coalescing in to larger droplets that would roll off without intervention. I have to wipe my visor occasionally just so that I can see where I am going, otherwise my view is impaired both by the mist itself and the mist collected on my visor.

The mist on the motorway may be denser, or it may just be that travelling at 70 mph collects the droplets that much faster than at suburban speeds. Either way, my visor fogs up externally within a matter of seconds. Without exaggerating, I have to wipe my visor every two or three seconds or all I can see is a few hazy tail lights through a matt grey translucent screen. It gets to the point where I cannot be bothered to take my hand out of the muff, wipe my visor and put it back, instead I let my arm rest on the fuel tank as I ride so that I can wipe my visor regularly without too much fuss.

Another benefit to resting my arm on the fuel tank is that I get to feel the freezing air blow across my gloved but un-muffed hand at motorway speeds. My goodness, but there is a massive difference! I can feel my hand freezing even more quickly outside of the muff than when it was snugly ensconced inside. Despite not being able to feel my fingers by the time I reach the junction to leave the motorway, at least I have been able to keep my visor clear and also find out that the handlebar muffs are quite effective at keeping my hands warmer than they would be without.

I also notice that when I try to give my visor a more thorough wipe, rather than just a quick swipe with a finger, the mist I haven't wiped off has frozen. When I get in to work I am a little surprised to see that the mist that settled on my jacket and backpack has also frozen, small chunks of ice falling off me as I walk to my desk. Maybe this was another day I should have taken the car in to work.

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Tags: cold, ice, motorbike, motorway, weather

Movement speed in unholy presence

Having wreaked some mayhem and destruction with my death knight out in Howling Fjord I ride back to civilisation. As I do so I notice a night elf on a sabre mount ahead of me, riding to the same village. There is nothing particularly curious about a night elf on a big cat, except that I was in unholy presence and not gaining on her.

One benefit of the death knight's unholy presence is a 15% increase in movement speed, which is not only a substantial boost in PvP but can also reduce travel time in PvE between quest objectives or running from mob to mob. Or, indeed, the added movement speed can help when fleeing from mobs, who generally can only match normal running speed, although obviously a death knight doesn't run away from a fight. But does this 15% increase in movement speed apply to all movement?

I grab a friendly guild member, asking for help with a few races. I pick a Draenei partly by chance, but it also helps that I am essentially running after someone with a tail, as it gives added incentive to catch up.

First, we race on foot. I let my colleague run off in a straight line and I try to catch up. This is easy, as I catch and pass my friend quite quickly, clearly showing the added speed that unholy presence grants me.

Next we climb on to our swift land mounts and do the same experiment again. This time she races off and it is all I can do to keep up with her. I check to make sure she isn't using a carrot on a stick or riding crop, but she has nothing equipped that would boost her movement speed. The minor 3% mounted speed increase offered by the carrot on a stick shows a fairly obvious gain over even small distances so it is clear that the 15% boost is not in effect and we are both riding at the same speed.

For completeness we jump on to our flying mounts. Flying level and straight I again find that I am only keeping station with my colleague, not catching up.

Each race is attempted again, just to make sure that there are no curious interactions occurring, with the same results. It seems that the 15% increased speed bonus of a death knight's unholy presence only applies to running speed, not when riding or flying. This makes sense, as effects that modify your speed when on a mount specifically refer to 'mount speed', which the unholy presence doesn't.

Even so, it is good to verify the distinction of the unholy presence's movement benefit for myself. I now know that my perceived swiftness when mounted in unholy presence is probably a psychological effect induced by the reduced global cool-down's rushed, flurry of key presses combat.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Saying goodbye to Outlands

I am determined not to let my professions lag behind me on my journey through Northrend, however unlikely it will be that I can keep them synchronised with my level. First, I need to get them to a stage where I can train to the grand master level and thus gather and craft Northrend materials. With my death knight as the miner for her own blacksmithing as well as my warrior's jewelcrafting, both of which crafts can fuel enchanting, getting my mining skill up to 350 was incidental to boosting my crafting skills.

Indeed, in the process of trying to increase only my death knight's blacksmithing skills to a reasonable level for the Outlands I reach a mining skill of 375 and head to train in Howling Fjord just so that I don't miss out on further gains. With a fair amount of concentration I am also able to raise my blacksmithing and enchanting skills to 350. All that is left is my jewelcrafting.

It seems that my two choices for getting my jewelcrafting skill up to the level of a grand master are to obtain some expensive materials to make adamantite jewellery or to increase my reputation with the Consortium to get my hands on a decent gem-cutting design. Adventuring solely to get Consortium reputation is a disappointingly flat experience, so it is lucky that a friendly guild alchemist is available to make a mercurial stone for me, an item essential in the crafting of adamantite jewellery.

With the mercurial stone in my possession I send Gnomesblight out to mine more adamantite, mining being much easier now that I have the flying mount, only to destroy the ore she brings back so I can reclaim the adamantite dust. With the dust I make mercurial adamantite, which I infuse in to some smelted adamantite to make a few pieces of expensive jewellery. Thankfully, I have just enough material to increase my jewelcrafting skill to 350.

It seems like after all the hassle of having to mine and smith my death knight's way from zero skill to grand master level I can finally wave goodbye to Outlands and move to Northrend. That would be the case except Sapphire still needs a runed adamantite rod for her enchanting needs. Blighty has made the basic rod but the materials needed to turn it in to a runed rod include one primal might. Again, I am lucky to have the friendly alchemist who can also perform the transformation of primals in to primal might. This leaves me with one final task in Outlands: gather one of each primal.

I send Blighty out to gather the primals, thinking that I could opportunistically mine any ore that I happen across. This seems like an excellent plan until I try to gather the motes of water needed and I remember that water elementals are immune to frost damage. Being a frost-specced death knight this presents a little bit of a challenge, but is overcome with liberal use of my blood and unholy runes. I collect all the motes needed from the elemental plateau, except for motes of mana, which I pluck from mana wraiths in Netherstorm. Needing only one of each primal makes the task relatively quick and it is not long before I have a primal might and, subsequently, a runed adamantite rod.

There is no holding me back now, I am Northrend-ho!

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Tags: gnomesblight, jewelcrafting, professions, sapphire, world of warcraft

Preparing to restart level three missions

I wake myself up and jump in to my pod, punching virtual buttons to work out where I left myself after coming home to Caldari space. I see an available agent on my station contact list and one ship and one shuttle in the hangar. I quickly assume that I have moved half of my working fleet, comprising a Drake and Cormorant, to my mission-running destination and prepare my shuttle to head back to base to collect my other ship. It is only out in space that I realise I have added one and one to get three and remember that I diverted away from my course to the agent to pick up some new skill books, after I scanned the EVE Online certificate system and found some easy skill gaps I could fill. I am not where I thought I was.

Getting permission to dock again my ship is guided back in to the station. I try to work out where I am, where I want to go, and how to go about getting there with both ships. This is too much for my puny brain to cope with at the moment, particularly when I can't even remember if the Drake is the Lightness of Being or the Marquis of Granby. Rather than straining a muscle I repackage my shuttle and throw it in the hold of whichever ship is currently with me and set the ship's autopilot destination to the location of my highest-quality level three agent.

As I jump from system to system, then head back to base in the shuttle to pick up the other ship—the Drake, in fact, with expanded cargohold modules so that I can carry the shuttle back with me—before going back to the agent's system, I browse the skill certificate system again. I have some training to schedule. The journies themselves let me train the first two levels of rocket competency, which awards me the frigate launcher control certificate. This feeds in to and completes the Caldari soldier and Caldari special forces certificates at the standard level, which is a pleasant bonus. Now I need to work out what to train next.

My plan is to complete the required training for the passive shield tanking standard certificate, although seeing that the improved certificate is recommended only for command ships I wonder if it's worth achieving for my perceived future. Luckily, the standard certificate is recommended for flying a Drake, so I don't feel like I have wasted any time training unnecessary skills. To complete the passive tanking skills will only take a few days so I need to work out what to learn afterwards. Going back, I look to see what I need to train to be awarded the improved certificates for Caldari soldier and special forces, and this highlights that I still could use some training in core competencies.

At this point, I have both my salvaging Cormorant and my mission-running Drake in the station with the level three agent and have completed some training and set a new plan running. I may not have blown anything up but it feels like I have done enough for now. Not only do I have a fairly good idea of what skills to train, or at least which certificates I can be aiming for, but everything is in place for my level three mission-running to restart. All I need to do is talk to my agent. To help this along I think I'll train a long skill next, something taking over a week to complete. That way I don't have to worry about keeping track of its completion or what to train afterwards and can instead concentrate on explosions. Big explosions.

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Tags: certificates, cormorant, drake, eve online, penny ibramovic

Back to work

Christmas is over for another year. The Company's enforced shut-down for the holiday week is over and it is back to business as usual.

I have had a wonderful Christmas. I had forgotten what I suggested people could get me as presents, leading to splendid, positive surprises as I got just what I wanted without knowing what I was unwrapping. My mum's Christmas cooking was fabulous, a hugely satsifying collection of tastes and textures.

I relaxed and indulged myself at home. I watched Iron Man and The Dark Knight on DVD, as well as already getting through most of the fourth series of The Wire. I ate Christmas pudding, mince pies, turkey sandwiches and cheese footballs, with a vow to return now to a more normal dietary intake. I played as much World of Warcraft as I could manage on my notebook computer and promised to get more involved again in EVE Online, taking steps that would encourage me to do so.

I ventured out both to local shops and those in London. Music shopping was unsuccessful, but I was able to pick up some new clothes, which included the most fabulous jacket, bought from a vintage shop. I am sure it is the same jacket I tried on earlier in the year, but it didn't quite fit before. The saleswoman suggested that it was the Christmas diet that made the difference. If so, I will be pleased even if the jacket only fits for a couple of weeks a year, it is that marvellous.

I even got an impromptu kiss on the cheek, perhaps with assumed mistletoe, from a perpetual crush of mine, which pretty much made my year.

Here's looking to 2009.

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Tags: christmas, new year

Sapphire Jenkins

Everyone knows about Leeroy Jenkins. He is notorious enough that there is now an achievement in World of Warcraft based on his fifteen minutes of total party killing fame. Being the optimistic types, rather than having the achievement require pulling the whole room of whelps in Upper Blackrock Spire and killing your raid group you instead only need to kill fifty whelps within fifteen seconds. Let's remember the glory of Leeroy Jenkins, not the aftermath.

Melmoth and I tried to get the achievement shortly after the 3.02 patch, as part of running as a warrior/paladin duo through the level 60 dungeons and beyond. Our first problem was getting in to the whelp room, as the altar holding the fiery boss in place and keeping the door locked needed at least three people to activate it. Luckily I was able to call upon an old raiding friend who helpfully popped in to the spire just to activate the altar. After that, it was just the two of us and all of the whelps. Despite our best efforts of hatching the eggs, gathering and controlling the whelps, and then slaughtering them all as quickly as possible we didn't manage to get fifty in fifteen seconds. The most we achieved was fourty nine kills in the allotted time. So close, yet so far.

With that experience under my belt, and so many people running around with the Jenkins surname, when my US guild were looking for some adventure I suggest heading to UBRS to kill some whelps. As they like visiting places they haven't been before and we all like earning the achievements our small group was happy to team up and fly to Blackrock Mountain. I am more positive about this current attempt. Even though the group lacks a certain amount of experience we certainly have enthusiasm. More importantly, we have five people instead of two and all of us are above 70th level.

This time the altar is unlocked without a fuss and the egg room is opened. I explain quickly about how the eggs hatch on a character's proximity with them as a warning to be careful where people tread, if only so that we don't need to wait for respawns if whelps are hatched accidentally as they will pose little threat individually. We clear the room of the larger dragonkin and then make our way to a central point. We have two warriors, myself and another, and I suggest that our priest and druid throw whatever protection spells they have on the two of us and then we'll pop as many eggs as we can on separate paths before coming back so that everyone can use area-of-effect abilities to kill the whelps quickly as a group.

With shields and heals-over-time on us the other warrior and I run across all the eggs we can see, collecting the whelps as we go with demoralising shouts and thunder claps. Although the whelps are quite puny individually they can become quite a force in numbers, so before they overwhelm our defences and put too great a burden on the healers we run back to the group and start our attack. With AoE spells flying all over the place and whelps attacking and squealing there is a huge amount of confusion, cleared only by five Leeroy Jenkins achievements all being announced at once. We had killed fifty whelps within fifteen seconds!

There are a few whelps still flapping around attacking us, so we get rid of them and let everything return to a calm, out-of-combat state. As the dust settles my fellow warrior and I see the results of our work: three dead party members lying in the middle of the room. We had pulled so many whelps that we simply couldn't control them all and our party was obliterated as a result. Blizzard may have sanitised the achievement, but the spirit of Leeroy Jenkins lives on.

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Tags: achievements, mmorpg, sapphire, world of warcraft

Weapon skill and target dummies

When I got a new two-handed mace for my death knight from Northrend I had a weapon skill of one, which meant my mace would be swinging at air for at least the first couple of hundred attempts to hit something. Rather than getting pounded to a paste by competent Northrend mobs whilst I worked out which blunt end of the mace I should be holding I headed back to Stormwind for some target practice on convicts in the Stockades.

As I was writing about my lack of adventure in learning how to swing a mace in the Stockades I realised that perhaps my time would have been better spent setting auto-attack on a target dummy and going away from my keyboard (AFK) to do something more productive. These thoughts generally only occur after I could have benefited, but I write them down anyway just in case someone else can learn from my experience. As luck would have it I can make subsequent use of this idea after Sapphire earns a nifty-looking fist weapon from a walrus in Northrend and wants to use it in anger.

Despite being disarmed on numerous occasions, bringing up my unarmed skill significantly, which also happens to be the skill used for fist weapons, I am still not skilled enough in the weapon type to be confident in my continuing Northrend adventuring just yet. I could probably survive mob encounters on the new continent, but they would probably be made tediously long and require plenty of resting between fights. With my recent experience with Blighty, as I have come to refer to my death knight, I shove the fist weapon in my backpack and wait until I am back in a city, whereupon I find a target dummy and start attacking. I wait for my unarmed weapon skill to improve before going AFK and finding something more fulfilling to do.

And I wait, and wait, yet my skill doesn't improve. I am sure I would have at least got a single weapon skill point improvement by this point. I investigate further. I grab Gnomesblight and see that she has no weapon skill in one-handed maces. I buy the cheapest mace on the auction house and run up to a target dummy. Sure enough, as I have no skill in wielding my mace I keep missing the dummy, and my weapon skill doesn't improve.

It seems that attacking a target dummy will not improve weapon skills. This is quite disappointing. I can appreciate the use of target dummies in being able to work out spell rotations and improving DPS, such as I did recently in testing the relative damage potential of the death knight presences, so they are far from useless, but not being able to improve weapon skills is a glaring omission of a target dummy's usefulness.

Training a weapon skill from being initially untrained is remarkably tedious and unproductive, earning no benefit for the player or character. Having to be active in finding suitable mobs on whom to practice for the sole purpose of being able to improve to the point where you can attack your actual targets, where you are currently questing, is a waste of time. Weapon skill either needs to be removed or made much more convenient and quick to improve, which the target dummies could easily have achieved. Considering how much Blizzard has improved and streamlined World of Warcraft it surprises me that such a mechanic is still in the game.

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Tags: gnomesblight, mmorpg, sapphire, target dummy, weapon skill, world of warcraft