Wrath boss armor testing

Har · 11/27/08, 1:17 PM

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 · 11/27/08, 1:18 PM

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 · 11/29/08, 11:29 PM

Naxxramas, 10 person raid - Maexxna: 13083 Armor

Proof:

Maexxna is considered to be of the Warrior class.

shed · 11/30/08, 7:23 AM

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

• Chicken · 11/30/08, 7:26 AM

Originally Posted by shed

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

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.

Dayve · 11/30/08, 9:20 AM

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 · 11/30/08, 10:13 AM

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 · 11/30/08, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 11/30/08, 2:27 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Roywyn · 11/30/08, 2:59 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

orgasmatron · 12/01/08, 6:33 AM

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:

                 lvl 80
expose etc	 3925
faerie etc	 1260
total        =	 5185
13083 - total =	 7898
		
Armor%		 34,1%

Grim toll procced 20,57

           A
M80 = ------------
      A + 15232.5

So 34.1% damage reduction with full debuffs.
Please check for correctness.

Njald · 12/02/08, 7:29 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 12/03/08, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by 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?

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 · 12/03/08, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by 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)

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 · 12/03/08, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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.