Weapon Skill
If “weapon skill” immediately brings to mind artifact weapons, then you probably started playing World of Warcraft only in this decade. Back in the celebrated and somewhat romanticized days of Classic, each weapon had its own skill – similar to professions. In order for your character to effectively use a certain weapon type (like “two-handed axe”, “staff” or “fist weapon”), they had to strike with that weapon – often for a very, very long time.
There were moments when a warrior could finally put down his hated axe because he finally got Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood – only to realize that he could not hit anything with it. He had to perform thousands of strikes for his hit chance to slowly increase.
Since there were no training dummies back then to hit endlessly, players had to get creative. Skill-hungry players sought out a warlock from their friend circle and headed to an area populated by demons. Here, a demon was pulled out of its area and then banished with “Banish”. The result was that the demon became immune to damage but could not act. The player could now endlessly strike the demon without it retaliating or ever dying – as long as the warlock banished it in time.
This system was abolished during the transition from The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King. All that remains today is an achievement for those who mastered unarmed combat at that time.
