Problems with weapons...

[Dizza]

I'm currently using a hammer/shield, and swap out the hammer for a wand when I need to. However, I've read a lot of people here saying that they keep their 1h Club skill maxed out. How?!?

I'm currently 8-10 points behind the cap at level 7. I have no problem with keeping enfeeble, healing, and enhancing capped (divine magic gives me problems). So my magic skills have no problem, but my weapon skills just aren't rising fast enough. I've done nothing but solo thus far, and only fight decent challenge (or even match if they have weak defense or no defense rating).

What am I doing wrong?

[Lyonesse]

You need to fight mobs that rate High defense to raise your skill. You don't need to worry about it so much early on since everyone lags when they're just starting out (due to not having the gear and items to fight high defense mobs). You won't be able to raise your skill quickly until you get into a party.

It'll be fairly easy to keep your skill up through about level 35 as a WHM but around 40, people will have a cow and tell you not to melee and your skill will drop off significantly. This is mainly because this is the about the time when WHMs really become poor and are unable to afford the food and defense upgrades to keep their melee skills at a plausible level. This has happened with tons of WHMs and is fairly common. It's actually extremely rare to find a WHM that has their physical skills on relative par to their magic skills.

One thing to note is that the way you play WHM will adjust to several factors, MP included. This is one of the more interesting things as many WHMs that I've played with since I started playing PLD have a much harder time doing their job with a reduced MP base. I never had this problem myself mainly because I adjusted to how much MP I had and did the role accordingly (Playing with /PLD or /WAR subs). I'd highly recommend working at early levels (through 30-35) with a melee sub (when you get a subjob) to adjust your playstyle to use MP more efficiently and then switch over to a mage sub (since melee subs for WHM are extremely hard over level 40 and takes a lot of effort but not impossible). I suggested this to several WHMs before (not on this board) and it worked quite well for them when they got higher.

[Dux]

So coming back to this "High Defence" attribute for raising weapon skills.

Is it possible for me as a WHM to attain an Onion Wand (lvl 1 wand) and go pick a Too Weak To Be Worthwhile in say T.Canyon with High Defense, attack it, go to bed (assuming I do 0 damage on a critical) and come back in the morning with a maxed out weapon skill?

[Rones]

Don't worry about your weapon skill. It will go up enough from farming or you can get in on a skill up party. In exp parties you honestly are not expected to melee and will just stay as far from the mob being fought as possible.

I'd highly recommend working at early levels (through 30-35) with a melee sub

The extra mp and spells from a blm or rdm sub are much more useful than any melee sub. Your stats are nearly the same with any sub, so pick it according to its abilites. The extra mp and spells from a blm or rdm sub typically outweighs the bonus of having berzerk and provoke as a whm. :spin:

[Dux]

Originally posted by Rones
Don't worry about your weapon skill. It will go up enough from farming or you can get in on a skill up party.

I normally visit my girlfriend on the weekends (distance relationships suck) and come back on the Sunday. If I could max out a weapon skill over the weekend (HexaStrike here we come) at the same time as being with my GF then that would be great.

[Weezingpipes]

Is it possible for me as a WHM to attain an Onion Wand (lvl 1 wand) and go pick a Too Weak To Be Worthwhile in say T.Canyon with High Defense, attack it, go to bed (assuming I do 0 damage on a critical) and come back in the morning with a maxed out weapon skill?

When your skill is high enough, their relative defense is lowered. The high defense/evasion messages are related often to weapon skill. You can't just go afk and max out weapon skill, just not gonna happen period.

[Faxe]

If you could, everyone would have their 255 skill WSs at level 1...

[Tulerin]

When I go to raise some of my lesser weapon skills I pick up a lvl 1 weapon and go after weak con mobs with high defense. I raised my dagger from 9 to about 70 or 80 just doing con weak wasps in Rolanberry fields. But I had refresh/regen on and the fights lasted about 20 mins hehe. I would advise going after smaller level mobs first that have high defense or ask a rdm or brd friend to tag along so you dont go running out of mp on a con weak mob. Make a weapon skill raising day out of it ^^