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Old 05/19/08, 7:40 PM   #1567 (permalink)
 Vulajin
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Sorry to intrude on the ongoing discussion, but I've written the following section for my Theorycrafting Think Tank article on rogue DPS and would appreciate it if I could get some input on it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Note that a 5-CP Expose Armor with 2 points in Improved Expose Armor is worth slightly more armor reduction than Sunder Armor (3075 vs. 2600). If your tank is a protection warrior, then Expose Armor will overwrite and prevent the use of Sunder Armor, reducing the warrior's initial threat from Devastating up to a full stack of Sunder Armor, as well as his threat on subsequent Devastates with 5 Sunders. The net effect on his TPS will be a reduction of roughly 100, usually precluding usage of Expose Armor. However, if your tank is not a warrior, then it is a net raid DPS gain for one rogue to switch to a cycle incorporating Improved Expose Armor. See the cycle section below for more information on Expose cycles.
The figure of 100 is based on some very fuzzy math using the Devastate threat equation. As I understand it, Devastate gains 15 bonus threat and 35 bonus damage per Sunder on the target, for a total of 75 threat and 175 damage if there are 5 Sunders. These are increased by the threat modifiers of a warrior in defensive stance with Defiance, 149.5% total. This comes out to roughly 400 (varying some due to crit affecting the bonus damage), which, in a 4-ability cycle, would be roughly 200 TPS, and in a 3-ability cycle, roughly 100 TPS. Then you apply the gain in damage on other abilities due to having 475 additional armor penetration on the boss, and you probably come out to around 100. Does this seem reasonable? (edit: Had initially made a mistake with the logic, which makes my math very very sketchy since there's a big difference between 3- and 4-ability cycles. Whatever.)

Alternatively, does anybody have a link to a post or even a thread where the exact threat impact of having Expose Armor up instead of Sunders might have been calculated? I've seen many allusions to "don't use Expose if your tank is a warrior," but few actual calculations. Granted, it seems to fall into that category of "things that are blindingly obvious and don't need calculations," but I'm not a warrior so I have to ask. :p

Last edited by Vulajin : 05/19/08 at 7:47 PM.

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