Blackhand HC smash in P1

[Deleted]

So we started on BH HC recently and enjoying the fight.

My question is though. Is there something wrong with bear tanks damage reduction from armor on smash? I have a total ( with bonus armor ) of 58.56% physical damage reduction, so on a 600k hit that should reduce it to under 300k for the hit right?

If i don't pop any CD's at all i take the full 600k to the face so it's like my armor is doing nothing. If i pop CD's then the damage is reduced accordingly. So basically am i missing something here about the ability or something else. Thanks in advance for help.


Stéik

[exochaft]

I haven't had any issues with the smash in P1, and while I can get away with Pulverize + Barkskin, I generally throw in an SI since you likely won't need it anytime soon in the encounter. Worst case, get an external cooldown. Not sure what the tooltip actually says the damage should be, could be a bug for all I know... should still be hitting all other tanks for similar damage (my logs indicate that it does).

[Deleted]

http://imgur.com/mfPnPAk

That's from our logs. The max hit is 601k which is pretty much what the tooptip says (603k) On that smash i didn't use any CD's to see what damage it would do with just my armor reduction. It didn't reduce it at all.

Which is why i'm wondering if there is something about the ability i'm missing or is it just FUBAR for me.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

I discussed this with Arielle a while back. They changed the smash in P1 to ignore armor.
Without it, it wouldn't be dangerous.

Just pop pulv + barkskin. You should be fine. (I actually go bristling fur, for the increased dps compared to pulverize.)

[Juvencus]

If it's classified as Sonic damage then it bypasses armor. Not sure if there is any way to look that up besides testing it, like you did. Maybe it's meant to be like that so it forces tanks to either share it or pop cds and not simply mitigate it.

Edit: And...I was late :P

[exochaft]

If it's classified as Sonic damage then it bypasses armor. Not sure if there is any way to look that up besides testing it, like you did. Maybe it's meant to be like that so it forces tanks to either share it or pop cds and not simply mitigate it.

That was my original guess, since wanted tank-threatening abilities to be fairly uniform across all tanks. Granted Blizz has said a lot of things concerning such uniformities and not really hit the mark... but this may be an exception.

[Valkon]

It'd be nice that when they wanted an attack to not bypass armor they could just use sonic/bleed instead of some physical armor-penetrating flag that doesn't show up anywhere.

[Juvencus]

It'd be nice that when they wanted an attack to not bypass armor they could just use sonic/bleed instead of some physical armor-penetrating flag that doesn't show up anywhere.

Sonic would be classified as physical in logs as well, I think. Can't remember specific attacks but SoO had a lot of it if you want to go back and check (IJ and Paragons)

[Dreyen]

Also, dumb tip, but mak sure not to hit bombs, makes you 100% more damage!