Comments on: Rogues and Armor Penetration

By: Valenna

Valenna — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:12:40 +0000

Merele: Thanks. I had thought about making a more recent post to reflect the WotLK changes, but I’m currently taking a break from WoW and the blog. However, I did want to let you know how it works now. Armor penetration works by reducing their actual armor value by that percentage. So if they have 20000 armor and you have 10% reduction, they lose 2000 armor and then their damage reduction is recalculated via the standard formula. This is a radical change from the previous numeric reduction which affected cloth wearers more than other heavily armored opponents. This new percentage reduction affects heavily armored opponents more point by point you get, but it’s still just a percentage value. While before you could completely strip a cloth wearer of 100% their protection and barely make a dent in the damage reduction of a plate wearer.

So, to review:

Target Armor after ArmPen = (1-ArmPen %)*Target Armor before ArmPen

Then damage reduction from armor is calculated:

=Armor/(Armor+15232.5)

Thus, given 3 different targets: Priest (2036 armor), Rogue (5768 armor) and Prot Warrior (24768 armor). If you have 10% armor reduction, you reduce their armor value by 10%, so Priest goes to 1832 armor, Rogue to 5191, Warrior to 22291. After you determine the difference between the initial damage reduction to the new damage reduction, a 10% armor penetration would result in a damage increase of 1.2% against the Priest, 2.8% against the Rogue and 6.6% against the Warrior.

Another thing to notice is that even with 10% reduction, you’re not going to a 10% damage increase.

By: Merele

Merele — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:23:33 +0000

Hey I read it it is still understandable but can u make a more recent one Wotlk Wise? :)

Arm Pen has been changed to % here and i’m kinda lost are we -% from their % of dmg reduction or is it -% of the % they have?

1. they have 50% i got 10% armPen = 40% will be blocked
OR
2. They have 50% i got 10% ArmPen = 45% will be blocked

Thx and great article btw :)

Cheers

By: Knob

Knob — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:50:10 +0000

Having a trillion armor penetration will not raise your envenom damage.

By: Whitecell

Whitecell — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:45:11 +0000

Hey got a few fast question my rogue here is a build that mixes Haste and Armor Pen while using poisons thanks to envenomnate and cut to the chase! Would my White and Yellow Damage totals be better If I am able to remove all armor off my targets aka. yummy clothies vs. leaving them have it and going faster? And does stacking more ArP net me more bonus DPS to both yellow and white damage as there Armor values begin to drop into the negative range?

By: rwer

rwer — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:53:13 +0000

NIAHAHAHAH

By: Parry! Dodge! Spin! » Raid Performance: Maximize Rogue DPS

Parry! Dodge! Spin! » Raid Performance: Maximize Rogue DPS — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:56:32 +0000

[...] Penetration. After everything else, Armor Penetration is excellent, especially against bosses. However, until you have a large amount, it isn’t [...]

By: Resto4Life» Blog Archive » Resto Druids: 5 Things You Should Know (about Yourself)

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:51:44 +0000

[...] We can reduce the armor of mobs through Faerie Fire, allowing melee and ranged DPS to do more damage against them. (See also: Rogues and Armor Penetration) [...]

By: Valenna

Valenna — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:59:00 +0000

@Doomilias: Thanks!

@Anon: Thank you for your analysis! I want the article to be accurate so I welcome any criticism that leads to that end.

However, maybe you misread the graph? The bands of lines on the graph going from light blue to dark blue are the target's current armor values. The lightest and highest band corresponds to if your target has 1000 armor, the percentage of their armor caps at 1000 Armor Penetration where you have negated all 8.65% of their armor. As you gain more Armor Penetration, you move from the left of the graph at zero to the right of the graph closer to 3000. Going up higher into the graph determines what percentage of their armor you have negated. Send me an email at parryspindodge at gmail dot com if you have further questions or if you think there's something else I'm missing.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:59:00 +0000

according to that graph the lower armor your target has the lower % increase your dps will get from the same armor pen.
Quote : "Find 1715 on the bottom axis and then finding the 3000 and 4000 armor lines. 3000 is near 11% and 4000 is near 9.5%. So, I'd guess about a 10% boost to DPS. The actual value is 10.14%."

If you take that example and exchange the tagets armor with a lower value you get a worse dam increase = 7-8% wich doesnt add up with your info.

you must have reversed the numbers on the vertical column? or the graph is just bullocks all together ?

By: Doomilias

Doomilias — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:51:00 +0000

very good article. i came up with alot of the same numbers recently as i was trying to figure how the new hemo will stack against ss (before i found out hemo is now normalized).

i still wouldnt recommend imp EA for a raiding build for the very reason that it will be negated or even come up with the message "a more powerful spell is already active" with 5 sunders applied. plus active armor reduction (not armor ignorance) is generally a high threat generating ability.

either way, very nice write up. i think blizz will continue to develop armor pen/ignorance, as it seems they are trying to give an alternative to attack power, which is an offensive stat that does not scale very well.