Please Fix Plate Itemization
This is in regard to itemization of physicalDPS-oriented armor from raids in the Burning Crusade, why it was flawed, and what can be done to fix the disparity.
What disparity, you ask? Well, if you’ve ever wondered why warriors tend to wear Mail or Leather over Plate a lot of the time… it’s not because it’s tight and sexy, but because it’s usually straight up better.
This is due to a major flaw in the itemization of plate gear–its points are almost always spent into only 3 dps stats, whereas leather or mail is itemized into 4 dps stats.
What’s the difference, you ask? Well, with the way the itemization formula works, the leather and mail is able to have more total stats on an item, despite having less of each stat. Using a DPS spreadsheet, you can get approximate weights for each stat relative to a baseline, which is strength for warriors (known as SEP–Strength Equivalence Points). While some stats are better than others, leather and mail items are often better than the plate counterparts simply due to having more stats. So let me show you a concrete example.
For my fury warrior in BT/SW gear, my approximate stat weights are, in SEP:
1 Str - 1.00, 2 AP - .909, 1 Agi - .648, 1 Hit - .576, 1 Crit - .881, 7 ArP - 1.293, 1 Haste - .848
I’m using BB legs, so let’s compare the upgrades from SW: Brutallus’s plate legs and Felmyst’s leather ones. We’ll ignore the sockets because it makes no significant difference–assuming you have 1 blue in your Bladed Chaos Tunic, if you were to use the plate legs, you’d have a combined 3 red gems, 1 orange, and 1 blue in the legs and T6 shoulders, and the same combined number of gems if you were to use the leather legs. The only difference would be socket bonuses–4 agi + 3 crit vs. 4 str that is, which is actually in the leather legs’ favor (by 1.235 SEP or so). Anyway, let’s get to it.
Felfury Legplates
Binds when picked up
Legs Plate
1735 Armor
+61 Strength (61*1.00 = 61 SEP)
+48 Stamina
Blue Socket
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 34 (1.54% @ L70). (34*.881 = 29.954 SEP)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 50 (3.17% @ L70). (50*.848 = 42.4 SEP)
Total SEP = 133.354
vs.
Leggings of the Immortal Night
Binds when picked up
Legs Leather
436 Armor
+41 Agility (41*.648 = 26.568 SEP)
+48 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Agility
Durability 90 / 90
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves hit rating by 32 (2.03% @ L70). (32*.576 = 18.432 SEP)
Equip: Increases attack power by 124. (62*.909 = 56.358 SEP)
Equip: Your attacks ignore 224 of your opponent’s armor. (32*1.293 = 41.376 SEP)
Total SEP = 142.734 (143.969 if you take into account the socket bonus difference).
So the leather legs win. Despite 3 out of 4 of those stats being relatively weak for a warrior, the sheer amount of them due to the itemization points being spent into 4 dps stats rather than 3 makes the leather legs superior to the plate ones. Furthermore, this doesn’t even take into account the benefit of the Hit rating for an already hit-starved SW warrior, as well as the increasing returns on ArP.
Actually switching out these items in the spreadsheet (landsoul’s) yields 2601 DPS on Brutallus with more-or-less optimal buffs with the leather legs but 2589 DPS with the plate ones. The above calculations were essentially “napkin math” to visualize the point; this is a more definitive verdict, as its based on a fairly accurate yet complex model, rather than simply stat weights (though they’re derived from the model).
Another downfall of plate gear in SW is that there is a fair bit more stamina than the alternatives in addition to itemizing into fewer stats. While not present on these legs, it makes even more of a difference between item choices for other slots. It’s pretty obvious (to me, anyway) why the plate DPS gear is inferior.
To fix this issue for future items and actually make plate desirable by plate-wearers:
1) Itemize it into the same amount of stats as leather and mail
2) Use roughly the same amount of stamina
3) Prioritize the stronger stats–those would be Str and Crit. Haste, Hit, and Expertise are also important, but should not all be present on every item. Currently, Armor Penetration is amazing and is the best stat, but I fear that ArP will go down into the same category as Haste/Hit/Expertise, a tier below Str and Crit, due to the change into ArP rating.
4) To reiterate the above, all plate dps items should have Str and Crit, with 2 of the others(or 3? if the itemization formula is capable of that for high level 80 raid epics, /shrug), and Stamina, though it’s optional. There’s a good reason the SW plate T6 is the best-itemized plate in that zone; take a lesson from it.
These changes to gear design should fix the problem I’ve been explaining.
Edit: bolded DPS stats in each item for better clarity and for an error
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