[GUIDE] Drunken Savagery: Brewmaster Tanking in [6.2]

[Brewschii]

Agree on using Anzu's with either WUE or heirloom. If you use WUE and eat the first thrust and Guard after, be sure you're topped off first. That's easy if you're standing still. You can reliably top yourself off with EH and orbs (and Guard if you've screwed up or had terrible RNG with EB stacks or failed dodges). But if you're two-tanking and running around for Doomlords and you're also expected to soak a lot of Wrath stacks, then it's tougher. The second Doomlord, I think, is too close to the transition for me to use DM or ZM and have it back up for Wrath (I soak the first few dozen stacks from 4 dps). That leaves one Guard for the second Doomlord's debuff and only one for the next combo. Doable, but very little margin for error or bad RNG. For extra safety, you can just run the heirloom trink, and the extra shield fills the gap. So I run Anzu's with either WUE for extra challenge and fun or heirloom for extra safety.

All this said, you've killed Manno and I still haven't. So who am I to give you advice. Though in my defense our issue is not tanking. First it was failing to settle on a strat for something like 100 or 130 pulls. Now it's healers and DPS failing mechanics and DPS under-performing. Oh and also: not trying. We farm half the time, as if a tiny ilvl increase is going to make any difference, and now we wipe insane amounts on farm bosses because as people get frustrated and drop out and the raid group turns over we have new people who haven't killed the farm bosses before. Last week we spent almost an entire night wiping on Xhul, which we killed 2-3 months ago. Then virtually no one got good gear anyway. All this stuff increases frustration and makes more people quit. Rinse, repeat. A couple of weeks ago I would have said we're ready to kill Manny any night. Now I'm growing concerned we'll never kill another boss and I too should have bailed a while back.

[redfella]

Now it's healers and DPS failing mechanics and DPS under-performing. Oh and also: not trying. We farm half the time, as if a tiny ilvl increase is going to make any difference, and now we wipe insane amounts on farm bosses because as people get frustrated and drop out

This was a big issue for us as well. Three quarters of our council couldn't wrap their heads around it so we spent 2 months farming shit while we could have been learning Archimonde (we had almost a 1-2 weeks apart per progress evening so the first hour was just people trying to remember how the tactics went, one hour was progress and last hour were people not focusing enough).

Finally the better players said they would not come to raids any longer unless we just focus Archimonde 100%. We then spent 3 raids in row progressing it and killed it finally.

For us, the issue in killing him was pretty much to certain same players dying to mechanincs in phase 3 so much that we couldn't sac a tank or spent a lot of the time of phase 3 with 1-2 guys dead and no CRs. The first pull when nobody died to mechanics we killed him, before that we had 5-7% wipes a lot and council was still arguing that "we'd afford to have few dead if we had better gear" -- I honestly say the extra pulls gave the slow learners time to adjust.

We killed him thrice to get everyone the achievement and I'm now trying to gear up my Huntard so that I can complete my trial in another guild and have a better guild to play with in Legion.

[Deleted]

I don't think I have to soak wraths, the other tank did that this week (he's also quite good at holding my hand through unfamiliar tacts). I think I will be tanking the adds (not sure, because I haven't been told what they want me to do when 2-tanking), since he soaks the wraths and I have more mobility.

I'm actually hoping really hard that I'll get in on Archi and get my cutting edge. On the other hand I'm scared as hell to get in on Archi and mess up, because I have been warned that if I mess up, I'm out (since I'm obviously not at the skill level required by this guild and they don't want me to cause wipes). I was actually literally shaking and heart pounding on Manno, because I was so scared to mess up (which is why I went defensive overkill :P ). 40k dps made me decide that defensive overkill sucks though, so I'm gonna pick slightly less defensive. Also DH seems safer then DM to deal with the glaive combo damage?

[redfella]

I prefer Diffuse Magic. You won't need it before last phase and in the last phase a single guard + diffuse magic will keep you topped up with some absorb to go against an empowered combo. If the kill drags so long that you will need to take a third empowered glaive combo, you get to use it twice.

[Deleted]

WUE lets you take a Glaive Thrust without getting any pre-shielding, Heirloom lets you use Guard for his normal melee swings because you won't need it for combos.
It's preference, if you have high boss uptime, Heirloom is probably more comfortable since you don't have to rely 100% on EB+EH for his normal melee swings, WUE allows you to yolotaunt after your cotank takes his Massive Blast.
In my experience, it's very very very unlikely for a monk to die on that fight on any of the sustained damage since monks deal with sustained high damage so well(EH+4set).
We had a discussion about DM vs DH a few pages back and DM is mathematically superior and obviously absolutely invaluable if you ever take a Massive Blast into the Pillar in P3. DH is only better for maximum DPS whoring, never Guarding Combos and relying on your Disc to shield you or externals on every non-DH-Glaive Thrust you take. With DM you take less overall Combo damage, but DH does allow you to EH instead of Guard because you take 2 medium sized hits instead of 1 mini hit and 1 oneshot.

On Archi: Deathcallers hurt like crazy post ~3 stacks in offensive gear, but they are kiteable with Tiger's Lust. Be sure to use Glyph of Zen Med, that way you have a 90% DR for high stacks in your back pocket.
Soaking Doomfire does not grant Resolve, so if you're going to soak Fire and want to Guard a part of the damage, Guard as soon as your cotank taunts the boss off of you. I'm also not 100% sure if EH or Surging heals for more @0% Resolve, but during the EH CD you can cast Surging since you probably won't be getting melee hit by anything while soaking fire.

[redfella]

On Archi: Deathcallers hurt like crazy post ~3 stacks in offensive gear, but they are kiteable with Tiger's Lust. Be sure to use Glyph of Zen Med, that way you have a 90% DR for high stacks in your back pocket.

Soaking Doomfire does not grant Resolve, so if you're going to soak Fire and want to Guard a part of the damage, Guard as soon as your cotank taunts the boss off of you. I'm also not 100% sure if EH or Surging heals for more @0% Resolve, but during the EH CD you can cast Surging since you probably won't be getting melee hit by anything while soaking fire.

I wouldn't kite Deathcallers to be honest, it's just means they live longer. Here's how I handled the mechanics (in 100% offensive gear):

Deathbrand:
#1 Elusive Brew so that you'll have 0 seconds left when timer reaches 0 & pool up to 100 energy
#2 Top yourself up with Expel Harm during the 3s cast -- I did not use cooldowns and just ate the cast unmitigated, I did ask our Disc to PW:S to give me a buffer but he forgot about half the time, it hurts but you'll have 10-15% hp left
#3 Time your Guard so that you'll activate it instantly when the aforementioned damage has already hit and follow up with 2x Expel Harm to enjoy the healing bonus
#4 Guard runs out, wait until you get to under 50% hp and Guard + 2x Expel Harm again
#5 Second guard runs out, wait until you get to 50% hp and activate Diffuse Magic + 2x Expel Harm
#6 If Deathcaller for some reason is still up, call an external just as your Diffuse Magic is running out
#7 Fort Brew if externals running out and it's still alive

Typically we saw #6 & #7 only if our DPS sucked so badly that we had a Deathcaller follow us downstairs. Just when I've hit the ground downstairs I usually activated Zen Meditation while waiting for the Deathcaller to reach me near Archimonde. If you're going Mythic Archimonde with a guild that has killed him some times already, 1-4 will be more than enough.

Mark of the Legion:
- Elusive Brew prior to marks hitting and Guard IF you are tanking. Otherwise take the hit without using CDs. Mark + Melee hit can global you otherwise.

Infernals:
- Guard if you don't have 100% hp and the green swirly is directly on top of you (I didn't bother moving out)
- Save Diffuse Magic to be able to TOD an infernal while standing in shit in the third or fourth wave, if one of them lives long enough for the dance mechanic to start and is located inside the green shit area.

Source:
- There's a nifty ledge on the right rear side of the platform you can get pushed back against without falling down

[Lysozyme]

Kiting deathcallers seems silly. The ramping damage is shadow damage taken from the dot; not from their melee hits. By the time you have 3 stacks, their melee hits are barely doing any damage to you compared to the dot.

[Deleted]

The tactic the guild uses doesn't have me pushed onto a pillar at any time in the fight. I transcendence the massive blast (that was really awesome, actually letting myself get smashed 'off the platform' and transing back, my old guild didn't trust me to do that because they thought I was as bad as they were), and the 1 empowered shadowforce we had, I didn't get near a pillar at all. Also not soaking wraths. I think I'm being spared lol.

Also I'm not going to have to soak doomfire on Archi, I think they 1 doomfire it and have a healer soak it.

[Deleted]

The point of kiting them is being able to use Zen Med. And you go in a circle around the boss obviously.

One very important about Mark of the Legion on Archi: if none of the tanks are in melee range after Mark of the Legion, the boss starts hitting melee players. So you either let yourself get knocked sideways by the Mark(rather dangerous if the marked person moves last second) or you Transcendence the explosion to stay in melee range.

Edit: you go to the back right? We always used the stone on the back left for source

[Lysozyme]

I mean, just use diffuse magic and then you don't take any relevant damage for 6 seconds anyway

[Deleted]

ok diffuse it will be. Also going for WUE/Anzu, because it will be safe enough with their healers. Feels weird to actually be able to trust on healers, been a while since I was able to do that. WUE/Anzu should be fine for Archi as well I think, until I feel safe enough to go for dps trinkets.

[redfella]

The point of kiting them is being able to use Zen Med. And you go in a circle around the boss obviously.

One very important about Mark of the Legion on Archi: if none of the tanks are in melee range after Mark of the Legion, the boss starts hitting melee players. So you either let yourself get knocked sideways by the Mark(rather dangerous if the marked person moves last second) or you Transcendence the explosion to stay in melee range.

Edit: you go to the back right? We always used the stone on the back left for source

Back-right has bigger wall, so it was an obvious choice for me.

Transcendence: transfer marks and you can fly wherever, whenever.

[Deleted]

Back-right has bigger wall, so it was an obvious choice for me.

Transcendence: transfer marks and you can fly wherever, whenever.

What's really fun is if you manage to align yourself with the mark in a way that allows you to use your Transcendence Spirit to gain some distance on Source of Chaos, but if you fuck it up even slightly, you just get blasted directly into Archimonde

[Deleted]

Right, I'm a relatively new tank (switched to BM on Sunday), at a pre-raid gear level - not got much raiding going on in guild, with the occasional mythics et al.. I've tanked before, on a paladin, but that was waay back when, in BC and very early wrath, before my break, so I'm kind of out of the loop (Heck, I'm used to using bosskillers for tactics :P). I've done a few mythics and heroics, and I'm getting the hang of things. A few questions, some of which sound rather silly:

1) I'm seeing you guys saying that bonus Armour, and armour, are stupidly good and to always stack it. How much does this hold true? As an example, LFR 2pc bonus is +AC. I'm presuming it's worth going from empowered baleful (695) to LFR HFC tier (685) for this; is it also worth dropping from 695 to LFR tier from BRF (I presume not) for a bonus of ~60 AC after the armour loss from the iLev difference is taken into account? Where's the breakpoints here?

2) Flask-y conumables: I presume stam flasks for magic fights and Agi on physical?

3) Weapon enchants: You don't mention the mark of blackrock, the +AC proc when under 60%HP. I presume damage is spiky enough for this to be better than the mastery proc? Not got much experience of how hard stuff is hitting.

4) Regarding damage spikes, how bad is it these days? Is it still a case of "damage spikes kill tanks, not sustained damage"?

5) Ox statue. Is there any way to avoid the statue just taunting the damned mobs straight back off you after you provoke it, other than dragging them to the other side of the room?

6) An issue I've been having in any spec; Roll sometimes rolls for longer. Usually depositing me off a platform. Not sure if this is lag-based, or what, but it's certainly killed me when I've been healing. Any ways around this? I tend to not use roll too often on platforms due to this, part of why I went for Tiger's Lust.

[Lysozyme]

Pretty much always agi flask

Blackrock not reeeally worth it even if it procs on cd, would use mastery in your position I think

Damage spikes vs. sustained damage depends on the boss, but your general mitigation and things like expel harm should deal with sustained damage on their own, whereas you have cooldowns and externals for when bosses do large bits of damage at a time

Ox statue doesn't taunt things, it just does threat - if it's doing more threat than you, you probably aren't doing your rotation properly - make sure to keg smash on cooldown, pooling energy when it's about to come off cooldown, and every single global cooldown should be filled either with tiger palm or with a different ability

Roll lasting longer is lag-based, yeah

As for BA, bear in mind that even if you don't count the armour it gives you, it's still very very nearly as good as agility - i.e. very good. When you do also count the armoury, BA is really ridiculously good.

[Deleted]

1. the only items that have bonusarmor are necks, cloaks, rings and trinkets. Just get the highest ilvl version that has BA and you should be fine. Also LFR tier isn't awesome.
2. Agi flasks all the time
3. blackrock is the safe/defensive option, but since you prefer to not get below the 60% at all, and most people overgear the content by a lot, you go for the crit enchant (or multi), because more deeps, and the mastery one is useless because random proc and you only need the mastery when actively tanking. Crit is always good, as is multi.
4. yup, it's the spikes that kill you
5. It doesn't taunt, just pulses threat. So if you taunt off the statue, you need to use threat builders (toss a keg smash on the mobs and you should be fine), or the statue will simply overaggro you after the 3? second guaranteed threat window.
6. That's lag. If you have lag issues, do not roll towards the edge of a platform, it's a really bad idea.

[Deleted]

Excellent, thanks a lot for clearing those up

The LFR tier thought was due to the 2PC being +AC - the HFC LFR, for example, has about as much +AC as my cloak.

[Deleted]

The point of kiting them is being able to use Zen Med. And you go in a circle around the boss obviously.

One very important about Mark of the Legion on Archi: if none of the tanks are in melee range after Mark of the Legion, the boss starts hitting melee players. So you either let yourself get knocked sideways by the Mark(rather dangerous if the marked person moves last second) or you Transcendence the explosion to stay in melee range.

Edit: you go to the back right? We always used the stone on the back left for source

Kiting Deathcallers

This is a strange world

[Tummyrubs]

I'm trying to graduate to scumbag status on my monk since i'm solid enough defensively. I don't have access to soul cap as we're only killing manno and archi now. The trinks i have are acp, sdi, and mirrors. Mirrors is a default choice but im not sure whether or not to go sdi w/ chi brew or stay acp w/ power strikes and go from there? I see most on wol shying away from sdi but is that b/c its just more difficult or is it actually inferior?

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Started reading at pg 300 of the forums so i came across misume's how to use sdi post. Still not sure what the best setup is. Another question is how accurate is simcraft for brm? It has my monk >15k behind my warrior single target which i'm hoping isnt brm reality considering there's only a 4ilvl difference between the toons.

[stross01]

The point of kiting them is being able to use Zen Med. And you go in a circle around the boss obviously.

Is this a joke?

This seems like a joke.