Har

EDIT 2, Dec 5th, 2008: The testing was only done on Raid bosses- reports have come in for regular bosses that show a different armor value. For now, I'm going to put the armor in for bosses that have been tested.

EDIT: as of Nov 30, 2008, testing has been done on all bosses and it appears that for now, all bosses have the same armor value shown on Maexxna: 13083 armor. This is true for heroics and regular versions of the bosses, and 10 and 25 man raid versions.

I'm going to keep this list active for now because armor is a variable that Blizzard can vary to fine tune the difficulty of an encounter, but unless we get any data points that contradict the tested 13080 (+/- 10) that Dayve has calculated or the exactly 13083 that Lactose saw on Maexxna, assume that that armor value is accurate.

That was easy

This thread will be for people to post data that will help us determine the armor of all the Wrath bosses. I'll keep this post up to date with a list of all known bosses and the armor values we get for them. The second post is going to be a guide to getting this data, so any guild who wants to help won't have to figure it all out themselves, and we will be sure that the research methodology is mostly the same from boss to boss.

Bosses: (NOTE: please PM me if I missed anything or messed anything up, don't reply to the post)

Dummies

• Grandmaster's training dummy
• Heroic training dummy
• Master's training dummy
• Veteran's training dummy

Utgarde keep (5 man non heroic)

• Prince Keleseth
• Skarvald & Dalronn
• Ingvar the Plunderer

Utgarde Pinnacle (5 man non heroic)

• Svala Sorrowgrave
• Gortok Palehoof
• Skadi the Ruthless
• King Ymiron

The Nexus (5 man non heroic)

• Grand Magus Telestra
• Anomalus
• Ormorok the Tree-Shaper
• Keristrasza

The Oculus (5 man non heroic)

• Drakos the Interrogator
• Mage-Lord Urom
• Varos Cloudstrider
• Ley-Guardian Eregos

Drak'Tharon Keep (5 man non heroic)

• Trollgore
• Novos the Summoner
• King Dred: 10338 armor (from beast lore)
• The Prophet Tharon'ja

Gundrak (5 man non heroic)

• Slad'ran
• Drakkari Colossus
• Moorabi
• Gal'darah

The Violet Hold (5 man non heroic)

• Erekem
• Moragg
• Ichoron
• Xevozz
• Lavanthor
• Zuramat the Obliterator
• Cyanigosa

Ulduar- Halls of Stone (5 man non heroic)

• Maiden of Grief
• Krystallus
• Sjonnir the Ironshaper

Ulduar- Halls of Lightning (5 man non heroic)

• General Bjarngrim
• Volkhan
• Ionar
• Loken

Azjol-Nerub: Azjol-Nerub (5 man non heroic)

• Krik'thir the Gatewatcher
• Hadronox
• Anub'Arak

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom (5 man non heroic)

• Elder Nadox
• Prince Taldaram
• Jedoga Shadowseeker
• Herald Volazj

Caverns of Time: Culling of Stratholme (5 man non heroic)

• Meathook
• Salramm the Fleshcrafter
• Chrono-Lord Epoch
• Mal'Ganis

Utgarde keep (5 man heroic)

• Prince Keleseth
• Skarvald & Dalronn
• Ingvar the Plunderer

Utgarde Pinnacle (5 man heroic)

• Svala Sorrowgrave
• Gortok Palehoof
• Skadi the Ruthless
• King Ymiron

The Nexus (5 man heroic)

• Grand Magus Telestra
• Anomalus
• Ormorok the Tree-Shaper
• Keristrasza

The Oculus (5 man heroic)

• Drakos the Interrogator
• Mage-Lord Urom
• Varos Cloudstrider
• Ley-Guardian Eregos

Drak'Tharon Keep (5 man heroic)

• Trollgore
• Novos the Summoner
• King Dred
• The Prophet Tharon'ja

Gundrak (5 man heroic)

• Slad'ran
• Drakkari Colossus
• Moorabi
• Gal'darah
• Eck the Ferocious

The Violet Hold (5 man heroic)

• Erekem
• Moragg
• Ichoron
• Xevozz
• Lavanthor
• Zuramat the Obliterator
• Cyanigosa

Ulduar- Halls of Stone (5 man heroic)

• Maiden of Grief
• Krystallus
• Sjonnir the Ironshaper

Ulduar- Halls of Lightning (5 man heroic)

• General Bjarngrim
• Volkhan
• Ionar
• Loken

Azjol-Nerub: Azjol-Nerub (5 man heroic)

• Krik'thir the Gatewatcher
• Hadronox
• Anub'Arak

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom (5 man heroic)

• Elder Nadox
• Prince Taldaram
• Jedoga Shadowseeker
• Amanitar
• Herald Volazj

Caverns of Time: Culling of Stratholme (5 man heroic)

• Meathook
• Salramm the Fleshcrafter
• Chrono-Lord Epoch
• Mal'Ganis
• Infinite Corruptor

Naxxramas (10 man raid)

• Anub'Rekhan
• Grand Widow Faerlina
• Maexxna: 13083 armor (from beast lore)
• Noth the Plaguebringer
• Heigan the Unclean
• Loatheb
• Instructor Razuvious
• Gothik the Harvester
• Thane Kor'Thazz
• Baron Rivendare
• Lady Blaumeux
• Sir Zeliek
• Patchwerk
• Grobbulus
• Gluth
• Thaddius
• Sapphiron
• Archlich Kel'Thuzad

Naxxramas (25 man raid)

• Anub'Rekhan
• Grand Widow Faerlina
• Maexxna
• Noth the Plaguebringer
• Heigan the Unclean
• Loatheb
• Instructor Razuvious
• Gothik the Harvester
• Thane Kor'Thazz
• Baron Rivendare
• Lady Blaumeux
• Sir Zeliek
• Patchwerk
• Grobbulus
• Gluth
• Thaddius
• Sapphiron
• Archlich Kel'Thuzad

The Eye of Eternity (10 man raid)

• Malygos

The Eye of Eternity (25 man raid)

• Malygos

Chamber of the Aspects (eventually)
Ulduar Raid (eventually)
Icecrown Citadel (eventually)

 

Har

Here's the original pre-3.0 thread for armor reduction: [RAID] Boss armor values

The best way to test a boss's armor is to use something like improved thunderclap on a boss without any debuffs and compare its damage to the raw damage (what you would do to something with 0 armor).

Note: it's possible on bosses that are classified as beasts for a hunter to use beast lore on them to get their exact armor.

 

◊ Lactose

Naxxramas, 10 person raid - Maexxna: 13083 Armor

Proof:


Maexxna is considered to be of the Warrior class.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

shed

What mod shows those values and how is it 'proof'? The actual game doesn't have any APIs showing armor values.

 

• Chicken

Beast Lore, which is a hunter ability which does exactly what Lactose posted. It's little seen as very few raid bosses tend to be beasts.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Dayve

I recently updated the addon I used to gather armor values pre-3.0; so far I've tested all the raid bosses except for Archavon, most of them on both normal and heroic modes, and the results have been the same for all of them: 13080 armor +/- 10 for both modes. Since Lactose has found that Maexxna has exactly 13083 armor, it should then be safe to state that:

All existing raid bosses in WotLK have exactly 13083 armor, on both heroic and normal difficulty.

 

songster

Those values are really quite odd, I'd have expected them to be rounder figures (e.g. 13000 armor, 2500000 health). That extra 83 armor and 10.1k health can't be having any material effect on the fight. I wonder if they're derived via some kind of scaling rule from rounder values at level 70, or even level 60?

 

Har

That's weird- armor is one of the variables they can adjust to make a boss less routine... you would think that they would have modified it for at least some of the bosses.

In any case, I'm going to go and update the first post to reflect this data, but if you could indicate any new data that you get if it's different (or if it changes with some future patch), I'll keep the first post updated.

 

Roywyn

Actually, that's quite a good decision to give all raid bosses the same armour.
That gives casters and melee the same situation on every boss.

For a casters, nothing is dumber than tossing some random resistance on a boss. It's "respec or sit".

Same for melee and armour. Imagine DPS was finally balanced, and then you add another new boss.
If it's armour is lower than normal, you stack melee. If it's higher, you stack casters.


Lowering Armour to compensate for a boss that is anti-melee might sound like a good idea for balance at first.
But only causes you stack hunters instead. The correct answer would be rebalancing to find something that melee are better at.

Also, it gives ArPen a universal value. You already don't have different caps anymore like in 2.4, but with different armour values you'd have different effects of ArPen rating, requiring different gear sets for differently armoured bosses.

It's definately losing a bit of variety, but I think it's better for overall game balancing.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Roywyn

Actually, that's quite a good decision to give all raid bosses the same armour.
That gives casters and melee the same situation on every boss.

For a casters, nothing is dumber than tossing some random resistance on a boss. It's "respec or sit".

Same for melee and armour. Imagine DPS was finally balanced, and then you add another new boss.
If it's armour is lower than normal, you stack melee. If it's higher, you stack casters.


Lowering Armour to compensate for a boss that is anti-melee might sound like a good idea for balance at first.
But only causes you stack hunters instead. The correct answer would be rebalancing to find something that melee are better at.

Also, it gives ArPen a universal value. You already don't have different caps anymore like in 2.4, but with different armour values you'd have different effects of ArPen rating, requiring different gear sets for differently armoured bosses.

It's definately losing a bit of variety, but I think it's better for overall game balancing.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

orgasmatron

Expose, acid spit, sunder 3925
Faerie fire, sting, cor 1260
Total reduction = 5185
13083 - total = 7898 armor

2 formulas from tankspot not sure if it is the 80 or 83 one I should use but I think it is the 80 one as the attacker(you) is 80: So 34.1% damage reduction with full debuffs.
Please check for correctness.

I hate Vem.

 

Njald

Any chance to get this information verified from a secondary source or a longer explaination on testing methods and then added to ThinkTank articles?

(didn't mean to say I don't trust you or your research but a bit more information is probably required form thinktank information)

 

Zifna

It could also just be that people tend to argue/negotiate less with more exact numbers, because of the assumption that there is strong rationale behind them.

Ex. A dealer tells you a car is $8,403.56, you assume there's a system. Why else would there be 56 cents on it? If he tells you it's $8,500, you assume he just picked a random value that sounded good and try harder to argue him down.


Blizzard gets a lot of arguing, I think it's very possible that they may have a "avoid rounded-appearing numbers" policy in place.

 

Har

His testing methodology is laid out in the other boss armor thread- basically his addon will collect data from his shots before any armor debuffs are applied and give him a range of potential armor values. The more data he gets, the more accurate his results get. When he said he's tested every boss except one, I imagine his sample size must be large enough to justify the +/- 10 armor he specified.

 

ildon

Blizzard aren't car salesmen, though. And I'm sure there's more than a few people with training in math or computer science working there. They may have started with round-ish numbers (like combat ratings at level 60) that have become not-round numbers through extrapolation (like combat ratings at 70 and 80). I know if I were working there, I really wouldn't care if some guy on a forum thought a boss armor value "looked too round". If I wanted the base physical damage reduction for the boss to be exactly 40% before debuffs, I'd use whatever value most closely approximated that damage reduction, whether it was round or not.

 

Dayve

This is pretty much correct. My previous testing has indicated that mob armor values are generated such that they give the mob a certain armor reduction against an equal level attacker; pre-WotLK it was either ~39.15% (which gave most BC bosses 7685, the same as a level 73 mob), or ~34.15% for lower armor mobs and bosses. For WotLK it seems to be 39% for everything, and the boss armor value is simply 23% more than the armor of a regular level 83 mob.

Edit: I finally got around to checking Archavon and amusingly he doesn't have the 23% armor bonus; in case anyone cares about this "boss" that means he has 10636 armor.

 

Iroared

I used Beast Lore on King Dred (that huge devilsaur in draktharon keep, heroic) and he had 10338 armor. HE WAS ALSO TAMEABLE!

Edit: actually it would be nice if someone could test it again because I might have used it in combat after rend armor was applied.

 

Prinsesa

I think you'll have to wait for the next expansion though, as King Dred is over level 80.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

footloop

You can tame him on normal mode.

 

Iroared

Yes you can tame him on normal mode and someone actually did it on beta with a lot of help, but that wasn't the point of my post.

OP stated that all bosses had 14083 armor - and king dred has 10338.

 

Kruthal

No, he didn't:


Normal and heroic refers to 10-man and 25-man raids respectively.

Also, who even cares about the armor level of a 5-man boss? And thanks to the OP and Lactose, nice to have something like this documented.

 

• Kalroth

King Dred is level 75 to 82 in the normal instance and level 82 in the heroic instance.

The 13083 armor mentioned in original post is for level 83 targets only. I'm guessing the 10338 armor you saw is generic for a level 82 elite enemy.

 

Har

I must have misunderstood Dayve when he said all raid bosses- I'm going to correct the first post. The real question is whether heroic bosses have the same armor as raid bosses, or whether they have the 5 man version armor.

From now on, I'm going to try to get actual data for each boss before updating the first post- we know that all 25 man Naxx has 13083 or thereabout, and I've asked Dayve for a list of bosses he got data on.

 

Axira

So if these values are correct and raidbosses have an armor value of 13083, this means that according to the old formula of "%Reduction = (Armor / ([467.5 * Enemy_Level] + Armor - 22167.5)) * 100", that all raidbosses have a basic melee mitigation of 44%, right?

 

Unconscious

Can you link to where you got 15232.5?