Devastate

Devastate
Devastate (3 ranks) Warrior ability Melee range 15 Rage Instant Sunder the target's armor causing the Sunder Armor effect. In addition, causes 100% of weapon damage plus X for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. The Sunder Armor effect can stack up to 5 times.
Properties
Class	Warrior
School	Physical
Cooldown	None
Talents
Talent tree	Protection
Other information
Requirements	Requires Shields
Improvements	[Focused Rage] (reduced rage cost), [Improved Sunder Armor] (reduced rage cost)
Related debuff
Sunder Armor Armor decreased by X.

[[Category:warrior abilities]][[Category:warrior abilities]]

Devastate is the 41 point talent in the Warrior Protection tree. It is a tanking skill meant to be used as an upgraded [Sunder Armor], as it combines all the effects of Sunder Armor with an amount of damage that increases as Sunder Armor debuffs are stacked on the target.

Devastate is an instant attack that costs 15 Rage before talents, giving it the same cost as Sunder Armor. It deals half of the damage of a normal white hit plus an extra amount of damage per application of Sunder Armor on the target. The threat bonus increases with each application of the Sunder Armor debuff stack and resets the timer on the target's Sunder Armor debuff. Devastate is affected by all talents and glyphs that affect Sunder Armor, including [Puncture] and  [Glyph of Sunder Armor].

Rank table

Rank	Dmg/Sunder	Level	Cost
1	+48	50	Talent
2	+80	60	31
3	+112	70	32 50
4	+170	75	50
5	+202	80	50

Tips and Tactics

• Note that while Devestate applies Sunder Armour, you do not get the threat from the Sunder that was applied. You get the threat from the damage dealt by the Devastate plus 5% of your attack power as threat.

• With Patch 2.3 Devastate is affected by all talents that affect [Sunder Armor], will cause the Sunder Armor effect and threat bonus, and will therefore generate more threat per rage than (talented or otherwise) Sunder Armor does. If you are a Protection-tree warrior and have Devastate, use it in every situation that you would have used Sunder Armor before 2.3, as Devastate currently functions exactly as a Sunder Armor that causes damage (and thus extra threat).

• Devastate recieves bonuses from both  [Glyph of Sunder Armor] and  [Glyph of Devastate] effectively making the ability apply two stacks of Sunder Armor to two enemies.

• The higher the DPS rating on your weapon, the more damage that will be caused with this ability. This is a normalized attack, so weapon attack speed does not matter when calculating bonus damage in terms of attack power. Normalization means, all other things being equal, this will cause less bonus damage when used with a dagger, regardless of weapon speed, and will thus cause less threat. All in all, a slow weapon will still apply more damage to Devastate because of its innate weapon damage.

Example:

You have 1400 attack power and wield a dagger with 100-100 Damage over 1.30 seconds. Devastate will now do the following, when you activate it:

• It will cause 50% of your Weapon's damage not regarding any speed: 100-100 damage = 100 average damage X 0.5 = 50 Damage
• It will cause Damage according to your attack power normalized by the weapontype-factor of the weapon you wield:
  • 1400(your AP)/14 (results in raw DPS) X 1.7(the normalization factor for daggers) X 0.5(the 50% weapon Damage) = 85 Damage
• On top of that it will add damage according to the numbers of sunder armor that you have already applied on the mob. For each application it will add 35 points of damage at level 70.

So all in all, when 5 sunder armors are applied on the mob, you would cause 50 + 85 + 5 X 35 = 310 damage (when fighting a mob with 0 armor).

As you see, the damage you do with the dagger is absolutely un-coupled from your attack power rating. Whatever dagger you wear (no matter how fast or slow it may be), the contributed damage via attackpower would always be the same. So it can be said that using slower weapons doesn't matter that much, since it only affects the first number in the final formula and will otherwise reduce your aggro gained by spamming heroic strike.

• Useful when solo leveling or rep farming with a Protection-tree Warrior, since it is an instant attack and has no extended cooldown.

Patch changes

• Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04): Weapon damage and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 100%. This ability now requires a shield to be equipped.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• WoWDB