Armor Pen Nerf in 3.2.2
saedo — Fri, 09/04/2009 - 19:56
It was discovered on PTR earlier and now confirmed by the GC: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19717353372&sid=1
The nerf to armor pen in 3.2.2 is intentional. Compared to the recent buff where we increased the value of armor rating to 125%, this nerf would take it back down to 110%. While we are still evaluating the effects of this change in the 3.2.2 build, we did want to let you know of the possibility in case you were about to spend a lot on armor pen gems.
In fact, this was really the point. Several melee specs (and Marksman hunters) had begun to focus on armor pen at the expense of all other stats. Gear without armor pen was being passed over and gem sockets were increasingly being filled with just this one stat. While every spec has stats that are more valuable than others, this one felt like it was starting to trump everything. Not coincidentally, characters stacking lots of armor pen were starting to do more damage than their peers and more damage than we were comfortable with.
This change is largely for PvE reasons, though we won't cry at all if melee damage in PvP drops a little as a result.
We're letting you know now so that this doesn't feel like a stealth nerf, assuming it goes live. While you might disagree or be frustrated by the change (though I also suspect it won't come as a surprise to many players), we ask that you try and keep your response to something appropriate for these forums.
So I guess this affects our rogues, feral druids, arms warriors, and blood dks.
I just wanted to touch a little on the rogue side of things.
Theorycrafting, in current projected BiS gear it was looking like we'd go Mace spec of all things stack all the ArP we can get, and start making use of a rupture-less cycle. Heh, not the first time this was suggested and not the first time it was squashed before we can actually do it.
Anyways, that meant we'd drop rupture entirely and Evis spam all the way. With enough Armor Pen and other BiS stats, Evis finally out did Rupture in efficiency. Well, it would have been.
Now we'll have to re-calculate a few things, seeing if ArP is still worth it, or Agi might make a come back. What I think is likely is that Blizz will never allow us to drop Rupture from our cycles. If we find a way, they'll nerf it! lol


Initial rogue maths are
saedo — Sat, 09/05/2009 - 16:58Initial rogue maths are showing...
Hard cap is no longer feasible.
Soft cap is a straight nerf.
The crossover point is no longer there in the current possible gear, rogues going back to gem agility.
Will be about a 300 dps loss to the combat rogues.
That statement isn't entirely
Derchlon — Sat, 09/05/2009 - 13:53That statement isn't entirely accurate on the part about "forsaking all other stats" for ArP. I know as a Marksman hunter, ArP is pretty darn good, but only at high levels of ArP does it beat Agility for dps value per point of itemization. Even so, once a hunter reaches a soft cap (static ArP + ArP trinket proc = 1232 rating or so.), the hunter would continue to gem agility instead of ArP. That means that once a certain amount is obtained, it no longer scales in value and the hunter starts gearing just like he or she did before.
To say "forsking all other stats" is a large overstatement.
Right, but you're not the
Shihli — Sat, 09/05/2009 - 14:05Right, but you're not the only class that that statement is aimed at.
I know Noboru uses a 212 dps polearm simply because it has more ArP than his 232-dps weapons.