Too many skills...hehe

[HeartView]

My Iksar Warrior just dinged 21 last night. His 1HS is nearly maxed, and 1HB is in the 80's. Piercing is somewhere in the 60's. I have not yet tried to keep my 2HS, 2HB, or 2HP up to par (I know 1HP and 2HP use the same skill).

Question is, can I safely drop any of these? Could I just choose one type of one handed weapon and one type of two handed? There are a LOT of nice 1HS weapons out there I could take to fairly high level. I have a couple nice 2HS weapons already that I got for cheap (one 30 damage 40 delay with no level limits and one that is 29 damage 34 delay that has a recommended level of 51). I have a Centi Warspear for 2HP and a 30/40 2HB as well.

Problem is, I can't seem to keep them maxed and am even finding it hard to keep 3 of them at a point where I can still use them effectively. What to do, what to do?

I'm strongly considering dropping piercing all together and focus my efforts on slash and blunt. Any thoughts?

[Splaktar]

Verant doesn't want warriors using Piercing, thus the piercing skill cap is lower for warriors. This makes using them basically stupid as it hurts your dps and hit%.

[EgatBearskinner]

If you just dinged 21 I wouldn't worry about it too much, at lower levels you usually advance so fast you aren't really going to have time to max more than one skill to your level cap. When level advancement starts to take a slowdown (like around level 40) start to bring an assortment of weapons out with you for exp grinds and max all the weapon skills while you can. Take advantage of the times when there is someone else tanking and you can maybe use a different weapon than normal to raise that skill. Trust me, if you leave one skill behind and suddenly find a weapon you like that uses it you will regret not keeping that skill up.

Agree with Egat, the 40s are the best time to build up skills.
You want to max them all, even piercing. You won't use piercing most of the time but it can be handy in some situations, like soloing with a Bloodpoint (procs a lifetap)
Some higher level very good weapons are 2HB (GSOT), so don't neglect that either.

Get a dex buff to up your skills faster

[Isk]

Indeed. Eventually you'll have opportunities to max all your skills. Piercing does cap lower for warriors, yes, but the DPS difference is marginal.

[ODB]

Trying to raise bash while at lvl 65 sucks ass =(

[Is Guts]

Get some training weopons ie: low delay sod the dmg that you can use when not tanking will help you skill quicker. Good idea to warn your group that you are training.

Think for pierce I used a Sarnak Backstabber 1HP 10 dmg 20 delay with some stats plus was cheap, can go in off hand with main weopon which helps if skill is awfull

Main thing is to keep em all trained, just after a lvl up seemed to work well. Haste and dex buffs are great too.

[Xebokan]

I recommend using two handed weapons from level one and focus on maxing out them first, since they become much harder to work with at higher levels. Get a fast swinging 2hs and 2hb, like Nathsar Greatsword and Poison Wind Chaser. When you get duel-wield, you can start considering working in one hander too. As for piercing, it caps out at 200, just like any other melee skill pre 51. It caps out at 240 post 51. There's some nice piercers out there that your warrior might want to use, so I don't see the reason not to work on this skill.

[Ealsur Helevorn]

I made the mistake of getting to lvl60 with just 1hs capped... and now I have bash, 2hb,1hb and 2hs and piercing is around 160s.
God bless good PoI groups that let me raise skills on their mobs

[rexiant]

You can basically focus on any weapon skill you like and leave others lower, BUT there is a pretty good chance that at some point you'll be using one of the neglected ones. Of course, at 65 you can max a neglected weapon skill in a few days with few problems as long as you're not MA at the time.

I personally did each weapon skill for 20 skill points as I progressed. I'd go slowest skillers to fastest. In my case it was 2HB --> 2HS --> 1HB --> 1HS --> Peircing --> 2HB --> etc. And I went to skill 20, then 40, then 60, etc. with each, and somewhere in the 30's I was getting all weapon skills maxed within the first 2 yellow bubbles on the new level. It wasn't a huge deal at those levels because the mobs I was fighting weren't strong enough to 1-round the casters. I would switch out to the good weapons when the situation warranted: adds, etc.

Of course I would also swap in a shield everytime the Bash button refreshed then swap a weapon back in whenever I was training 1 hand waepons to keep the bash skill up.

Bit of a skill junkie here though, but just throwing in my 2cp of what I did. Hell...the only skills I don't have maxed at 65 is throwing (180), languages, and tradeskills (no f'ing way). That's right Beg (200) do deliciously useless.

Anyway, play however is fun for you =) But I suggest keeping them up because you never know.

[weoden]

I always kept my weapons skills up but there are a few good ways to keep up neglected skills latter.

First, would be to ask a group if you can hit the mob while they are xping. This can be done while lfg.

Second, you can work up skills while raiding and not the MT.

I am disinclined to ask a group to suffer through training a weapon since agro is always an issue.

[Zynth]

1h is usually easy to keep up. i used alot of slashing growing up but once my skills slowed down i used a low delay 1hb and piercer on my offhand, which can do the trick rather well. as for 2h, i used 2hs when i could, but that was back then duel wielding was better for agro then 2h, so i almost never touched my 2hs and had 2hb at like 30 until i was 60. even if you never use those skills until 65, an easy way now to raise 2h skills is to use GSoT for 2hb, which sell for dirt cheap, or a WMBS for 2hs. i pretty much went around to easy accessable exp camps and asked people if i could hit their mobs out of group to work on my 2h, most people didnt mind the extra dps, usually they'll buff you too if they have the extra mana.

[Brutul]

As fast as you level in your teens/20s it's almost impossible to keep up all your weapon skills. Don't worry, you will have time to catch them up in your 40s. Just don't let anything sit at zero, or you won't be able to hit anything when your leveling slows down enough for things to catch up. Just do the best you can and don't worry too much about it.

[HeartView]

Thanks for all the replies folks. My warrior is now halfway to 23 and doing a bit better. My dual weild and double attack are getting a lot closer to capping for me so it is helping out a lot. I've also been using two of the same kind of weapon instead of one of each since this seems to help skill ups quite a bit (only just started doing this with 1HB since it wasn't THAT far off from cap). My piercing is still only about half what it could be. I'll get another peircer to pair up with the one I have and then go to town on mobs with two piercers. Should catch up better that way.

Also, I think 1HP and 2HP use the same skill, so that is one less 2H skill to worry about. I'm going to pick up a Mithril Two Handed Sword for my 2HS training. Not sure yet what I'm going to do for 2HB. Any ideas for a real fast 2HB that is useable by lower levels?

[Shikarii]

yup; 1H and 2H poking = same skill.

cheapo 2H blunt trainer = ketchaka koro mis. or if you're feeling bold a mithri staff packs a wallop although slower.

i was lucky and had a moss covered branch ( 5 dam 15 del 2H blunt ) and capped 2H blunt in about a day ( from zero to max skill for level 53 )