Analyzing Gnomeregan Boss Armor and Resistances - Season of Discovery
During Season of Discovery Phase 1, players thinking about Phase 2 were concerned that many of the mechanical bosses in the Gnomeregan raid would be immune to bleed and poison effects. If they were, that would invalidate many beloved runes and character specializations. Blizzard recently stated that none of the bosses would be immune but that some would have increased resistance to those types of effects.
As usual Blizzard did not provide specific details, but now with the release of the Gnomeregan raid players have been able to figure out these resistances. Players have also made an unexpected discovery about the armor that Gnomeregan bosses have. The mechanical bosses have very high armor values — some even higher than Ragnaros from the level 60 Molten Core raid!
Approximate armor values determined by GroxEmpire from Fight Club discord.
In the Phase 1 Raid Blackfathom Deeps, most of the bosses had low enough armor that a regular suite of armor debuffs would bring them down to nearly zero armor. This meant they would mitigate either zero or just a few % of the physical damage that players deal to them. The mechanical bosses in Gnomeregan are completely different and in most circumstances will mitigate between 30% and 50% of incoming physical damage.
You can see in the above table the different boss armor values found in Gnomeregan as well as some common combinations of armor debuffs. The table entries tell you how much your physical damage will be reduced by the boss's armor.
Very high physical mitigation from bosses makes physical
