While snooping around on wowhead looking for some info on the next installment of Ask a Rhino, I found this undocumented(?) change to acid spit.
The damage, cooldown, cost, and duration stay the same, but the armor reduction becomes a percentage, and the stack size becomes 2, instead of 5.
My first reaction is that you can reach maximum application alot faster. My next thought was of Warrior’s Sunder Armor, which with Acid Spit (AS) competes. Sunder Armor is also moving to a percentage, 5 stacks of 4% each, for 20%. So this new AS is just as good, in terms of armor reduction, as sunder armor. What this may mean for the pet’s threat is not stated.
This does bring up the natural question of which debuff is better? Acid Spit or Stampede? All things being equal, and in the absence of other suppliers of the buffs, Acid Spit seems to win out fairly easily, but I think more research is needed!
This certainly seems to be a much better ability than the new Stampede. As for the additional threat if you look at the spell’s details on wowhead, it doesn’t seem to have the extra threat modifier that Sunder Armor has unfortunately.
Speaking of the PTR though, I’ve written a rather lengthy post of pet tanking and patch 3.1 on the PTR forums here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864849853&postId=158632331196&sid=1#0
I’d certainly welcome any input or support in that thread from my fellow pet tanking enthusiasts.
By: Durante on March 24, 2009
at 12:47 pm
Very good thread! I like how you think! Beyond that ill leave my comments in that thread for support.
By: ihlos on March 24, 2009
at 1:04 pm
Also, the break point for when 20% is more than the 785*5 is around 20k armor.
By: ihlos on March 24, 2009
at 3:03 pm
Durante, I can’t comment on US forums I’m afraid, but it’s a very nice read. Yet again you’ve proven how valuable you are to the tanking community =)
ihlos, I believe this change will be more valuable against plate in PvP than mobs in PvE. The fact that this stacks much faster than warriors Sunder armor makes this debuff better for quick kills.
In fact, when there’s no warrior tank in the raid, I’d say this is better than if sunder armor is applied by a dps warrior due to the threat involved.
By: nordhbane on March 25, 2009
at 12:50 am
I just think this is a better ability in general. It has a 10 second cooldown which means it can be used instead of bite much more often and is a better use of focus than bite is. A bleed only helps certain attacks from certain classes where as an armor reducer helps all melee and hunters. I just dont think they’ve really thought out that secondary stampede effect.
By: Zwicky on March 25, 2009
at 6:51 am
Some very good points guys. I can totally see this being a boon in pvp, and it would make sense to use this in place of a dps warrior.
I havent been much for the worms in the past, but now this change has got me thinking.
I do wonder though…. it definitely stacks faster than it did, but does it stack faster than a warrior? With a 10 second cd, it would take 10 seconds to stack maximum effect. Warriors need 5 stacks but don’t they only have the global cooldown to deal with? Not that negates the obvious advantage of avoiding high threat by the dps warrior.
Yes, zwicky, there does seem to be little contest between stampede and acid spit. Let’s hope that blizzard sees this and goes in a different direction with stampede. go go tauren racial!
By: ihlos on March 25, 2009
at 7:41 am
Oh yeah plus there is this guy who is amazing to look at and you wont see these running around.
http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/skins/skin_wormskinyellow.html
and acid spit can be used from 30 yards away…
By: Zwicky on March 25, 2009
at 8:30 am
Good point there zwicky, the range should decrease the time needed to get maximum stacks.
By: ihlos on March 25, 2009
at 12:19 pm
Just found your site, awesome. Just really good stuff. Started a Hunter alt two weeks ago and was surfing around for info. This stuff is a bit beyond my knowledge range at the moment but it looks pretty fun! Bookmarked. Thanks!
By: WoWDruid on March 25, 2009
at 9:43 pm
“I do wonder though…. it definitely stacks faster than it did, but does it stack faster than a warrior?”
Sunder armor costs 15 rage and it uses valuable dps time. The warrior has to lose 5 global cooldowns, the pet only loses 1 (since first hit will most likely be when he’s out of range to do anything else anyhow).
Warrior takes 6 seconds (warrior don’t have 1s GCD, do they?) plus lag to apply vs the pets 10 seconds with no lag to be counted for. So the warrior wins in one category, it can theoretically get full sunder up faster. But it would require so much rage that I dare say the dps warrior would get rage starved. Not to mention that if the dps warrior does this at the start of the fight, he’d get aggro.
The fact that it’s automatically re-applying itself every 10 seconds is also a boon. Making it impossible to forget to reapply it.
A pet can have 2 mobs under full debuff as long as the master switches the pets target every 10 seconds. May be useful for boss fights with adds where the dps is split. Probably very rare that it would be useful, but still a possibility.
By: Nordh on March 26, 2009
at 12:26 am
This is a powerful buff in PvE, but maybe a nerf in PvP. At least the effect is maxed out quicker.
By: Klinderas on March 26, 2009
at 5:26 am
Klinderas, the raid bosses in WotLK have 13083 armor as can be seen from this discussion:
http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t37584-wrath_boss_armor_testing/
So in PvE it’s a nerf, not a powerful buff. It’s only a buff when you’re going up against tank type players in PvP that has above 20K armor as posted by ihlos.
By: nordhbane on March 26, 2009
at 6:45 am
i believe that this is both a buff and a nerf for PvE. For most mobs you will face including trash in raids the faster aplication of this will be a buff. However against bosses it is a nerf.
For PvP it is again both a buff and a nerf. Against cloth / leather it will be a nerf, against mail it will be a wash (less overall but a much faster aplication), and against plate i think it is a huge plus.
Against a target with >7850 but less than 20000 Armor the first two spits will be more effective than the previous verson, it will be the last three that are not as good.
When it only takes ~7 seconds (Any BM going 51 deep worth his weight in salt, will take longevity) to apply a -20% armor debuff lasting 30 sec it could be totally possible to stack it on multiple targets.
By: Zwicky on March 26, 2009
at 7:14 am
Oh yeah and Spore Cloud (3%) and Sting(5%) have had similar percentage based changes.
By: Zwicky on March 26, 2009
at 7:15 am
Yeah, with bosses at 13083 armor, the actual amount of armor reduced is lessened, but we are still keeping pace with warriors in the amount reduced, while we become the best means of delivering the buff (aside from a warrior tank)
Against players it will be waaaaay better, and for scaling issues, if new content has bosses with higher armor, we can keep pace with that. (Although im not sure if all bosses in new content having more armor would violate the reasons for having normalized armor values)
All in all I see it as a buff. Sure we dont reduce as much armor as we did, but no one does. If its a nerf to everyone, is it really a nerf?
By: ihlos on March 26, 2009
at 7:51 am
@Nordhbane
Oh, I didnt realize that. My bad =P
The speed at which the armor is reduced is nice though.
ihlos makes a good point though: this is being changed across the board. Armor reduction is being changed to percentages everywhere, so…
In comparison, acid spit is actually pretty good now. If everyone is nerfed, it’s a game change, not a nerf.
This was kind of predictable though. Sunder being reduced to a percentage was announced a while ago. If that didn’t happen to worms, then I would have been surprised.
By: Klinderas on March 26, 2009
at 8:15 am
ihlos, They won’t raise armor in Ulduar for the simple reason that it’s already hard enough to balance dps. Giving bosses more armor would mean that casters gain an advantage. So then they would have to buff physical dps, which in turn would make physical have an advantage in Naxx.
By: Nordh on March 26, 2009
at 1:08 pm
Thats what I was trying to articulate. Thanks!
By: ihlos on March 26, 2009
at 1:43 pm
Oh, and forgot to add a reply to this: “If its a nerf to everyone, is it really a nerf?”
It doesn’t affect everyone, only physical dps. Hence it’s will mean an off balance between physical and casters.
But we also know that armor ignore will play a bigger role in stats in Ulduar, and that they’ve changed it a bit. I think experience is the only way to tell which way it will go.
By: nordhbane on March 27, 2009
at 1:17 am
[...] list of pet talent changes. I’ve deliberately left out the changes to Furious Howl, Stampede, Acid Spit and more for this post or it would be a good bit [...]
By: Mania’s Arcania » Patch 3.1 Overview on April 6, 2009
at 6:44 pm
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at 8:40 am
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By: kizmeal.com on March 20, 2013
at 2:38 pm
I leave a leave a response each time I like a post
And, if you are writing at other places, I would like to follow anything new you have to post. Could you list the complete urls of all your communal sites like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
on a website or if I have something to contribute to the discussion.
Usually it is triggered by the fire communicated in the post I looked at.
And after this article Acid Spit Accompanies Stampede | Big Red Rhino.
I was actually moved enough to create a thought
I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you don’t mind. Is it just me or does it look as if like some of the remarks come across like left by brain dead folks?
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at 12:56 am