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Korg's ARP 2600 M is a 'mini' version of an iconic synth
The ARP 2600 M is about half the size of the original and one-third the weight. But it still packs all the classic sound design modules.
Korg resurrects the legendary ARP 2600 synth for a limited run
The ARP 2600 is one of the most iconic synthesizers ever made. (And easily the most expensive piece of music equipment I've ever actually touched.) Everyone from Brian Eno, to the Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails and Stevie Wonder have played one. It was even used to create the voice of R2-D2. And after being discontinued 39 years ago it's making a limited return to production thanks to Korg.
Korg's 'faithful recreation' of the ARP Odyssey analog synth is coming this September
Well folks, it looks like 2014 will see yet another synthesizer reboot. Korg announced that it's currently working on a "faithful recreation" of the legendary ARP Odyssey analog synth that made its debut back in 1972. The name may not ring a bell, but it's responsible for tones you've likely heard from artists Devo, John Foxx, Genesis and Deep Purple (as seen above) -- just to name a few. For September's release, Korg enlisted the original Odyessey's lead designer David Friend to lend a hand with the construction. Unfortunately details are sparse, but the outfit did reveal a new version of its popular MS-20 last January, along with other analog releases in recent years. Needless to say, the bar has been set pretty high for this next installment. [Photo credit: Fin Costello/Redferns]
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: A farewell to armor penetration
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger, armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid -- we're just crazy. After some careful thought, it seemed like as good a time as any to say goodbye to that most controversial of stats, armor penetration. As of this writing, it's not even going to be baked into Battle Stance any longer once Cataclysm hits, so we can essentially call an end to warriors' bypassing or ignoring armor the way other classes do with magic damage. Like it or hate it, all warrior damage save bleeds will now be mitigated by armor. Yes, even Thunder Clap. So what, you may ask? What's the big deal about armor penetration, anyway, and who cares about its not being around anymore in Cataclysm? Well, the short answer is, it lets our damage penetrate armor better (that is to say, it reduces the amount by which armor mitigates our damage) and warriors (and feral druids, and some rogues) care because our damage is overwhelmingly physical and thus reduced by armor. The long, strange trip of armor penetration in this expansion started at launch with ArP being a somewhat undesirable statistic. It had been converted to a rating following its rollicking high in The Burning Crusade, due to the way it became such a devastating staple of warriors in PvP.
Prot Warrior nerf details
Protection spec warriors, did you enjoy being able to charge out of roots and snares to get back to the boss fast? Well, thanks to PvP, you won't be able to do that anymore. What else won't you be able to do? Well, if you've been stacking block value in PvE content, first off, I kind of don't get you. Seriously, except for very specific gimmicky fights, why would you stack block value? (I said value, not rating, and I also said gimmicky fights so don't bring up Heroic Anub) But if you have been... perhaps you have a block value set for totally destroying adds or something... then get ready for a Shield Slam nerf. They're 'testing that one internally' which, if you remember how horrible the Rage Normalization changes went in early BC, always works. Honestly, neither of these are huge gamebreakers. I liked that Warbringer cleared roots and snares for me when I was tanking, and I barely even noticed it in PvP: it was like a free self-cast Hand of Freedom. As for nerfing Shield Slam, well, like I said I don't stack block value so a lower block value cap on the ability wouldn't really affect me. Irritate me? Yes, it will do that. But it isn't a game breaker either. Of course, since as the commenters mentioned yesterday prot PvP warriors don't stack shield block value at all (I know you guys don't read my posts, Blizzard, but if for some reason someone is, look at all that ArP. Look at all that lack of block value. It is ArP that drives the prot PvP damage machine. ArP, not block value. Just thought I'd mention that) then I fail to see any point to the change either. So there we have it: Warbringer gets changed and Shield Slam might get changed which is like taking a club away from a guy who is shooting people.
Encrypted Text: Knowing your stats
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how a few stats interact with various rogue specs. Have you ever had a problem finding a group as a rogue? My own rogue isn't immune to this issue, and I sometimes find myself without a raid group on a Saturday night. The rogue population has been steadily growing since its sharp decline right after the launch of Wrath, and that means increased competition for the coveted melee DPS raid slots. With the plentiful bounty of Death Knights and Ret Paladins vying for the three different two-hand weapons that drop from just the first 4 bosses of ICC10 and ICC25, it can be tough finding your place. However, with hard work and good performance, most raid leaders will see the value in bringing back quality DPS. To ensure that you're on the reinvite list, doing as much damage as possible will leave the most tangible evidence of your efforts (as well as being your overarching goal). Sometimes this means doing more with less, and using the gear you have to its highest potential before you're able to reap the benefits of the great 251/264 epics that you're working towards.
Encrypted Text: Armor penetration and the crit cap demystified
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about the armor penetration and crit caps, and what they mean for rogues. The topic of Armor Penetration and how it plays into a rogue's gearing plan is definitely the topic I've received the most requests to cover. It's been well-researched by the great folks at Elitist Jerks, and even though it will be completely gone in Cataclysm, there's still a lot of interest in how it works. The terms 'hard cap', 'soft cap', and 'arp cap' are thrown around a lot and can be confusing if you've never done a deep-dive into the mechanic. I also received a question regarding the rogue crit cap on the WoW.com podcast the other weekend, and decided to include it in this investigation. While a few high end rogues are already brushing up against it, many rogues are wondering how the crit cap will affect them come Icecrown's plethora of high ilvl loot. Like any of the other caps, the crit cap needs to be seriously evaluated when trying to choose upgrades. Read on for details of both mechanics.
Solving the mathmatical tangles of ArPen
Armor penetration is probably one of the most misunderstood stats in the game, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's only become popular lately -- while it's been in the game since 1.10, it's only started showing up regularly on items in Wrath. And even then it's really only a meta-meta stat: the core abilities like Strength and Agility are easy to understand, the next level of abilities are things like hit rating and crit rating, and then armor penetration, you could argue, goes another level after that: it's a stat that affects a stat affected by a stat. It's for that reason, then, that Xanthan argues we need a more elegant solution.Armor penetration basically allows you to hit an opponent as if they're wearing less armor than they really are. That's not to hard to understand -- if you have a certain amount of armor penetration, then the opponent armor number in the equation that determines damage done is lower (edit: by a percentage, not a number) than it would usually be. But the confusion comes in when you see how armor penetration scales. It actually scales exponentially, not linearly -- if you have no ArP and you increase it by a little bit, you only get a little extra damage increase. But if you have a lot, and you add a little more onto that, then you'll get a bigger damage increase, due to the way the math works (I'm bad at math, but Xanthan has an excellent, clear description of the calculations in the forum thread, and we've posted some explanations before as well). Blizzard recently capped ArP at 100% (so you could never get into a place where you're reducing armor below the amount of armor that's there), but it's still possible to have the amount of armor reduced equal the amount of armor on a target, causing the equation of armor vs. armor penetration to divide by 0, and at that point, things get wacky, and terms like "infinite damage" come into play.
Armor Penetration to be capped at 100%
I'll admit it: Armor Penetration has always confused me. I understand it moderately well - it makes your attacks act as if your opponent had less armor. The conversions from numbers to percentages, and the corresponding DPS increase, can be found at various places on the internet. But due to the fact that armor doesn't scale linearly, neither does ArP: going from 50% to 51% ArP helps you much more than going from 10% to 11%. This makes it pretty hard for me to get a good feel for. As a consequence of the non-linear nature of ArP, getting very high amounts of it can lead to insanely boosted damage - as an unattainable example, I'm told that 300% ArP would mean thousands of times more damage. To keep ArP from getting out of control, then, Ghostcrawler has announced that they plan on capping ArP at 100%, meaning armor could no longer go negative (which it can now). This was made with an eye towards future tiers; at the moment, it's impossible to get to 100% unless you have very specific gear and two trinkets proc at the same time. So this should have very little impact, if any, on current DPS. However, we may see a day in Icecrown when ArP, like Hit, is a completely worthless stat after you have enough of it. This strikes me as an awkward situation, but short of removing the stat entirely (which, sadly, I don't think they're going to do), I can't see a much better solution.
