Duel Wield Vs. Tanking for a Brewmaster Tank

[Tyranader]

Simple question really.

I was talking in guild and I was told that because I was tanking Heroic 5 man dungeons Dual Wielding I was a "Crappy Noob tank" and I was just wondering. Is dual-wielding viable for a Brewmaster or is it a strict no-no and you should only go for two-handed weapons? or is Dual-Wielding perfectly acceptable for a Brewmaster tank? Especially one with a 446 item level?

Also is it OK to use 2 Windsong enchants on my weapons until I get an epic weapon which I will then of course add the Agility enchant to.

Thanks.

[Wreckage827]

Simple question really.

I was talking in guild and I was told that because I was tanking Heroic 5 man dungeons Dual Wielding I was a "Crappy Noob tank" and I was just wondering. Is dual-wielding viable for a Brewmaster or is it a strict no-no and you should only go for two-handed weapons? or is Dual-Wielding perfectly acceptable for a Brewmaster tank? Especially one with a 446 item level?

Also is it OK to use 2 Windsong enchants on my weapons until I get an epic weapon which I will then of course add the Agility enchant to.

Thanks.

All has to do with how elusive brew stacks work.

If you crit with a two-hander you gain two stacks of elusive brew.

If you auto attack crit with one-handers you gain only 1 stack of elusive brew, BUT you have more chances to gain elusive brew because you are swinging double the amount of times.

It is all in how YOU personally feel you like better. I personally don't mind either way, but on Heroic raid encounters I may switch depending on the fight. E

EXAMPLE: I feel on Spirit Binder Heroic I like my two hander from Tsulong better than my one-handers, even though my one handers do slightly more damage.

There is no right or wrong way.

And Double Windsong is fine. I wouldn't even bother putting dancing steel on heroic 5 man gear.

[Tyranader]

Thanks for the reply : ). Cleared a few things up. Thanks.

[Deleted]

You gain 3 stacks per Crit with a Two-hander.

[Tyranader]

Anyway. If I am dual wielding. Should I go for the soft cap of 7.5% expertise or aim for the hard cap?

[Wreckage827]

Anyway. If I am dual wielding. Should I go for the soft cap of 7.5% expertise or aim for the hard cap?

That is also personal choice. I go soft cap for both and reforge buttloads of haste then crit.

Other people do expertise hardcap and hit soft cap because they don't like their kegsmash ever being parried.

You gain 3 stacks per Crit with a Two-hander.

Depends on the weapon speed of the two hander. Some of them yes 3. The slower the weapon the more stacks.

[Nikkaszal]

Windsong is more than OK to use until you get a weapon you know you're going to use for a long long time. Dancing Steel is crazy expensive at the moment, and unless you've got money to burn you won't be gimping yourself with Windsong (which is still a very good enchant for BrM's).

I used it on all weapons up to and including my LFR Garajal fists, and only just forked out for Dancing Steel on my Tsulong staff. With the chances of my guild doing Heroic Tsulong any time soon being remote in the extreme, this will likely be my weapon for the rest of this tier.

[Deleted]

Anyway. If I am dual wielding. Should I go for the soft cap of 7.5% expertise or aim for the hard cap?

When I've tanked as Brewmaster, my previous offspec, I went for the hard cap and to be honest with you, I didn't really see any benefits of doing so.

[Grubjuice]

who ever said dualwieling is not viable is either trolling you or is actually an idiot.

also, if you are dealing with a lot of AoE, you don't need to hard cap expertise because as long as Keg Smash hits at least one target you get two chi, and the chances that say 5 targets will all parry the same attack is astronomically small.

In singlet-target raids you might consider hard capping expertise, but really do not recommend it for heroics because most heroics just are not that difficult.

[oozaoru]

i play with as a DW BrM and it work very very well...
u gain 2 stacks as DW and 3 as 2H
i feel that it stacks a little faster as a DW...

[SurrealNight]

i feel that it stacks a little faster as a DW...

I feel like DW does build EB stacks a little faster and my DPS seems higher. From a gearing standpoint you'll want to use what ever weapon(s) that provide the highest iLevel gain. So until you get 2 good 1H weapons you'll probably end up with a 2H anyways.

[Grubjuice]

they should make 1H weapons drop in matched pairs. rng on two weapons can be real a bitch

[Apellosine]

Dual Wield Tanking is fine depending on what weapons you can get to drop, the only real difference is how elusive brew will stack up, dual wielding will give a smoother progression of single stacks whereas 2H will give them to you in clumps of 3.

I would also hold off on hard capping expertise until at least next tier when we will have a lot more stats to play around with and won't be gimping haste/crit/mastery too much to reach the caps.

[Densalo]

There was a post a while back stating that the EJ math used to promote hard-capping was flawed. After reviewing it I'm pretty sure they determined it was not worth the stat loss overall unless you are one of those people that just hates seeing parries.

[Disgruntler]

There was a post a while back stating that the EJ math used to promote hard-capping was flawed. After reviewing it I'm pretty sure they determined it was not worth the stat loss overall unless you are one of those people that just hates seeing parries.

On the other hand, a lot of their current theorycraft is geared towards off-tanks rather than main tanks, and as such, attacking from behind is actually factored into their calculations.

[SurrealNight]

On the other hand, a lot of their current theorycraft is geared towards off-tanks rather than main tanks, and as such, attacking from behind is actually factored into their calculations.

Yeah if you look at the other tab of the spreadsheet you can factor in both off-tanking scenarios and other types of incoming damage (like bleeds from Stone Guard). So this can effect your stat weights and is going to devalue expertise > 7.5% as well.

Oh also forgot about reading that glyphing Jab while using a 2H weapon can cause you to generate 2 instead of 3 EB stacks in some cases. Not sure if this was ever fixed as I've been using DW for a while now.

[Woa]

I didn't think ppl still reforged into haste. You have to gain a ton of haste for it to do anything. If you reforge into crit however = more elusive brew uptime. If you reforge into haste youre going to get like....one extra jab per minute. dumb.

[Kamadenhu]

Haste also means more auto attacks which means more opportunities to crit. It isn't purely about the energy regen.

[Woa]

Still don't see any superior secondary stats. I wish it was clear cut like the other tanks. Blizz said here's a new class, figure it out.

[SurrealNight]

Keeping Guard/Shuffle up close to 100% and having spare Chi to use Purifying Brew should be priority # one. If your energy regen is enough to accomplish that then go ahead and dump the rest into Crit.