Arena Set Comparison : Is Armor Penetration worth it ?

Okay, you're saving your points for your arena points, wondering on which of those joys you will spend them.

Well the first nice change on S3 in the addition of hit rating, it will be easier to cap the 5% chance withouth sacrifying some gems. To remind yourselve, your chance to miss an equal level charcater is 5%, that means you need 5*15.8= 79 Hit rating at least when you're PvPing. As a haman, you could take those from talents but, hey, why use talents when you have those free stats on your stuff. My calculation is based for shaman handling 2H weapons. For those who stick on dual-wielding for PvP, you have 5% miss base + 19% miss penality.

Moreover, you should wondering yourselve about what the hell is Armor Penetration. Well Armor penetration is for PA what Resilience is for Stamina : An additional way to improve your DPS. I like examples other formulas, students (well, I was a teacher earlier in my life) tends to understand much more quickly if you have something concrete for them.
So, let's take the example of an Arena match versus a 2345 team. You would doom their healer first, no ? Let's say it is a priest you have just purged, so no Inner Fire now. Let's say the guy have 3k armor and blessed resilience proc.
So, his armor mitigation with 3k is 3000/(3000+10557.5)=22.13% (link for the math explanation).

Let's say you have a total of 400 armor penetration on your stuff. Then this priest mitigation would be 2600/(2600+10557.5)=19.76% which means a 3.04% increase of damage on this priest, even if he is resilience-capped. It's like a free Sunder Armor on your stuff.

So I see you complaining : "Wtf morons, 3% is shit". Hey, people we are talking about team PvPing isn't it ? Ming have done some calculation about it :

Season 3 is expected to have 900 in armor penetration, off a quick premed CS
into improved expose armor, I am now ignoring 4535 armor from a warrior, that is
a 26.6% DPS increase on a 11000 armor target, throw in an executioner enchant
proccing it would be a 33.2% DPS increase. Against softer targets it will be
even more."

Okay, I don't see how you could have 900 armor penetration currently as a rogue, but it's the idea. Teaming with a Rogue in 2vs2 and 3vs3. Armor penetration comes to be the solution when any single toon met in an arena have 350+ Resilience. For me, this means, more AP, less crit if I go this way. In order to do your own comparison, I've found this little spreadsheet by googling.

So now, here is comparison of S1, S2 and S3 gear for Enhancement Shamans, the Earthshaker one :

Linked Helm :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Gems (4 Res)	Cost 2.3
Season 1	703	34	51	26	30	-	-	Red, Meta,	14500 Honor
Season 2	775	37	60	28	33	-	-	Red, Meta,	1630
Season 3	830	34	67	33	33	12	84	Red, Meta,	1875

Linked Spaulders :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Gems (3 Res)	Cost 2.3
Season 1	649	19	42	22	21	-	-	Red, Yellow	10500 Honor
Season 2	715	22	48	24	21	-	-	Red, Yellow	1304
Season 3	766	25	52	27	21	-	-	Red, Yellow	1500

Linked Armor :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Gems (4 CC)	Cost 2.3
Season 1	866	29	51	28	26	-	-	2* Red, Yellow	14500 Honor
Season 2	954	31	57	30	27	-	-	2* Red, Yellow	1630
Season 3	1022	27	64	30	31	12	84	2* Red, Yellow	1875

Linked Leggings :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Intel	Cost 2.3
Season 1	758	30	54	36	28	-	-	25	14500 Honor
Season 2	835	34	60	40	31	-	-	29	1630
Season 3	894	38	67	36	31	12	84	33	1875

Linked Gauntlets :

	Armor	Strength	Stamina	Critical strike	Resilience	Hit	Armor pen.	Bonus	Cost 2.3
Season 1	541	25	40	27	21	-	-	+8% LS	9000 Honor
Season 2	596	29	45	29	22	-	-	+8% LS	978
Season 3	639	33	51	32	22	-	-	+5 yds Shocks	1125

As you know (as you're a fan of my blog, don't you ?), I'll go first on the Linked Leggings, which are an huge upgrade for me. Then I decided to go in this order on the S3 Armor, S3 Helm, S3 gloves and at final S3 Spaulders.

With my honors points, I'll go first for the Vindicator's Band of Triumph and the PvP Belt. Wondering if I will use some points on The Arena Season 1 spaulder now, which is the best value for price item. Moreover, I won't have a 2k rating anytime soon.

P.S : You're a raid leader ? Go apply at IBM :<