LoDBlog

Expose Armor is learned early on as a rogue, in fact you learn it before you can learn (buy?) any poisons. At this point many writers might go into some history lesson about how there used to be different ranks, it stacked, and could be more powerful than Sunder Armor. That is all the past though and while it’s nice to look back sometimes, it’s really not pertinent to this. All that’s really important is this right here: Expose Armor

That’s 20% armor reduction on the target (the same as 5 sunders) and the duration is based on the number of combo points used. Whether from Expose Armor or Sunder Armor (or even that fruity hunter pet), armor reduction benefits almost everyone – all melee and hunters anyway. Now obviously some classes benefit more than others but having a fully armor debuff’d target is good for the raid. For the classes that it affects, it can be as much as a 15% DPS increase depending on spec and it increases threat generation for the tanks as well.

So where should the armor reduction debuff come from?

Now, if you have a prot warrior, Sunder Armor is free and (more importantly) fast. Like the best defaults for so many buffs and debuffs it is part of their normal tanking rotation because it’s tied to one of their high threat moves. Things like Heart of the Crusader, Misery, etc fall into this same category. They come by default and they have zero opportunity cost to the player. In an ideal world they would all be like this but that is not the case. If you have a prot warrior in your raid group, congratulations, you win some of the time by default.

Ladies of Destiny has been raiding without a prot warrior main tank for a while now but it hasn’t really hindered progression at all. Paladins, Druids and Death Knights are more than capable of tanking anything in the game. But it does mean that the role of “armor debuff-er” isn’t always as clear cut as it used to be. Honestly, I’m not sure this is a bad thing; I’ve learned a lot from it already and hopefully we all will.

The question then becomes, “Who should apply the armor debuff when there’s no prot warrior?” (It should be noted that this applies for those that do have a prot warrior on their current target as well. Just because you have one in the raid doesn’t mean he’s on your target.)

The answer goes back to what I mentioned earlier about opportunity costs. Putting up the armor debuff is going to cost whoever does it some DPS (sometimes more than just a little). Don’t worry, Blizzard isn’t picking on melee. That warlock that puts up Curse of Elements instead of Curse of Agony is losing DPS, the mage that Scorches is losing DPS, and yes, the rogue that uses Expose Armor is losing DPS (sort of).* The end result though is that while your DPS goes down by some percent, 4-5+ other players are having their DPS increased by an equal amount (possibly greater).

So who loses the least amount of DPS when putting up the armor debuff? Well let’s look at our choices:

• Hunter Worm – Okay, seriously, have you ever even seen one of these things in a raid? In the game? … I didn’t think so. I don’t really feel the need to explain why; just realize that this isn’t an option. Moving on.
• DPS Warrior – It costs the warrior quite a bit of DPS and time to put up a 5-stack of Sunder Armor. Unlike a prot warrior they don’t get extra stacks from a glyph or any of the other nice benefits. But once that 5-stack is up, it is fairly trivial for them to maintain it. Spending 15 rage every 30 seconds is a pittance to a well geared DPS warrior. At that point it’s usually more about the lost GCD than the rage cost. =P
• Rogue – Unlike a DPS warrior, there’s no huge upfront cost to a rogue putting up Expose Armor. Since it doesn’t need to stack to reach full benefit it is much more like a constant drain upon both Combo Points and Energy. It does have the advantage though that it’s fast to put up. Any rogue can have Expose Armor up on the target in two GCDs (provided they have the energy). A few seconds is plenty of time on most occasions.

Now through a little critical thinking it becomes obvious that the answer the question, “Warrior or rogue?” is, “Both.” In long fights where the target lives a long time, the warrior will take the big DPS hit upfront but the DPS cost afterward is trivial. The time spent at the beginning of the fight under <20% armor debuff is comparatively short and becomes less important as fight length increases. In a long fight the rogue’s constant DPS drain will never diminish as fight length increases.

In short fights where the target doesn’t live that long, the rogue can get the full armor debuff up very quickly while the warrior may only get to a 5-stack of Sunder Armor after the mob has lost a major portion of it’s health.

Therefore the real answer is that warriors should do it on long-lived targets while rogues do it on short-lived targets. There’s actually been a lot of math on the subject and it comes down to this in most cases:

• If the target is going to live longer than one minute, warriors should sunder Armor.
• If the target is going to live less than one minute, rogues should Expose Armor.

Now, that may be a good rule of thumb but who times mob life? Perhaps some real life examples can help us out:

Razorscale (tied down) – Expose
Razorscale (free) – Sunder

XT-002 – Sunder
XT-002 Heart – Expose

Freya – Sunder
Conservator – Expose

Leviathan MkII – Sunder
VX-001 – Expose
Ariel Command Unit – Expose
Assault Bot – Expose

General Vezax – Sunder
Animus – this could go either way probably

Yogg-Saron – Sunder
Brain – Expose

Now, most of that should make sense but lets look at some of the less familiar fights coming up in ToC:

Gormok – Sunder (obvious)
Snowbold – Expose (obvious)

Acidmaw/Dreadscale – This one isn’t quite as clear cut. They burrow at regular intervals and it’s possible that Sunder will drop while they’re down there (it may even be cleared to prevent funky death glitches). If the DPS warriors can keep it up through burrows then Sundering is the way to go, but if not they’re going to keep paying that cost to stack over and over again. If that’s the case, Expose is the clear favorite.

Icehowl – Sunder… or is it? This is a case where, like the worms, sunder may fall off after a whirl/knockback/charge. Since he takes extra damage after knocking himself out it is supremely vital that he be fully debuff’d during that time. If Sunder has fallen off, it is imperative that he be debuff’d as quickly as possible. If Sunder isn’t at full strength when he takes extra damage, put up Expose. Even if you see the DPS warriors stacking it, overwrite it. They’ll miss a GCD from that first “more powerful spell” error and they may even hate you for it but in the end everyone will be better off.

In any case, getting a full armor debuff on the target quickly is more important than anything, don’t be lazy about it. If it’s your job as a rogue it should take priority over Slice and Dice; if it’s your job as a warrior it should take priority over your moves as well. Debuffing is never glamorous and it rarely gets accolades. What it does get is kills.

So, if you’re a rogue or a warrior, do what I do. Keep track of both Sunder Armor and Expose Armor. And in the event the other isn’t being put up, put yours up even if it isn’t ideal. Any debuff is better than no debuff… always.

* I’m going to use the term “lose DPS” but this isn’t really true. A rogues DPS is actually going to be higher when they use EA on a target than if the target had no armor debuff and the rogue used a normal rotation. Anyone who complains about having to debuff a target is usually just a whiny little baby who doesn’t understand game mechanics. Any debuff is better than no debuff… always.