Testing out Armor Penetration

I am still no where near the cap for Armor Penetration (ArP) but I decided that I needed to shake some things up.  I needed to work on something different to spice my hunters life up some.  I have been putting some numbers into Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer (also known as Female Dwarf) and I have come up with some numbers to play with.

I also dropped the 4 piece tier 10 bonus in favor of 2 off set pieces that had 3 and 2 gems spots as opposed to 2 and 1 respectively.  The pieces on their own had more ArP then the set pieces and the added gems slots will help even if I lose the 4 piece set.  Like I said, this might not sound like a good idea but I am testing it out for the hell of it. 

Based on the numbers I threw into the analyzer I would theoretically have 6225.33 DPS with all agility gems and no buffs what so ever.  With my ArP set up I just changed to it would be 6273.13 DPS which would be a 47.8 DPS increase.  Again, with no buffs at all.

What my worry here is that the 18 agility gems that would have given me 360 agility that scales with buff might be worse off being those 18 now give me 360 ArP instead of agility and that does not scale with buffs at all.  I also lose out on some dodge (which means nothing) and about 4.5% crit that way.  But my crit is still over 50% without any buffs so that is not really much of an issue I think.  I worry about the agility.

I will need to run a few raids to see how it works out for me and analyze the numbers with my own eyes.  Theoretical numbers are one thing, actual numbers are another.  With the buffs I have normally I can do as much as 12K with the occasional 13K or 14K blip here and there.  Lucky crits I guess.  Standard, when not balls to the wall I can easily do 10K.  Most boss fights I know well even with movement I can maintain the 10K number at the least.  Ones I do not know well and am learning I tend to drift down to the 7K range.  That is all fine in my mind as I know once I get my rhythm down for a new fight I will be back to the 10K+ range.

If you read my blog you will know that I never win rolls so I never get upgrades.  While that sucks, that is also a good thing for a test like this.  I know what I was doing because I do the same things every week.  It is a solid base of numbers to work with.  So I figured I would go into this week with an easy way to judge if the switch to ArP was worth it even if I am still 300 from the cap.  Now that the buff has been upped to 30% however it will mess with my results.  I'll have to adjust to it.

I tried a few heroic runs but testing DPS in heroics is impossible.  I can get anywhere from 4K to 9K on a heroic run.  It all depends on how many the tank pulls, how much I need to watch my aggro and what the other people in the heroic are doing.  If I am in a group with all sub 2K DPS then I can easily pull 9K over the course of the run but if the other DPS are all doing well, 5K then it is harder to throw up big numbers.  All these variables make for an impossible testing area.

Using the dummy is also another good idea to judge, but as you noticed, without buffs the DPS gain would only be about 47.8 DPS and testing on a dummy 50 DPS difference could just be the RNG working in my favor or against me.  Either way it could sway my DPS 500 either way.  I have seen that in many tests.  So the 50 DPS will be completely unnoticeable.

I can't wait until I get a chance to test it but it does not seem like that will happen this week.  Our guild leader will not be around for our 25 run so being he is not around that means we do not run.  I F'N hate that crap.  Why can't we run if he is not there?  It is not like he is so freaking special and we can't do anything without him. 

On our 10 we extended the lock out so are doing new bosses which is not ideal for me to test either being on new bosses my DPS is always lower then average because I am learning the fight.  Not only me learning the fight but those around me learning the fight.  I have to adjust want I do depending on how fast the tank is learning it, how fast the healers are learning it and how fast the other DPS are learning it.  For example, 3rd phase on Sin I am to keep on the boss at all times, but being the melee have not learned it enough to get onto the ice blocks fast enough I am forever having to switch targets to help them because they are moving to slowly.  This, in turn, hurts my DPS.  So it is not only me needing to learn the fight that hurts my DPS but those around me needing to learn the fight that hurts my DPS.  So with all that said, new bosses are not the place to test my new ArP set up.

I am already thinking it was a total waste to switch yet being I am not at the ArP cap.  If I would have asked myself I would have said don't do it.  I know I should not have but I wanted to try something different.  I have only gotten one new piece of gear in the last 3 months.  I was bored.  I needed a change of some sort.  I hope it works out.