So I stumbled across this old post from Ghostcrawler from 2009-
"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. "
I never played original Wrath but I assume people are aware of this nerf. At the moment classes/specs that rely on Armor Penetration are performing extremely badly, this could cause problems down the line as there’s considerable pressure to switch due to very poor dps.
I understand Wow Classic uses the final patch of each expansion but this problem is affecting a lot of players of several classes.
Would it be an idea to buff Armor Penetration for this phase, then bring it down at a later date to bring class/spec performance in line with what is was in original Wrath?
Balance shifted every patch during wotlk. Stats like resilience were completely changed/adjusted during the expansion. We have profession bonuses with 3.3.x values, some being twice as strong as they were early expansion. Blizzard doesnt really know about this and are not willing to spend any resources even thinking about this. The chances of them addressing these issues are close to zero.
Where do you want to put stop to selective rollbacks? Are we going back to even more broken DKs? The thing that gives an edge to rogues right now is a poison change made in patch 3.3, should we nerf it too? Making custom buffs to rets was arguably even worse but it is what it is. No reason to mangle the game even more.
With so many specs someone will be always at the bottom, that’s just how the game works. Right now game is fairly balanced, all classes get plenty of representation in raids, and messing with the jenga blocks is risky for no reason. #nochanges is a dead meme but class balance so far was a very good stop point in messing with the game.
Also, while I don’t care that much about PVP it’s worth mentioning that changing armor pen would affect that as well and the last thing I wish for is getting smacked even harder by warriors in BGs.
Thank you for your reply, you’ve made some excellent points.
I can’t say i’m happy with the final patch class balance in classic, but you’re right, I don’t think copying on a patch by patch basis is feasible, it would be a lot of work that would lead to many broken specs.
But i’m not suggesting buffing a single class/spec, rather adjusting a game mechanic to bring things in line with original Wrath. The specs hit by the change are performing very poorly, & it’s unlikely to have any unintended consequences considering that’s how things were. I’m not sure what the harm in it would be.
I don’t play much pvp either atm so i’m unsure what affect it would have on current balance in BG’s & Arena.
A lot more is responsible for the balance than just armor pen changes, some classes had big changes in 3.3, like Shamans did not have the Fire Nova ability until Icecrown, the ability that has proven to be one of their most powerful in Classic and they didn’t have it at all in WOTLK prior to Icecrown.
Buffing ArP could help Warriors, MM Hunters, Combat Rogues, Feral druids and all of them are classes/specs that aren’t at the top of the meters, but then it’s going to feel kinda sucky when they have to revert it before ICC, like they did in the old days.
ArP was orginally kinda bad in WOTLK before the big buff too.
Looking at the Patch notes Armor Penetration was buffed by 25% at the release of Ulduar. It was nerfed by 12% at the release of Onyxia. So it’s 12% lower than it was at this time during original Wrath.
I main a Hunter, so it’s not too bad for me, I have the option of mid damage Survival. But Ferals would have to swap all their gear for a only slightly better Balance spec if they want to stay DPS, & Warriors have no good options to swap to at all with raiding Tank spots being uncommon.
Ulduar is likely to be a very long phase, & these specs wills be underpowered through all of Ulduar & half of ToC.
As other poster mentioned above, the problem with ArP and balancing around it is that it gets progressively better the more you have of it and of other stats (as always has been). So “one shoe fits all” balance is not possible here. It’s impossible to have the same power with ArP on Naxx gear (which had very little of this stat), than with Ulduar, or later with ToC or ICC gear.
The current implementation is probably a decent middle point tbh. Seeing the current DPS charts for Ulduar (https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/news/wotlk-classic-phase-2-dps-rankings-week-4-ulduar-331430) it can be seen that most classes are within the expected parameters (with pure DPS classes on top, hybrids like Warriors, Palas or Druids behind, and PvP centric specs below, DKs being an outlier as they always have been pretty high on DPS during Wrath due the novelty).
Of your list above, MM Hunter being a pure DPS class is the only one that might deserve a slight buff, yes, but even then, the average DPS difference of this “gimped” class with the absolute top performer class (Affli Lock which is known to be quite OP right now) is just a -15%. And even less with most other DPS classes. Individual player performance with the class would probably have way more impact than the lost DPS due to the ArP stat nerf itself.
Don’t get me wrong, I main Feral, so I’d love some kitty buffs, but honestly I don’t think the current state of ArP is that bad, and any small change on it might have unexpected consequences once new tiers of gear with more ArP stat are available.
A good point regarding changes the interaction with the changes to gear ilevel. I can’t say i know how that will pan out.
I can’t say i’m entirely impartial with this. The roster boss has hit my guild quite badly recently & pure dps checks seem a lot tighter in Ulduar than previously. We have a lot of players in these classes who were expecting to do decent dps this phase.
For example with Hodir 25, MM Hunters are doing a median of 59% of the top performer (Fire Mage), & Feral Druids + Fury Warriors 47%. For such a tight fight, this makes a huge impact.
Hodir is a really awful benchmark for comparing DPS, as campfires, light pillars and the spark buff highly favor casters, and between them, those who most benefit from crit chance (thus, Fire Mages).
Is like saying that Ferals are underpowered because they cannot do good parses on Kologarn (when the real reason they suck there is their inability to use Shred due to positional requirement and Kologarn being a front-only fight, so our basic attack skill and Rip extender is useless; no ArP stat could ever fix this)
Yup it’s not the best metric, but it’s one of several fights where casters get to shine, along with Mim & Vezax. There aren’t any equivalents for the classes discussed. It’s also a DPS check, where lower dps classes are much, much more of a liability, no matter how well they play.
Looking at the most recent logs Ferals are in a better place than i thought, breaking into the top 10 specs in 5 fights in Ulduar. Fury Warriors manage top 10 in 2 fights. Marksmanship have no fights where they’re in the top 10 specs, & only a couple in the top 15.
Development seems to be in a odd place right now. With changes being made to classes to buff their performance that weren’t in original Wrath, but other classes being underpowered compared to this point in the original game. Some quite dodgy bugs relating to spec performance are left in, some removed straight away.
Always the hardest boss in the game, especially for guilds a little behind the curve as they get less applicants. It’s always a shame with these guilds as they are usually a couple of players away from clearing the raid and doing well, but they rarely recover to that point.
Hodir is a bit of an outlier because the optimal strategy on that fight is to actively avoid having lower dps and physical classes from getting the buffs. Hodir is massively lopsided towards casters, like Vezax.
If you look at Ignis, Razerscale, XT, Council, Kologarn, Cat lady, Freya, Mimiron, Yogg Saron you have fights where actually a Fury Warrior does really well. Fury Warriors are usually made to sunder, sundering is a significant dps loss for the individual doing it and that also contributes to fury being lower on the statistics, because if you look at the top guys, geared and in good guilds, not taking care of sunder (either due to warrior tank or combat rogue expose) they are putting out very good numbers on most fights.
With those fights higher DPS makes it easier, but is not absolutely required, the raid team can still follow the mechanics & down the boss. The other dps checks in Ulduar have a much lower difference in class/spec performance.
Hodir seems very tight if you don’t happen to have the right comp. For example a 99th Percentile Fury Warrior does 13,110 dps. At the 30th Percentile, this DPS is topped by Frost & Fire Mages, and Affliction & Destruction Locks. I haven’t come across a dps check so far in classic that has such a difference in class performance.
I take your point regarding Sunders, I played Survival for a time in tbc, increasing raid DPS at the expense of my own. But I had the chance (& did) switch to BM for very decent raid dps. May I ask how many dps Warriors do you normally run with 25-man?
Hunters are in a poor place right now. Survival are mid-table but they propped up by the Lock & Load & 434 bugs, without which they’d be similar dps to MM. Blizzard have a history of letting some Hunter bugs stand, like tonking in tbc.
I just think replicating the original changes made to Armor Piercing would, in a small way, make the game more balanced.
1 dps warrior for 25mans, for Commanding Shout. Can also cover with a Prot Warrior but less common because they aren’t ideal progression tanks, some guilds may have Prot Warriors for speedrunning later and have them play Fury for now.
I know Fury is considered one of the lesser dps, especially from Naxx where that reputation was earned, but Ulduar is better suited to Warrior dps and Warrior dps has improved massively since Naxx. With Hodir being so dps heavy it’s hard on weaker specs in general, but that fight is so caster lopsided an ARP buff will do nothing.
Firefighter rewards more flexible/multi target specs tho, with both SV and Fury being really strong.
You obviously know a lot about Warriors in Ulduar. Do you see Warriors getting more than a couple of slots as the phase progresses? Also do you think the situation will change immediately in ToC or will it be closer to ICC?
