[FAQ]Working theories of raiding at level 80 - Page 3

Prinsesa · 11/23/08, 3:10 AM

With regards to Armor Penetration Rating (and the percentage-based Mace Spec talents), the most important thing to note is that it is applied AFTER the static armor reductions of Sunder Armor/Expose Armor and Curse of Recklessness/Faerie Fire (and the Rogue's Serrated Blades talent).

This basically means that it is quite impossible to reduce a boss to 0 armor. While this removes the cap from the stat itself, it also means that the relative value has gone down greatly.

I'm not sure if the stat suffers from diminishing returns, only that it less valuable than the previous model.

glowacks · 11/23/08, 7:20 PM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

With regards to Armor Penetration Rating (and the percentage-based Mace Spec talents), the most important thing to note is that it is applied AFTER the static armor reductions of Sunder Armor/Expose Armor and Curse of Recklessness/Faerie Fire (and the Rogue's Serrated Blades talent).

This basically means that it is quite impossible to reduce a boss to 0 armor. While this removes the cap from the stat itself, it also means that the relative value has gone down greatly.

I'm not sure if the stat suffers from diminishing returns, only that it less valuable than the previous model.

This depends on the details of the function (armor penetration rating) -> (armor % reduction). This function is currently linear by all accounts, so the cap is 1539 rating at level 80 if WoWWiki is acurate. It still has increasing returns as long as the base armor is constant - each percent reduction is the same amount of reduction as the previous. The change to rating and percent was merely a way to change it from being overly effective against clothies and now being much more useful against place. However, unlike the previous model, it scales downward with an increased amount of armor reduction debuffs.

In order for armor penetration rating to get reduced effectiveness as it is stacked, the function would have to be non-linear, although I'm not going to try to derive anything resembling a fair formula. Even if each X rating provided an additional 1% more physical damage the stat would still scale better than anything else with respect to physical damage. However, it wouldnt' be a terrible place to go given that all classes have some aspect of their damage unaffected by armor but affected by crit, AP, etc.

drumbum · 11/23/08, 9:16 PM

I've located a post that confirms that 100 expertise rating at level 70 (which gave 6.25% dodge reduction at level 70) was NOT sufficient to remove dodge from the table.

Enhance Shaman: The Collected Works of Theorycraft, Vol I

Granted, it still may be possible that the dodge chance is somewhere between 6.25% and 6.5%, and not exactly 6.5%, which would make the last point of expertise less valuable comparatively. Verifying this would be probably way more trouble than it's worth.

Muphrid · 11/23/08, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by glowacks

This depends on the details of the function (armor penetration rating) -> (armor % reduction). This function is currently linear by all accounts, so the cap is 1539 rating at level 80 if WoWWiki is acurate. It still has increasing returns as long as the base armor is constant - each percent reduction is the same amount of reduction as the previous. The change to rating and percent was merely a way to change it from being overly effective against clothies and now being much more useful against place. However, unlike the previous model, it scales downward with an increased amount of armor reduction debuffs.

In order for armor penetration rating to get reduced effectiveness as it is stacked, the function would have to be non-linear, although I'm not going to try to derive anything resembling a fair formula. Even if each X rating provided an additional 1% more physical damage the stat would still scale better than anything else with respect to physical damage. However, it wouldnt' be a terrible place to go given that all classes have some aspect of their damage unaffected by armor but affected by crit, AP, etc.

Well, the problem, as always, is to clarify how what is linear with respect to what. As it is, if the armor reduced is linear with respect to penetration rating, then the DPS increase is faster-than-exponential with respect to penetration rating (that is, it shows increasing returns).

It would be easy enough to remodel this as linear if Blizzard chose and backsolve for the armor reduction, and this would have the advantage of putting armor penetration on the same basic footing (linear) as most other stats (though not all, and not to account for a lot of exotic procs and effects that occur, for example, on crits, and so on).

turturin · 11/24/08, 5:15 PM

I believe resilience was changed to have no impact in PvE scenarios (i.e. when fighting any npc, their abilities used against you ignore all resilience). Unless the change was reverted, it may be misleading to include information on resilience in this thread.

kalbear · 11/24/08, 5:31 PM

I believe resilience was changed to have no impact in PvE scenarios (i.e. when fighting any npc, their abilities used against you ignore all resilience). Unless the change was reverted, it may be misleading to include information on resilience in this thread.

This is incorrect; resilience works as it ever has. The original information was incorrect.

Mijae · 11/24/08, 5:49 PM

Note that these expertise cap discussions are only related to dodge. The parry cap is much higher, so it is useful for tanking purposes. Ferals now share all of their leather with rogues, so you will see a higher amount of expertise available on leather. It's similar to the problem we had with leather having too much hit rating in BC.

Harth · 12/01/08, 2:19 PM

There is something that has been bothering me at level 80. Half of my spells are getting partially resisted while raiding. It seems I get ~9% of my damage resisted on about ~50% of my spell casts. Does anyone have any idea what mechanic this is (normal resistance) and what, if any, statistic can give me 4% of my damage back. My only theory right now is that perhaps getting some Spell Penetration will fix the issue, however I'm hesitant because Curse of the Elements is usually active on the boss and it already lowers resistance by 165.

Here is a link to my spells specifically on Patchwerk last night: Wow Web Stats

I will likely do more in-game testing to try and figure this out, but I thought I would ask the enlightened EJ community to see if they might have answers.

• frmorrison · 12/01/08, 3:52 PM

Partial Resists are normal part of being a dps caster attacking a boss. Similar to glancing blows (from melee dps) on bosses, you cannot stop them.

Enova · 12/01/08, 8:30 PM

I wasn't planning to post anything on that because, quite honestly, after the parry haste discussion, I wasn't sure if they still existed or not after the expansion. Actually, there's a lot of stuff I'm still not sure of, and I'd like to finally start leveling and browse through some WWS reports before posting anything I can't at least verify. I was convinced that glancing blows still existed only because I ran into them in my pet's abilities on a dummy.

bznotins · 12/04/08, 8:10 AM

What might be helpful here is to incorporate what does/doesn't stack. Something like:

Might and Battle Shout do not stack.
Commanding Shout and Blood Pact do not stack.
TSA and Abomination's Might / Unleashed Rage do not stack.
Horn of Winter and Strength of Earth Totem do not stack.

GotW seems to stack with everything.
Kings seems to stack with everything.
Faerie Fire and Sunder Armor stack.

Rhaegal · 12/04/08, 9:55 AM

The list of buffs and debuffs and what "slot" they fill (e.g., Sunder Armor is a "Major Armor debuff" vs. Faerie Fire being a "Minor Armor debuff") has been listed extensively and doesn't take much effort to find. The list is pretty long, and would only really add clutter to the OP in my opinion, without fitting the purpose of the post.

Sydane · 12/04/08, 11:23 AM

Delete - posted to wrong thread

• Melthu · 12/06/08, 5:41 PM

I had one of the hunters in my guild use Beast Lore on 10-man Maexxna to check her damage ranges before and after a 5 point Demoralizing Roar. Pre-roar her damage was 16892-23185, post-roar her damage was 14017-20310. Next week we'll test 1-4 point roars if no one else does before then.

Daedalix · 12/10/08, 4:42 PM

The thread about 8% being the actual hit cap for non-DWing melee and ranged would debunk the "working theory" of 9% hit stated in this FAQ. There's pretty convincing evidence for an 8% hit cap. May want to note that on the OP.