Rogue 80 Armor Penetration Cap

What is Armor Penetration?

Tooltip quote: "Enemy armor reduced by up to xx.xx%"

"By up to" is highlighted for a reason. This value is modified by calculations within the game based on the level of the targets armor and level.

Want to know more? Ghostcrawler's (Lead System Designer) post.
The usual cautions apply, take a calculator and a packed lunch!

Rogue Armor Penetration Cap

1231 Armor Penetration Rating = 100% or 12.31 * 100. (Pre 3.2.2 Nerf read below)

1401 Armor Penetration Rating = 100% or 14.01 * 100. (Post 3.2.2)


Keeping in mind the section above 100% Armor Penetration Rating will NOT give 100% Armor Penetration.

Other Talents like Mace Specialization and Expose Armor will dictate how much effective Armor Penetration is achieved.

Having both of these trinkets equipped for example:

Grim Toll & Mjolnir Runestone

will take you over the Armor Penetration Cap, especially since a lot of gear already carries Armor Penetration Rating.

The Latest Word

Again, from Ghostcrawler:

"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."