Armor penetration being nerfed in 3.2.2
by Matt Low 
Sep 5th 2009 at 6:00PM
Ghostcrawler has announced that armor penetration (ArP) is being nerfed in the upcoming Patch 3.2.2. It's an early notice to players who plan on investing in armor penetration gems. Many raiding melee players (along with Marksman hunters apparently) have begun focusing exclusively on armor penetration without caring about other stats. While the mechanics of ArP can be complicated to understand, the basic understanding is the more ArP you have the more damage you deal. Heck, a Feral Druid in my guild has been known to pass on upgrades here and there primarily because it lacked ArP.
Again, this is mainly a nerf to PvE raiding but it could end up affecting PvP slightly as well. It's not expected to completely rock the arena world or anything. The worst thing that could happen is Priests (or other soft targets) like myself will survive a few seconds longer against melee heavy teams, or people like Rogues have it worse against Plate. I guess from my perspective it could be viewed as a buff!
Note that in Cataclysm, armor penetration will be removed as a stat as it has been deemed confusing in regards to its use.
Filed under: Cataclysm, Arena, Death Knight, Raiding, Patches, Warrior, Rogue, Paladin, Hunter, Druid
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Ermac Sep 5th 2009 6:04PM
Do keep in mind that in cataclysm we will get ARP trough the mastery stat, so it's not really going anywhere.
And that you'll still want to keep those arp gems and gem for them as it currently stands.
It's been taken down from 1.25 to 1.1 meaning that the hard cap will be 1400 instead of 1232, still something that is easily reachable in ToC gear.
Riley Sep 6th 2009 2:59AM
yes, but the change could put Agility at a higher EP than ArPen at all levels of gear, which would still make it bad
Ermac Sep 6th 2009 3:44AM
No, arp will still be the way to go... for combat rogues and feral druids at least.
Owen Sep 5th 2009 6:04PM
I'm not sure if this is good or bad, I know an Arms Warrior who loves to stack armor pen in pvp (which to me seemed a bit strange) and as i play my Survivalist hunter i debate whether or not I need to focus on having enough of it or if its even a worthy stat to pay attention to.
Kudos to Blizzard for removing it from the game in the next xpac
joel Sep 5th 2009 6:06PM
"Note that in Cataclysm, armor penetration will be removed as a stat as it has been deemed confusing in regards to its use. "
....you've got to be kidding me.
Red Viking Sep 5th 2009 6:10PM
I guess what they mean here is that, although more ArP = more damage, it also scales with armor value. You'll do a heck of alot more damage to plate wearers, but significantly less to clothies.
joel Sep 5th 2009 6:16PM
So it's hard to understand that the value provided by a percent can change with the number that the percent is being taken from?
Red Viking Sep 5th 2009 6:20PM
You'd be surprised.
joel Sep 5th 2009 6:26PM
"You'd be surprised."
Now i hate my own generation. >.>
Darn teenagers!
*shakes fist*
Jari Sep 5th 2009 6:26PM
http://www.wowwiki.com/Armor_penetration
Easy spreadsheet to memorize and understand.
Silversol Sep 5th 2009 7:15PM
"Easy spreadsheet to memorize and understand."
I think blizzard reason is that they don't want you to have to memorize a spreadsheet to determine upgrades.
Otome Sep 5th 2009 7:32PM
@ Silversol
That's exactly it. Blizzard had said that, when raiding and picking up a new piece of gear, they want players to be able to look at it for a few seconds and be able to determine if it's an upgrade, not have to bring out a spreadsheet.
Obviously some will claim spreadsheets take very little time to do, but for some who spend their day looking at things like that or in school dealing with math, the last thing they want it to log onto a game and do more.
Yes, it's catering to casuals, but don't casual players make up most of the fanbase? The way I see is they're making the game more enjoyable to the majority of their players.
theRaptor Sep 5th 2009 7:55PM
@Otome
"Yes, it's catering to casuals"
What? Get lost.
I am hardcore in my approach to raiding but ArP is the most ridiculous stat. I play an enhancement shaman and the only way to reliably figure out gear upgrades IS TO RUN A SIMULATION because the frigging value of stats like ArP bounces all around the place. For a class like the enhancement shaman you literally can't value ArP without running a sim, because its value is entirely determined by the gear you currently have, your ability priority, your latency, and the monthly average precipitation in spain.
raid leader: "hey raptor you want this DPS mail?"
me: "umm not sure ... just let me pop off for 20 minutes and run a sim"
Sims are fine if you want to find optimal specs/rotations but they should not be required to figure out gear upgrades. All stats should scale fairly linearly and ArP does not. We are talking about a stat that Blizzard had to post the mechanics too (which they historically have never done, stuff like threat mechanics were reverse engineered prior to WotLK) because the theorycrafters couldn't figure it out.
Deathgodryuk Sep 5th 2009 7:56PM
@ Jari
You need to understand that the reason that spreadsheet even exists is because the formula for figuring out ArPen was so complicated that theorycrafters were not able to model it properly and were giving people inaccurate information regarding ArPen and in response Blizzard released the actual formula for it. The first time they've ever had to do that for anything in the game.
That tells me it's a little overly complicated for a game. You shouldn't have to be a freaking math major to figure out if a piece of gear is an upgrade for you or not.
Otome Sep 5th 2009 9:20PM
@ theRaptor
Please don't take what I said out of context. The reason behind what I said was the same as what has already been said, it's taking out a stat that only the most hardcore of players really care about enough to figure out the math and changing it so it's more of a passive bonus than something to stack with gear. This way the not-so-hardcore can have less to worry about. I wasn't trying to say anything negative.
A for me, I'm more of a casual player. As long as I can see the content Blizzard puts out I'm happy and ArmPen was, for all intents, something I ignored.
alpha5099 Sep 5th 2009 6:12PM
God, I hate ArPen. Such a bad stat for an Enh shaman, and it's on so much of my gear. I wish Reforging were here already, so I could turn it into something worthwhile.
Bod Sep 5th 2009 7:40PM
I actually think that's the main reason it's going - to reduce itemisation complexity, not because it's a hard to understand stat.
Your argument applies just as equally to retadins and unholy/frost DK dps. Only "pure" melee classes get optimal use out of it and since they all share the same gear...
Neo Sep 6th 2009 11:15PM
You do not have to hate it for much longer since they are removing the stat completely from the game in the next expansion. I guess they are nerfing it so you dont miss it as much when it is gone for good.
J Harrell Sep 5th 2009 6:16PM
As a fury warrior, I'm not purposely stacking ArP, though I'm also definitely not avoiding it, which is why I have just over 54% ArP on my gear. This nerf is a result of Blizzard putting so much ArP on plate DPS gear in Ulduar, kinda like how a lot of plate DPS gear in Naxx had hit on it (and seriously, I love actually being at the soft hit cap, rather than being almost hard-capped). So, what is the next flavor-of-the-month stat that the designers will give us prior to Mastery and the elimination of most of the stats? Because that one will get nerfed at some point too, due to no player's fault.
Dennis Sep 6th 2009 11:47AM
They'll put expertise on everything in Icecrown.