Wondering if there are any hard numbers on the effectiveness of these stats.

There seems to be more weapon-skill-rating being applied to end game items and I'm curious as to how beneficial this actually is.

Firstly, how much x-weapon-rating does it take to achieve an actual weapon skill point?

Secondly, and most importantly, what is the impact of raising weapon skill? Since 2.0 a lot of people have been saying its worthless but the post from the EU boards awhile back seem to contradict that. Does anyone have hard numbers on the benefits of weapon skill and in what situations (if applicable).

Next up is armor penetration; or, 'ignores [x] amount of armor'. Obviously this basically translates into a direct damage increase but it seems like it might not be that much. Knocking off ~1000 armor is what... like an 8% increase in damage? Not bad but whether or not losing the stats you'd otherwise have makes me wonder if it's that good. Again, I'm curious if anyone has numbers for this.

Also, I believe armor is on some type of curve? IE, the more you have you begin to see less benefit from it in terms of damage reduction percentage. If this is the case would armory penetration not be less effective against high-armor targets (which I assume most bosses to be)? Or does the penetration reduce reduction on a base level or something?

Just curious if anyone has been able to find any numbers on this stuff. I've looked around a bit but not found too much and I'm getting curious since these are relatively new (sorta) stats that are appearing on more and more gear.

For reference my interest is PvE effectiveness, I could really care less about PvP.

Roughly 3.9. To be precise, 205/52.

Still being discussed/tested. Pages 40-60 of Rogue DPS Spreadsheet has some analysis of it, as does [Rogue/Warrior] Weapon Skill Adjustment Discussion. There's also a bit of discussion on the last page of Rogue Gear Spreadsheet.

Both spreadsheet programs have models of armor penetration. I'm of the opinion that the one in the Rogue Gear Spreadsheet (3rd link above) is more accurate, but I may be biased.

For a typical raid dps situation, though, 1000 armor pentration is roughly a 7% damage increase.

Armor penetration is generally more effective against lower-armor targets (as in, grants a larger percentage damage increase). Taking 1000 armor of a mob with 1000 to start with is a 9.7% damage increase, while taking 1000 of a mob with 5000 (which is typical of a sundered raid boss) is still about 6.5%.

There are two rogue spreadsheets devoted to answering this very sort of question. Both are linked above.

Good reply, thanks.

I'm curious to know still if anyone has hard numbers. I'll divine what I can from the spreadsheets when I have a bit more time on my hands but I'd also like to be able to do a bit of mathcrafting myself.

Any daytime readers have any thoughts on this?

I realized I posted it at like 4am :|