[LEGION] Brewmaster Discussion

[stross01]

I've been watching the discussion here for a little while. I've recently begun to enjoy playing my Monk as a Brewmaster, and as a guy who almost always plays healers, its a very refreshing - if shocking - change for me. I don't even know what I'm doing half the time, but I'm slowly getting a grasp on the Brewmaster playstyle. I'm hoping to grow more confident as a tank before Legion hits, as most WoD content now is outgeared and fairly forgiving for mistakes.

That all said and done...

It bugs me how DIFFERENT Legion BrM is. I'm partially wondering if there's even any point in trying to learn Brewmaster on live, as it's all going to change so soon. Plus, all of the changes sound quite intimidating. We have a smaller movepool, and in theory, less to manage... but from reading all of your discussion here, it sounds like BrM is going to be quite crazy come Legion, if not go horribly wrong due to being underpowered unless you play to the maximum capacity. Coming from a Discipline Priest main, it seems that my two favourite specs right now - Brewmaster Monk and Discipline Priest - both have HUGE potential to be an utter mess at launch.

Am I just worrying too much about this? I don't know. I thought I'd share my opinion on what we know of brewmaster so far, though. I'm coming from the perspective of a new Brewmaster and tank in general, and even if it isn't, Legion Brm is setting up to look very intimidating to people in my position.

The sad truth is that the more intimidating a spec looks to play, the less people there are who are even going to give it a try. Which is a shame, but the reality of this game. And I know Monks aren't exactly swimming in a playerbase as it is.

If you want to tank, stay far, far away from brewmaster until extreme changes are made. We've got no 'oh shit' buttons, zero reward for immaculate gameplay, and our toolboxes are empty.

If you're looking for an easy/fun time, play a blood death knight or guardian druid; both are near divine in their quality. If you're looking for a medium time, run a prot paladin or demon hunter; both have immense toolkits and endless cooldowns. If you're looking to play the bench or be deepdicked by Blizzard for months, try a prot warrior or brewmaster; warriors are neglected to the point of being a pariah and brewmaster is just a fucking heap.

It doesn't really get more unfriendly than a brewmaster right now. I'd hate to see anyone go from 1-100 without heirlooms, I'd hate to see a 640 boosted character try to get the artifact weapon, and I genuinely feel bad for anyone that is new to the game struggle to master the brew.

[Leblue]

While a good bit about Brewmaster is being shaken up, there's some parity between the current Brewmaster and the Legion Brewmaster (albeit not carbon copies in some cases). Really the biggest change I've really felt so far is no spammable button that you just keep mashing. Talenting RJW, Blackout Strike, and Breath of Fire help but obviously aren't exactly the same.

Ironskin is a different version of guard meant to function the same way (freezing your health)

Obstinate Determination is basically Desperate Measures when you get it.

Purify still shares a resource with your guard like ability (Ironskin) just now that resource is time.

I'm honestly more apt to blame the attempt at giving people who want every healer to play like a holy paladin and bomb tanks the warm fuzzies at the cost of tank gameplay rather than what the class is being changed into because some of the changes are somewhat skin deep and if you look for the similarities to what Legion Brewmaster is now its still pretty similar. Honestly the only thing we're missing is just that short barksin esque cd at first early blush.

[Deleted]

Thanks, guys. I think I'll play my monk as BrM for a while in the pre-patch to test the waters, but I won't get my hopes up. It's going to be interesting to see how well we do and how quickly Blizz might fix any major issues. After all, seeing how new class mechanics work in old content that we're already familiar with is one of the benefits of a pre-patch, right?

I'm going to sorely miss Dizzying Haze, though. It felt like a great way to pick up adds, and I can't help but think I'll feel naked without it come 7.0. Plus... throwing beer is my class fantasy!

[Leblue]

Honestly the spec changes aren't so drastic that it'll feel totally alien. Breathe of Fire, tiger palm costing much less than jab, blackout strike and RJW being talented help fill the void of current tiger palm. We get desperate measures back in the form of an artifact trait.

My real biggest gripe at the moment just playing the spec really is that it's missing the punch or purpose to the playstyle that blackout kick and chi explosion gave it. You could argue that keg smash is that punch, but it will just take some getting used to to really feel that way.

Also to add, again a short damage cd of the barkskin variety is what class still needs I feel.

[Kaharon]

To be honest, I actually like the overall playstyle of the monk and only think it lacks some sort of short CD for a little "pure" mitigation.

Our artifact ability feels very clunky, weak and annoying to deal with. I see the merit in making a boss miss an auto-attack, but why does it have to be an aimed ability? How about:

Exploding Keg (name stays)

45 Second Cooldown
Smash Keg under you, making you fly in the air (only small jump, so no enemies run after you and fuck up your carefully gathered pack), soaking you in delicious brew, bolstering your defenses. Ignore 20% of damage taken for the next 6 Seconds.

or if they don't want to give us that, maybe:

45 Second Cooldown
Smash Keg under you, making you fly in the air (only small jump, so no enemies run after you and fuck up your carefully gathered pack), soaking enemies in gruesome brew that burns their eyes and makes all enemies within 12 yards to miss their next attack within 6 seconds.

I am highly annoyed at our artifact ability having to be "tossed" in a direction like Dizzying Haze, just let it drop under us or be thrown at an enemy, having to aim this is going to be HIGHLY annoying in some stressful situations.

But all that aside I like this BRM monk more than I like the old, I also love the fact, that this spec has become much more difficult to manage perfectly. I, for one, will enjoy playing brm monk because the playstyle suits me and stressful situations are awesome to handle, best fun in WoW if you are close to a boss kill and your skill can help.

[Deleted]

But all that aside I like this BRM monk more than I like the old, I also love the fact, that this spec has become much more difficult to manage perfectly. I, for one, will enjoy playing brm monk because the playstyle suits me and stressful situations are awesome to handle, best fun in WoW if you are close to a boss kill and your skill can help.

To me, unfortunately it doesn't feel like your skill helps all that much. I've done some Mythic 5Mans on the beta in the last days (after the nerf) - my group started with ~818 ilvl, we're now at about 830. I'm not sure for what gear Mythics are tuned right now (they drop 840+), but I didn't have any major problems surviving (besides some boss mechanis I didn't know about). Not because I'm so awesome at managing my 3 Brew charges, but because Obstinate Determination kept saving me.
On hard hitting bosses / bigger trash mobs our charges are gone after a few melee swings. We basically have the option to use IB (100% stagger after 1-2 melee hits) or only use IB for AM checks and try to purify as often as possible (only at 100% stagger, which you'll get after 3-4 melee hits). Using IB to "smooth" damage intake doesn't really work that great (maybe with lots of haste it does?) since your stagger is instantly at 100%, so you want to purify, which means you just used 2 charges when you could've used your Healing Spheres (or, well, Obstinate Determination) to survive and purified twice, since IB doesn't actually mitigate any damage. You'll just get your red stagger sooner. I tried both tactics and found that the 2nd option worked far better, but the whole thing was just getting ridiculous - I actually made a WA that announced when I hit 35% HP, which led to constant spam in chat during bosses as well as trash. I purified (so actually mitigated) the most damage I could, while outhealing our healer and doing more damage on trash than our actual dps since Keg Smash hits for about 300k+.


In Dark Rook Hold (I think that's the name, the Valsharah instance) I was able to solo the trash up to the last boss with ilvl ~820 - so I do get when Blizz says Brewmasters are unkillable. But when we actually got to the boss, he just absolutely wrecked me. His Unerring Shear hits for ~2.5 Mil, his melee swings for 650k on average (I had 1.8Mil HP). So I had to actually use IB to not just die within 3 seconds, which meant instant red stagger (and I do mean instant), but at the same time I could really only purify once because I needed one charge to not get oneshot by Unerring Shear. The end of the story: I survived. Barely. Not because I was good at managing my Brew, not because me or my healer were skilled, but because I was jumping around like a fking monkey and spamming Expel Harm to soak any Healing Sphere I could get. Which, I guess, is what they wanted - class fantasy = drunken guy staggering around. Job well done.

/rant

[Kaharon]

To me, unfortunately it doesn't feel like your skill helps all that much. [...]
/rant

You might be on to something, I only gave my opinion on what I tried so far, that was only up to heroic dungeons and I felt I could easily deal with most situations.
However, as you describe it, it seems that we are just poorly tuned right now or Blizzard really wants us to pray for sphere procs and jumping between 35%+ and below.
Thanks for your insight, I will really need to check out mythic dungeons to form a better opinion.

[Evolved]

Ironskin is a different version of guard meant to function the same way (freezing your health)

Purify still shares a resource with your guard like ability (Ironskin) just now that resource is time.

I'm honestly more apt to blame the attempt at giving people who want every healer to play like a holy paladin and bomb tanks the warm fuzzies at the cost of tank gameplay rather than what the class is being changed into because some of the changes are somewhat skin deep and if you look for the similarities to what Legion Brewmaster is now its still pretty similar. Honestly the only thing we're missing is just that short barksin esque cd at first early blush.

It really doesn't though, since it you don't stop taking damage. You'll continue to take damage from hits, and within a few seconds the extra stagger sticks will hit hard enough to notice.

Time is never a fun/interesting resource, especially when nearly everything you do is currently based on it.

Opinions ahead: I don't think it's that similar at all, it feels completely different other than some abilities that retain the same name/function. I'm not really managing energy. I'm not managing Chi stacks for defensives/offensives. I'm not generating resources and then getting to make the decision of choosing to spend them in an interesting way, by making defensive/offensive decisions. I'm mashing buttons on cooldown and pressing ISB/PB as needed. My recovery options aren't as interesting. There's no real on demand self healing. At no time on live do I want to sit around at 30% health waiting for a single ability to constantly save your life. I don't feel like I'm working for my survival other than making sure I press EH every time OD procs. (I can't imagine they'll let this go live with no internal cooldown) As my favorite class/spec on live, there's very little that makes me want to play it in Legion, due to it feeling so different than it does on live.

I would agree that the whole tank/healing dynamic is a big part of the problem. Blizzard sees a problem that no healer that I know actually complains about, considering that tanks still require healing in ilvl appropriate content. Taking away interesting aspects of tanking in order to satisfy healer gameplay, rather than making the process of healing the other 18 people in the raid interesting, seems a little silly.

I would love to continue to play Brewmaster in Legion. I like the way it currently plays, I like themes, I like the Pandaren ties, I enjoy hanging out at the inn in my class hall. In the end though, in order to continue the fun interactive playstyle that I've come to enjoy from the WoD version of Brewmaster, I'll have to seek out another class.

[keqe]

Currently at lvl 106 and done some dungeons at pretty much all points. Just unlocked the dragonfire brew trait for BoF.

Obstinate Determination makes normal dungeons a joke. You can't really die to that small rolling damage that happens. But as we have heard and pretty much know, we will get rekt if we can't abuse this.

Dragonfire Brew works quite differently than I expected. You get a buff that pulses (yes that I expected), but the pulses cause debuffs on enemy that cause 2% damage reduce debuff that stacks 4 times. So the damage reduce ramps up and at the end of the buff the debuff is stacked. The debuff lasts 8 seconds and is refreshed with each apply of stack.

Thus the debuff actually lasts on the enemy until your BoF CD is reseted. So you get ramping 2-4-6% reduce for 7 seconds, and 8 seconds of 8% reduce. Quite good in a way. It also does a lot of damage according to tooltip. Double what RJW does.


Also, apparently fall damage counts for the GotO orbs. Someone will probably find a way to abuse this eventually unless it is fixed. At the very least if some meter is made for GotO generation you could use it to get to point where you spawn a orb from first hit from boss.

[Ampere]

I think they could have neutered self healing for all tanks across the board and still had opportunities for good tank gameplay if they went in another direction entirely. Putting us in a situation where we still use AM, but it has much lower uptime and is much weaker isn't more interesting, it's just boring and unsatisfying. It's like getting upgraded from a horse to a car in MoP, and then back to a horse in Legion. Feels like shit after 4 years of being super powerful.

They could have put a focus on making tank dps rotations compelling and making threat matter again, but I doubt the design team will ever do that. It actually makes the tank throttle the entire group's dps which might be a bit much and I personally like the focus on AM, just wish we were going back to the MoP/WoD model.

[stross01]

While a good bit about Brewmaster is being shaken up, there's some parity between the current Brewmaster and the Legion Brewmaster (albeit not carbon copies in some cases). Really the biggest change I've really felt so far is no spammable button that you just keep mashing. Talenting RJW, Blackout Strike, and Breath of Fire help but obviously aren't exactly the same.

Ironskin is a different version of guard meant to function the same way (freezing your health)

Obstinate Determination is basically Desperate Measures when you get it.

Purify still shares a resource with your guard like ability (Ironskin) just now that resource is time.

I'm honestly more apt to blame the attempt at giving people who want every healer to play like a holy paladin and bomb tanks the warm fuzzies at the cost of tank gameplay rather than what the class is being changed into because some of the changes are somewhat skin deep and if you look for the similarities to what Legion Brewmaster is now its still pretty similar. Honestly the only thing we're missing is just that short barksin esque cd at first early blush.

Ironskin Brew doesn't 'freeze health'. It has little effect against something like a mythic boss. You go from big chunks, to steadily bleeding out. Guard was a massive damage prevention, Ironskin Brew is not.

And AOE ability with immense visual clutter, a damage ability, and an ability that only functions 100% on quest mobs don't replace anything.

They're almost certainly going to nerf Obstinate Determination, but it's going to put us back into the stain-on-the-ground game.

Dragonfire Brew works quite differently than I expected. You get a buff that pulses (yes that I expected), but the pulses cause debuffs on enemy that cause 2% damage reduce debuff that stacks 4 times. So the damage reduce ramps up and at the end of the buff the debuff is stacked. The debuff lasts 8 seconds and is refreshed with each apply of stack.

Thus the debuff actually lasts on the enemy until your BoF CD is reseted. So you get ramping 2-4-6% reduce for 7 seconds, and 8 seconds of 8% reduce. Quite good in a way. It also does a lot of damage according to tooltip. Double what RJW does.

I've been posting exactly this on the forums for almost two months for a fix/confirmation and only one thing remains clear: they don't give enough of a shit to respond or fix it.

[keqe]

I've been posting exactly this on the forums for almost two months for a fix/confirmation and only one thing remains clear: they don't give enough of a shit to respond or fix it.

But isn't it technically better in its current form as we get more damage reduction overall compared to if the buff itself gave 8% damage reduction?

[Leblue]

It really doesn't though, since it you don't stop taking damage. You'll continue to take damage from hits, and within a few seconds the extra stagger sticks will hit hard enough to notice.

Its certainly not as good as guard, but that's what the function of it is during periods of "burst" damage or higher damage intake. In the model they're attempting to create (again) where tanks need more healing it fits and still fills a similar role.

Time is never a fun/interesting resource, especially when nearly everything you do is currently based on it.

Agreed, like even though I'm getting used to seeing Brews as my resource and seeing them come up faster it doesn't feel nearly as satisfying. On live, even though Shuffle is irrelevant now and there isn't any feel goods to get from keeping it up, it feels good to actually press Blackout Kick/Chi Explosion because you're building up to it. I'm pretty sure Prot Pally's will have a similar feel to them without holy power as well because its not as "in your face" about what your abilities are doing whereas it was pretty obvious what your abilities were doing with chi.

I'm not really managing energy.

What're you doing differently with energy now? I find myself doing the same thing that I do on live in regards to watching energy (always have enough at for 40 when Keg Smash comes up) but now I don't worry about if I have enough for an emergency expel harm and I can use Tiger Palm (read jab) more frequently.

I'm not managing Chi stacks for defensives/offensives. I'm not generating resources and then getting to make the decision of choosing to spend them in an interesting way, by making defensive/offensive decisions.

Having brew stacks always and forever be just defensive does kind of suck. I think that's a missed opportunity to really make brews feel better. Its why I like something like SotR a lot more. Sure it is a defensive ability, but it still smashes the monster and feels good to press. Ironskin and Purifying Brew don't have that feel.

I'm mashing buttons on cooldown and pressing ISB/PB as needed.

ISB/PB aside (because they're fairly uninteresting), blackout strike is supposed to be our current Tiger Palm with built in dead space time for other abilities. Personally? Rather have it spammable again as a filler. As much as I love the new animation for it, I'd rather it be tuned down and made a straight filler. I do like actually using Breath of Fire though and I don't mind pressing a few different buttons on cd just to fill time but obviously a preference thing.

My recovery options aren't as interesting. There's no real on demand self healing. At no time on live do I want to sit around at 30% health waiting for a single ability to constantly save your life. I don't feel like I'm working for my survival other than making sure I press EH every time OD procs. (I can't imagine they'll let this go live with no internal cooldown)

I don't disagree, while OD does fulfill the same function as desperate measures it doesn't feel as good because its not something you willingly put time into preparing to use when you know things are about to hit the fan. It just happens and its pretty dull even though it does function and creates a feeling of helplessness until you can keep yourself floating right in that 30 - 40% range without dying. There's definitely something to be said for how lackluster our resources for defense are (aka recharge time for brews) without anything to really give it much depth other than figuring out when you need to use them and hoping your skill matches that so you have brew recharging fast enough. Again you I personally fall into the feeling that it doesn't have enough of that "feel good" when you use what's supposed to be a resource generating ability like generating chi does now.

I think they could have neutered self healing for all tanks across the board and still had opportunities for good tank gameplay if they went in another direction entirely. Putting us in a situation where we still use AM, but it has much lower uptime and is much weaker isn't more interesting, it's just boring and unsatisfying. It's like getting upgraded from a horse to a car in MoP, and then back to a horse in Legion. Feels like shit after 4 years of being super powerful.

They could have put a focus on making tank dps rotations compelling and making threat matter again, but I doubt the design team will ever do that. It actually makes the tank throttle the entire group's dps which might be a bit much and I personally like the focus on AM, just wish we were going back to the MoP/WoD model.

They kind of limited what they could do when they flat out said that they weren't going to pursue mitigation to damage trade-offs. If they want to not make tanks gods if they go full turtle but vulnerable when they start to min max damage, then you just get a bar that needs to be met. Instead of letting individual tanks control how much healing was needed through their play its being forced on us how much is needed. This very much delves into personal preference and there're people as healers, dps, and tanks that could swing to either extreme and all inside of the gray area that exists.

You've got tanks who just want to be tasked with "hold threat and press shield wall when big scary ability happens" and that's it.
You've got tanks who want to be able to skirt the line between being paper thin and being properly defended when the boss is hitting them for the rewards that come with the play.
You've got healers who want to be the sole reason the tank is still alive because the tanks job is literally to be a punching bag.
You've got healers who're more than happy to focus more on healing other party members and maybe squeezing in some damage because they know they can trust the tank to keep themselves up and when they do heal the tank directly its because he needs it for a particular moment.
You've got dps who're mad when tanks do dps that matters and are able to push more throughput when they should just be the meatwall that only does threat.
You've got dps who're happy they can be carried in a dungeon by a skilled tank who can push his throughput to the max while still not dying and even competing with him if maybe the dps isn't that great.

These are obviously extremes, but since MoP we've been swinging back towards the "tanks are just meatbags holding threat" side of things. I thought WoD was already a bit too far, but Legion is obviously going further on this and you can place a good chunk of tank changes across the board because of the change in model to appease a certain crowd.

Ironskin Brew doesn't 'freeze health'. It has little effect against something like a mythic boss. You go from big chunks, to steadily bleeding out. Guard was a massive damage prevention, Ironskin Brew is not.

Going from chunked to bleeding out over time sounds different to me outside of the end result. The purpose is to slow the bleeding which it does just like guard did albeit guard was like putting a cast on it while this is merely placing gauze on a gushing wound. It does what it needs to, slow down the rate of your health going to 0. The issue here is that blizzard doesn't want us completely cheesing things with stagger. If you want to argue semantics though go for it, their relative function is the same.

And AOE ability with immense visual clutter, a damage ability, and an ability that only functions 100% on quest mobs don't replace anything.

I don't think the clutter is that bad from Rushing Jade Wind, but that's opinion and all that. I can pretty clearly even see the orbs on my screen as well, but again you might see things differently.

A damage ability in Blackout Strike is fine especially as a filler ability and it even gains minor defensive benefit. I'm not sure what you're looking for in this ability. My personal preference is that it turns into what's currently Tiger Palm. The spec has been made less fast pace purposely. I'll say now I'm one of the first to say that I dislike it slowing down, but I've seen numerous people complain about Tiger Palm filler and yes they tend to be on the casual side of the game spectrum (but not always). Tiger Palm having the cheaper energy cost than Jab on live does also helps fill some extra globals that wouldn't be filled if it cost as much as jab.

Breath of Fire still does damage and fills a global and has some aoe punch. Hurray it doesn't need to literally one shot anything to be useful, I'm just happy we do use it now. If you don't like it, cool opinion and all that. Not every button needs to have an intricate interaction with everything we do, but Breath of Fire even gains value from an artifact trait in the form of defense so then it becomes better. In b4 "its only 8% once it ramps up!" but yet its still doing something rather than being a button we literally don't place on our bars.

They're almost certainly going to nerf Obstinate Determination, but it's going to put us back into the stain-on-the-ground game.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I have to wonder and ponder how much of how Brewmaster should be played is colored by current tier having 50% desperate measures rather than 35%. I don't really enjoy the thought of (I haven't done anything outside of normal dungeons and don't even have obstinate determination yet) my ideal state bouncing between 30 and 40% consistently to spawn orbs but they're obviously trying to recreate the current desperate measures play that we have now. The focus on desperate measures in HFC and even earlier in SoO when you got chunked down to 35% from near full (if not full) isn't exactly unexpected, but if they wanted to give us self healing in a different way its going to be a complete change of gameplay which at this point its most likely too late for unless Brewmasters are literally unbalance and can't even do content (ignoring bleeding edge mythic).

I've been posting exactly this on the forums for almost two months for a fix/confirmation and only one thing remains clear: they don't give enough of a shit to respond or fix it.

I'm not sure what needs to be fixed here? Do you think it needs to just sit at its max or are you just checking if there's supposed to be a ramp-up. I might be misreading but it seems the ability pulses and stacks the debuff and the debuff lasts for a bit. Seems cut and dry but I may be missing something.

[stross01]

But isn't it technically better in its current form as we get more damage reduction overall compared to if the buff itself gave 8% damage reduction?

It could be better either way.

It's technically more damage reduction the stacking way, but it would be much more versatile if it were just 8% on Breath of Fire use.

If you're using it to avoid a specific boss hit, it's fuckin awful while stacking. A) You could miss the ability entirely since it has 2 sec after use to do the aoe, 2 sec per stack. or B) You could miss with Breath of Fire completely and not get any buff.

vs

8% DR, 8 sec duration on use, no hit required.

Going from chunked to bleeding out over time sounds different to me outside of the end result. The purpose is to slow the bleeding which it does just like guard did albeit guard was like putting a cast on it while this is merely placing gauze on a gushing wound. It does what it needs to, slow down the rate of your health going to 0. The issue here is that blizzard doesn't want us completely cheesing things with stagger. If you want to argue semantics though go for it, their relative function is the same.



I don't think the clutter is that bad from Rushing Jade Wind, but that's opinion and all that. I can pretty clearly even see the orbs on my screen as well, but again you might see things differently.

A damage ability in Blackout Strike is fine especially as a filler ability and it even gains minor defensive benefit. I'm not sure what you're looking for in this ability. My personal preference is that it turns into what's currently Tiger Palm. The spec has been made less fast pace purposely. I'll say now I'm one of the first to say that I dislike it slowing down, but I've seen numerous people complain about Tiger Palm filler and yes they tend to be on the casual side of the game spectrum (but not always). Tiger Palm having the cheaper energy cost than Jab on live does also helps fill some extra globals that wouldn't be filled if it cost as much as jab.

Breath of Fire still does damage and fills a global and has some aoe punch. Hurray it doesn't need to literally one shot anything to be useful, I'm just happy we do use it now. If you don't like it, cool opinion and all that. Not every button needs to have an intricate interaction with everything we do, but Breath of Fire even gains value from an artifact trait in the form of defense so then it becomes better. In b4 "its only 8% once it ramps up!" but yet its still doing something rather than being a button we literally don't place on our bars.



I don't necessarily disagree, but I have to wonder and ponder how much of how Brewmaster should be played is colored by current tier having 50% desperate measures rather than 35%. I don't really enjoy the thought of (I haven't done anything outside of normal dungeons and don't even have obstinate determination yet) my ideal state bouncing between 30 and 40% consistently to spawn orbs but they're obviously trying to recreate the current desperate measures play that we have now. The focus on desperate measures in HFC and even earlier in SoO when you got chunked down to 35% from near full (if not full) isn't exactly unexpected, but if they wanted to give us self healing in a different way its going to be a complete change of gameplay which at this point its most likely too late for unless Brewmasters are literally unbalance and can't even do content (ignoring bleeding edge mythic).



I'm not sure what needs to be fixed here? Do you think it needs to just sit at its max or are you just checking if there's supposed to be a ramp-up. I might be misreading but it seems the ability pulses and stacks the debuff and the debuff lasts for a bit. Seems cut and dry but I may be missing something.

Guard stops ALL incoming damage and puts a colossal shield on you to prevent further damage. It's not linked to purify in any way. I hope I don't have to elaborate on how they're different, as they aren't even remotely fucking close. If that was their intention, they've failed gloriously. If Ironskin Brew isn't paired with Purify, or even if you manage to dodge 1-2 hits, or the boss stops to cast, almost the entire duration of the ability was wasted. Guard wouldn't have been. And with the current 4p, has about the same recast.

Anyone who disagrees about Rushing Jade Wind falls into two categories: they're wrong or they're playing on potato graphic settings. IT OBSCURES THE GROUND UNDERNEATH IT. IT OBSCURES VISION AROUND IT. IT IS AT 100% OPACITY FOR ALL PLAYERS. IT GETS BIGGER WITH SIZE BUFFS. Not much more needs to be said.

It's a pretty immense leap between Obstinate Determination and Desperate Measures. Again, like Ironskin and Guard, I'm not certain you know what you're talking about anymore.

Desperate Measures is limited by energy and resolve. Obstinate Determination is only limited by percentage. Expel Harm doesn't heal me for even half of my HP unless the initial hit crits and has a crit multi with it. An ox orb can completely heal you from empty to full with no cooldown. At its very smallest, it's going to bring you back over the 35% threshold to spawn another ox orb. I'm sure your mind, and the entire playstyle, will change when you get it. They aren't even close in any way other than they both fill your green bar.

I want it to work exactly like the trait says. It says nothing about a pulse, it says nothing about stacking, it says nothing about needing to hit with Breath of Fire. The extended duration of the debuff is neat and all, but I'd rather have 8% on demand.

Also, I'd like to see Dark Side of the Moon start working. Or if it is, the effect be noticeable or a buff or debuff be displayed.

[keqe]

Well, you don't even have to hit the BoF itself. The buff is applied to you anyway and it hits as easily as RJW. If you wanted it to have 8% reduction for specific ability you just time it for it. Even if it was instant you'd have to delay using BoF anyway. You are just a bit more reliant on timers.

Only situation where it doesn't really work is if you can't reach the mob you want to have damage reduced, but I doubt that is that big of an issue.

[stross01]

Well, you don't even have to hit the BoF itself. The buff is applied to you anyway and it hits as easily as RJW. If you wanted it to have 8% reduction for specific ability you just time it for it. Even if it was instant you'd have to delay using BoF anyway. You are just a bit more reliant on timers.

Only situation where it doesn't really work is if you can't reach the mob you want to have damage reduced, but I doubt that is that big of an issue.

Holy shit, they finally changed it.

The "just time it" doesn't really work with raiding today. If the boss stops to cast, moves a little, or is just hitbox bugged, everything is ruined. I'd rather have control of the damage reduction in my hands rather than Blizzard's.

And delaying Breath of Fire is pretty close to a 0% change in dps. It hits as hard as two Tiger Palms or 41% as hard as a Blackout Strike.

However, if you've got the legendary that resets Breath on Keg Smash, that shit will be #1 priority.

[keqe]

Holy shit, they finally changed it.

The "just time it" doesn't really work with raiding today. If the boss stops to cast, moves a little, or is just hitbox bugged, everything is ruined. I'd rather have control of the damage reduction in my hands rather than Blizzard's.

Well to take HFC as an example only at fel reaver and mannoroth have cases where it would be worse and you could lose stacks. The AoE radius is quite large so you moving boss or boss moving is not an issue. If you have trouble using RJW you might have trouble with DfB but I doubt that is an issue.

And if hitboxes are bugged for AoE abilities like this, it will get fixed quite fast as all classes are full of these kind of AoE pulses in legion so complaints will be loud.

[stross01]

Well to take HFC as an example only at fel reaver and mannoroth have cases where it would be worse and you could lose stacks. The AoE radius is quite large so you moving boss or boss moving is not an issue. If you have trouble using RJW you might have trouble with DfB but I doubt that is an issue.

And if hitboxes are bugged for AoE abilities like this, it will get fixed quite fast as all classes are full of these kind of AoE pulses in legion so complaints will be loud.

I can imagine other situations. Tyrant doing the Kansas City Shuffle with her adds, Deathcallers running around, etc.

What really hurts my feelers is that the debuff has to be on the enemy, for reasons I will never understand. Makes it completely useless against abilities that have no damageable source; aoe's not cast by the boss, blackholes, void zones, sourceless dots, etc.

[keqe]

Well Tyrant doesn't really move enough for it to outrange RJW sort of abilities. Deathcallers maybe if they stuck casting while you dodge something.

But yeah it won't work against damage that has no mob source which sucks.

But delaying BoF will certainly be a DPS loss when you have the trait as the trait alone does almost the same damage as Blackout Strike and after armor reduce they are probably identical.


About the overall Brewmaster issue, isn't one of the biggest problems that we kind of scale negatively exponentially with more incoming damage taken? While for other tanks handling more and more damage is somewhat "linear" issue, they will just run out of steam at some point that is quite linear in a way.

Then we need to use BOTH IsB and PB when damage taken increases. Thus we need to use exponentially more resources for each point of DTPS kind of. So we work at low damage taken situations, but we will have no way to handle true high damage situations because we simply lack resources to do so (as Vitari described as an example).

I think this is an issue that needs to be solved or we will end up either broken OP or broken UP as it is impossible to balance.

But it probably won't be and we will get something random like 50% armor or 25% damage reduction passive hotfix.

[Evolved]

These are obviously extremes, but since MoP we've been swinging back towards the "tanks are just meatbags holding threat" side of things. I thought WoD was already a bit too far, but Legion is obviously going further on this and you can place a good chunk of tank changes across the board because of the change in model to appease a certain crowd.

I would say that WoD, for all it's flaws, was about as close to my ideal tanking model as we'll ever get. The tank DPS wasn't irrelevant. We still required healing in ilvl appropriate content, but you could change how much you required through your own play by making the decision to focus stats/abilities on DPS vs Defense. If I wanted to, I could go full on turtle and require minimum amount of healing. I could also choose to focus my resources on doing damage and use the bare minimum of Guards because the resource system allows that choice.

Anyone who disagrees about Rushing Jade Wind falls into two categories: they're wrong or they're playing on potato graphic settings. IT OBSCURES THE GROUND UNDERNEATH IT. IT OBSCURES VISION AROUND IT. IT IS AT 100% OPACITY FOR ALL PLAYERS. IT GETS BIGGER WITH SIZE BUFFS. Not much more needs to be said.

I don't think it's intentional that it's back to full opacity on alpha/beta. They had reduced opacity on live for the same reason.