Armor Penetration Mechanics

[Maestro Kenteko]

Out of complete curiousity, I went and tested Focused Offense to see how it affected armor because as a debuff, I figured all similiar % based ones would do the same. The results were in line with the renown armor tactic. This was originally done for a class balance thread.

Focused Offense only ever counted for the specific armor value of items. Specifically, at 3320 armor, Focused Offense reduced it to 2225 armor which is 33% less of the original value. In terms of armor mitigation, it went from 79.4% to 53.2%, or a loss of about 26% armor mitigation. Perseverance was completely unaffected, always giving the straight +number regardless of Focused Offense. I stripped to zero armor and used Perseverance and swapped between Focused Offense and not to make sure, and the result was always the value of Perseverance.

This means that % based debuffs are useless on squishies, simply because their values are abyssmally low to begin with but crippling against tanks, while straight debuffs hit squishies/low armor harder but tanks completely and utterly ignore them (assuming good gear/armor buffs). As a guess, I'd also say that armor ignoring abilities (Sundering Chop/Precision Strike for example) ignore base armor value much the same way.

Let's assume a theoretical example of someone with 1000 armor.A full Stone Breaker would reduce a person to 250 armor and then a Witch Hunter/White Lion comes along. They pop Seal of Destruction/Sundering Chop and the person's armor is then considered to be 125 for sake of mitigation. This is still better then someone without debuffed armor (it'd ignore 500 armor, but they'd still face the 500 leftover as opposed to the 125), but bears mention anyways. If Wot Armor? is brought to full debuff (125%), I would guess that the extra 25% is to compensate for any armor buffs the target has up (pain on a tank, negligible on a squishy).

This brings up the question of straight armor ignoring attacks, such as Torment. Unable to test it on a high level Witch Hunter, (my level 10 witch hunter was always completely unmitigated) the only guess I have is that it just assumes the target's armor is 0, regardless of external circumstances. However, should a higher level Witch Hunter be able to say to whether it can be mitigated (albeit slightly) from behind would be able to clear up if it uses items as the "armor ignoring" or armor + buff. In all honesty, I forsee this one just believing the target is always at 0% simply because it seems to be the easiest thing to do.

Armor piercing skills make sense in this line of thought. % based debuffs belong primarily to tank (Wot Armor? and Stone Breaker) while straight armor debuffs (Pierce Armor, Acid Arrow) belong to the realm of the DPS for anti squishy/lower armor removal. It also means that an armor that gets armor buffs/higher level gear becomes that much more resilient to non % based debuffs while % buffs become more effective.

I don't see a problem with armor penetration as there seem to be three types: % based debuffing (tanks), # based debuffing (DPS), and % Armor Ignoring (both). Armor debuffs make armor ignoring abilities ignore less by extension, while the ignores are not exactly reliable (considering buffs). Complete armor ignores (Torment) just assumes armor is zero. It should be noted that tank utility in the armor department is directly aimed at anti tank while the DPS version is better aimed at squishies, which makes sense. I'd assume weapon skill sits in the camp of armor ignoring, for what it's worth. Depending on order of operations, it could be interesting as using Sundering Chop could ignore 50%, then Weapon Skill would remove the remaining % of the armor leading to a bit of a "meh" territory on Weapon Skill.

By the way, this makes armor buffs extremely important and that much more powerful, as most armor debuffs and armor ignores don't count them in the mix. Bonus points for things like Regenerative Shielding that give armor AND reduce armor penetration (Which I've no clue how it works atm). High armor still wins in the end save for when an assist train happens and tanks still have many more survival tools and defense checks to make them not die instantly.

More testing is required at this point. Anyone who has used a full ignore ever been mitigated? What're some thoughts on how -armor penetration works? I imagine it's likely going to be additive towards the armor ignore abilities and multiplicative to the straight -#s.

[DeathZer0]

Actually, looking at the way armor is calculated (at least from the 2 examples you presented) it seems that straight armor debuffs are a lot more efficient on tanks than on squishies.
Let me clarify this:
3320 = 79.4% --> 1% = 41.8 armor points
2225 = 53.2% --> 1% = 41.8

That means armor mitigation increase is linear.

2090 Armor = 50% Mitigation
3135 = 75%
1045 = 25%

Let's consider a 1000 dmg attack on a 1045 armor target. Of course it will be reduced to 750 damage. With a straight armor debuff of 1045 the armor will be reduced to 0. Now the attack would its full damage. A damage increase of 1/3.
Let's consider the same 1000 dmg attack on a 3135 armor target. Now it will be reduced to 250 damage. However, with a straight armor debuff of 1045 it will be devastating. This will reduce the armor to 2090. Now the same attack would deal 500 damage, double the previous amount.

I think this is what makes Carnage Witch Elves with Pierce armor such excellent tank killers.

[Maestro Kenteko]

I think the main thing that straight armor debuffs do is take out the cushion of an armor buff that is almost prevalent across the board (on a tank). Perseverance and Guarded Attack as examples count for exactly the same armor gained as a Pierce Armor removes, putting the Knight/IB back at armor cap. This tends to make the straight debuffs all around worthless, save for when they stack from multiple sources.

% based ones, primarily from the Black Ork, gets substantially stronger the more you put on them. With a fully stacked Wot Armor? which is obviously far down the line, the victim will lose all their armor plus an extra stacked 25% on top of it. Pierce Armor cannot compare. Even looking at a double stacked Wot Armor, we're talking about a 50% armor loss from items (which is pretty substantial on tanks) while one Pierce Armor doesn't even pass through an armor buff.

I feel it's important to bring up armor buffs, primarily because they're how tanks "mitigate" armor debuffs. They're also important on squishies, but only because they lack armor to begin with. You can't claim that straight armor debuffs are more efficient when the end result is essentially no change (3320-940+940=3320). Some armor buffs are not up all the time while some armor debuffs are not up all the time (block/parry/dodge/cooldown). Carnage Witch Elves are not amazing tank killers, they merely have the tools to pierce through a small bit of mitigation. Granted, throw a Focused Offense in there and the Witch Elf is now targetting a medium armor individual and will promptly rip them apart.

There's also the issue of debuffs stacking from two different targets, or a witch elf gank squad. Given two witch elves, two pierce armors can be applied while only one armor buff can be realistically applied. However, in a situation of multiple targets a Black Ork and a Witch Elf would make the best gank squad around (% based debuffs stacking with the straight armor debuffs = zero armor fast).

[DeathZer0]

I agree that percentage based ignores/debuffs are generally stronger than ones with a straight mitigation as long as they are over 25% (which most of them are).

I guess the only thing that matters is how much amor a target has to begin with.
Any number of armor change will have more impact on a target with high armor and less efficient on a target with low armor.
I.e. if a character has already 50% mitigation and gains the 1000 armor needed for 75% it will double his survivability. In the same manner if a character with 75% mitigation looses 1000 armor he'd be at only 50% mitigation anymore, thus halving his survivability.

Percentage based ignores/debuffs will be especially efficient against targets with high armor of course. But they will also be especially unefficient against targets with low armor. Straight armor debuffs might be more efficient in this case, but still are most efficient against targets with higher armor.

Also I guess straight armor debuffs can still be very effective on tanks who have no way of buffing their own armor. Black Guard, Chosen and Swordmaster only can increase their armor if they spec for it (SMs is weaker by a bit but has disrupt). KotBS can have theirs up 1/3 of the time. Irongbreaker and Black Orcs can have theirs up all the time.

Something different: Does anyone know how weapon skill works? Does it really only ignore the remaining percent of the armor after an armor debuff? Would make stacking weaponskill rather pointless for careers with armor debuff like the savagery marauder. Might be also interesting to calculate how much armor ignore is needed on a target with 75/60/45/30% mitigation to get the best results (I guess stacking only weaponskill instead of strength would be more efficient until below 45, assuming no other armor debuffs are applied).

My conclusion is % armor ignores/debuffs seem to be better than straigt armor debuffs except on low armor targets.
On these a straight armor debuff might increase dps by at least 33% assuming the target has at least ~25% mitigation, which is about the limit a single straight armor debuff can reduce.
Straight armor debuffs might be the most efficient on medium to high armored targets but not against very high armored foes. This would include most MDPS and DPS tanks. Exceptions would be Ironbreakers and KotBS (they don't need to spec for it and don't need a shield like the Black Orc would).

[Maestro Kenteko]

I'm not sure about Weapon Skill. My biggest guess is it detracts straight from leftover armor of items if/when a debuff is taken into account, but I've been told that it detracts from all armor including buffs. Honestly, weapon skill seems to be a fairly large wash as anything but a supplementary stat that happens to be on your armor instead of something to build towards if the former is the case.

What I'm curious about is -armor penetration, such as Regenerative Shielding. Will someone with -10% armor penetration stacked reduce Wot Armor? to 15% per application, -10 overall, or work differently? Same with a 1k armor debuff (removing 100). Also, will it cause full armor ignores to hit 10% of their armor and other armor ignores to hit larger amounts?

[Tryble]

The new grab bag had a bit of information on armor penetration. Here's the relevant question:

Q. How do Armor Penetration and Armor Ignore work?

A. Armor Penetration and Armor Ignore work in the exact same manner - they reduce the target’s actual armor value before the system determines how much damage is mitigated. Let's make up some numbers as an example: Say your enemy has 3000 armor, and you hit them with an ability that says it penetrates 25% of the victim's armor. For that hit, the system will go through all the combat calculations as if the enemy only had 2250 armor (3000 base, minus 25%).

It works exactly the same in the other direction, too - if that enemy had a buff that let them ignore 10% of an attacker's armor penetration, then they'd effectively count as having 2550 armor against that same attack, since the attacker's 25% is now cut down to 15%.

Sounds to me that the ability to ignore an enemy's armor penetration is a powerful tool. It might even be better than armor itself, seeing as how everything has at least a little bit of armor penetration via Weapon Skill.

[DeathZer0]

But how does weapon skill and armor ignore/debuffs work together?

25% armor ignore + 25% ignore from weaponskill flat = 50% ignore or
25% armor ignore + 25% ignore from weaponskill of the new armor value

In this case with a 3000 armor target and 25% ignore and another 25% ignore from weaponsill, will the target be treated as a

A) 1500 armor target
or
B) as a 1687.5 armor target (2250 * 0.75 from weaponskill)

if A, how does it work with a debuff then?

[JudgeMentalOne]

Well I cant confirm this, but I read in another thread that the order armor debufs are applied is as follows.

Straight numbers first, then % ignore/reduction, then WS ignore. Basically if this is true there will always be some armor left.

The grab bag answer was woefully short and didn't explain how/if reduced armor pen interacts with armor debuffs, especially wot armor since it needs multiple applications to have its full effect. It also didn't explain whether or not the -10% then also applies to the persons WS reduction or not.