[LEGION] Brewmaster Discussion

[Xequecal]

Yes, those stagger ticks you take every .5 seconds sure will never spike up in a world where you can't abuse purify and avoidance rng is not on your side

Yes, technically it counts as a spike if you dodge four times in a row and then take a hit, going from 0 stagger to actually having stagger. But the idea that this is going to somehow stress your healers is absurd, they were healing you fine when you were taking two hits out of every three, but now suddenly two or three hits in a row starting at 100% HP after a period of not taking damage is going to make them freak out? This doesn't make any sense.

[Tech614]

Yes, technically it counts as a spike if you dodge four times in a row and then take a hit, going from 0 stagger to actually having stagger. But the idea that this is going to somehow stress your healers is absurd, they were healing you fine when you were taking two hits out of every three, but now suddenly two or three hits in a row starting at 100% HP after a period of not taking damage is going to make them freak out? This doesn't make any sense.

You completely don't get it. Say you just purfied after a massive special hit, you're still taking 50% of the damage from that in the stagger, and then you get a terrible string of RNG with 4 or so melee attacks hitting you in a row. Your health is going to start dropping much faster then it had been making any healer worth their ass start healing you more. It's going to be this way until there is a trust factor with the healer and tank on progression, which is generally why the most hardcore guilds take the tank that has the smoothest damage in take across the board to get to that trust factor much quicker in early expansion under geared progression. If you think monks are that right now, you clearly have not played a guardian or prot paladin on the beta. Like I said brewmasters are right in the middle of the pack, and will be great at cheesing certain abilities potentially but they are not the smoothest to heal.

[PinDrop]

Say you just purfied after a massive special hit, you're still taking 50% of the damage from that in the stagger, and then you get a terrible string of RNG with 4 or so melee attacks hitting you in a row. Your health is going to start dropping much faster then it had been making any healer worth their ass start healing you more.

In this hypothetical situation yes, monks sound pretty bad. If we had numbers to work with we would be able to better understand where you're coming from. How much is this "massive" special hit doing exactly? How much are the boss' melee attacks hitting for? In my experience when a boss does a special ability that hits hard enough for a tank to be in serious danger like that, it means that their stacks of whatever the boss is throwing on them have reached a point where a taunt swap is necessary, and those melee hits would not even follow. On Iron Reaver, tank typically doesn't have aggro when artillery hits him, Socrethar's Construct gets swapped right after the reverberating blow, etc. If you are in a situation where you are taking all of this damage that you can't survive, you're either not supposed to be according to the encounter design, or you are undergeared.

Give us numbers as to how hard this special ability and subsequent melee hits would have to hit in order for healers be unable to keep up with all that stagger (assuming you have 0 brews pooled for some reason, and didn't dampen harm, or zen med the special, or fortifying), and then tell us how every other tank would easily handle that damage consistently. I say consistently because in your scenario there don't seem to be tank swaps, and one tank is handling all of this for the entire fight. Could be a multi-boss fight, but again, in my experience they don't hit that hard to compensate for no swaps.

[keqe]

The biggest issue with Brewmaster is that Exploding Keg triggers 1,5s GCD. Literally unplayable.

[stross01]

You completely don't get it. Say you just purfied after a massive special hit, you're still taking 50% of the damage from that in the stagger, and then you get a terrible string of RNG with 4 or so melee attacks hitting you in a row.

You literally can't take that many hits in a row even if you're gearing towards crit.

The biggest issue with Brewmaster is that Exploding Keg triggers 1,5s GCD. Literally unplayable.

Mine is 1s.

00:04:30.003 casts Exploding Keg
00:04:31.004 casts Blackout Strike on Shroud Hound 2

[keqe]

Mine is 1s.

00:04:30.003 casts Exploding Keg
00:04:31.004 casts Blackout Strike on Shroud Hound 2

I guess they fixed it in the latest build. The spec is saved

Also, there is change incoming for Celestial Fortune. It will somehow affect absorbs too, but I guess it won't matter that much as absorbs aren't so prevalent in Legion.

[Deleted]

Does Exploding Keg have a travel time ?

[stross01]

Does Exploding Keg have a travel time ?

Yes, very long. It's several seconds at 40 yds.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess they fixed it in the latest build. The spec is saved

Also, there is change incoming for Celestial Fortune. It will somehow affect absorbs too, but I guess it won't matter that much as absorbs aren't so prevalent in Legion.

00:02:00.028 casts Exploding Keg
00:02:01.269 casts Keg Smash

This is from July 1st.

00:01:18.544 casts Exploding Keg
00:01:19.768 casts Keg Smash

This is June 21st.

00:00:01.541 casts Exploding Keg
00:00:02.567 casts Blackout Strike on Chronomatic Anomaly

This is from the raid testing on June 27th.

I can't remember any time in which the global caused by it has been 1.5 seconds, going back to the alpha. Maybe you have it confused with the ridiculous lag that is always on the beta.

[Xequecal]

You completely don't get it. Say you just purfied after a massive special hit, you're still taking 50% of the damage from that in the stagger, and then you get a terrible string of RNG with 4 or so melee attacks hitting you in a row. Your health is going to start dropping much faster then it had been making any healer worth their ass start healing you more. It's going to be this way until there is a trust factor with the healer and tank on progression, which is generally why the most hardcore guilds take the tank that has the smoothest damage in take across the board to get to that trust factor much quicker in early expansion under geared progression. If you think monks are that right now, you clearly have not played a guardian or prot paladin on the beta. Like I said brewmasters are right in the middle of the pack, and will be great at cheesing certain abilities potentially but they are not the smoothest to heal.

Uhm, like I said originally, you DON'T purify. You spend all your charges to make sure ISB is always up. That absolutely guarantees the smoothest damage intake possible, because literally all damage you take gets spread out over the next 10 seconds. No other tank can have anywhere remotely near the damage smoothing perma-90% stagger provides. However, it's at the cost of taking a lot more damage overall, but you said this is not relevant.

[keqe]

Yes, very long. It's several seconds at 40 yds.

- - - Updated - - -



00:02:00.028 casts Exploding Keg
00:02:01.269 casts Keg Smash

This is from July 1st.

00:01:18.544 casts Exploding Keg
00:01:19.768 casts Keg Smash

This is June 21st.

00:00:01.541 casts Exploding Keg
00:00:02.567 casts Blackout Strike on Chronomatic Anomaly

This is from the raid testing on June 27th.

I can't remember any time in which the global caused by it has been 1.5 seconds, going back to the alpha. Maybe you have it confused with the ridiculous lag that is always on the beta.

I could swear around last weekend when I was doing world quests in Aszuna and doing dungeons I was annoyed by this issue. Maybe it is caused by some other variable, or it was just in my head. Probably have to settle on the latter.

[Julmara]

probably just lag its beta after all

[Blur4stuff]

I still have the same opinion on BMs. It can certainly get the job done, but the spec feels awful compared to live and other beta tanks. I absolutely hate what they've done to the spec. I can't believe my live monk is going to become a borderline mule in legion. I love it too much to abandon, so will at the very least do artifact and class hall quests.

[Tech614]

Uhm, like I said originally, you DON'T purify. You spend all your charges to make sure ISB is always up. That absolutely guarantees the smoothest damage intake possible, because literally all damage you take gets spread out over the next 10 seconds. No other tank can have anywhere remotely near the damage smoothing perma-90% stagger provides. However, it's at the cost of taking a lot more damage overall, but you said this is not relevant.

You never purify the spike gets worse because the stagger continues to build up. Never purifying = your stagger eventually gets to a point where it is ticking harder then melee hits. I'm done replying to this as you clearly don't even understand the mechanical workings behind what you're trying to have a discussion on, and clearly have not even played a brewmaster in the beta.

[PinDrop]

I believe the threshold for Light/Moderate/Heavy Stagger needs to be raised in order to reflect the focus on it in Legion. If you generally purify a red stagger on live, purifying a stagger of over 130%-ish on Legion (red breakpoint is 66%) will net you a purify of similar strength to live. If you consider that our stagger will almost always be this high due to ISB, then the 'nerfed' purifying isn't really weaker at all, relatively speaking. At that specific level of stagger you would be taking 6.5% of your health every half second, which would kill you in 7 seconds. I don't know of any healer who can't fill a tank's healthbar in much less time than that, without cooldowns, so 130% isn't even a dangerous level. Not to mention all this constant damage you're taking will be popping ox orbs all around you. And if the healer can't quite keep up, hit expel once you get under 35%(for that bonus orb goodness), and you're back to safe levels.

So where is that new purifying breakpoint? We won't even be able to see it without an addon or weakaura, so raising the Green/Yellow/Red thresholds to better reflect where we should actually be purifying now would, in my opinion, benefit us. Blizzard can't be intending for us to still Purify at Red Stagger where it is now. Almost all of our damage (bar magic attacks), will be coming from stagger. Purifying a 66% stagger is the biggest waste of a brew. We need to figure out where the new breakpoint for Purifying is. I'd guess it depends on the fight, but there's no way its anywhere less than the visible 100% on the bar blizzard gives us.

[Deleted]

never gotten this far in the beta (i.e. raid tests) but can you get over a 100% stagger or does it stop at 100% and the rest of the damage is dealt to you instantly?

[Xequecal]

You never purify the spike gets worse because the stagger continues to build up. Never purifying = your stagger eventually gets to a point where it is ticking harder then melee hits. I'm done replying to this as you clearly don't even understand the mechanical workings behind what you're trying to have a discussion on, and clearly have not even played a brewmaster in the beta.

You are claiming things that are literally impossible. A 0.5 sec Stagger tick can not possibly tick harder than melee hits, that would require you to have been hit 20 times in the past 10 seconds. Stagger doesn't build up to infinity it simply ticks for 5% of the damage you took in the last 10 seconds, every 0.5 seconds. With perma-ISB you have a completely flat curve of incoming damage, avoidance means it varies a little but not by much. I think you're the one that doesn't understand the mechanics, you seem to be under the impression that the stagger DoT is permanent until purified, and never goes away otherwise even if you stop taking damage at all.

Like, if a boss hits for, let's say, 1,000,000 damage before stagger, swings every 2 seconds, and assuming you never dodge an attack, with perma-ISB you will take melee hits for 100,000 damage each. The stagger dot will always tick for 250,000 damage every 0.5sec and this will never change until the boss stops attacking you. Random dodges will occasionally lower the tick amount but it can never spike higher than this value.

[v1perz53]

Uhm, like I said originally, you DON'T purify. You spend all your charges to make sure ISB is always up. That absolutely guarantees the smoothest damage intake possible, because literally all damage you take gets spread out over the next 10 seconds. No other tank can have anywhere remotely near the damage smoothing perma-90% stagger provides. However, it's at the cost of taking a lot more damage overall, but you said this is not relevant.

So the way the stagger bar worked is that it is the % of your max HP you take over the duration of the stagger DoT (10 seconds), unless things have changed. Which means with a full stagger bar you are taking 10% HP damage per second. The question I have is, is stagger capped at a full bar? For example, you are tanking a bunch of mobs on mythic +6, you fill your stagger bar up completely, then you pop Fort Brew and keep ISB up (with High Tolerance, so over 100% stagger), what happens?

Do you (assuming only melee damage):
1. Take 10% of your HP per second from stagger DoT, add 10% of your HP worth of incoming damage to stagger DoT per second, and otherwise take full melee damage?
2. Add all melee damage to stagger, taking more than 10% of your HP in stagger damage per second, but the bar doesn't reflect this since it would be capped the whole time?
3. Take 10% of your HP per second in damage from stagger DoT, add 10% HP damage per second from mob melees back to stagger DoT per second, and take no melee damage otherwise? (there is no way this would be true, it would be too powerful, just here for completion sake)

The reason I ask is because if you watch any videos, you know it is very feasible in a big pull to get your stagger bar high into the red during trash in Mythic+ dungeons. Unless stagger works like my #2 option, you are only able to smooth damage if you would be taking less than 10% HP per second from trash mobs, above that and your stagger caps out in some way, so it stops being smooth at some point when it starts overflowing. And without purify it will overflow. Watching videos, tanks are taking WELL beyond 10% HP damage per second on trash pulls in Mythic +3, and these are non BrM tanks that have actual mitigation. Not counting avoidance, BrM has no inherent damage reduction over a Rogue in legion without purifying.

You are claiming things that are literally impossible. A 0.5 sec Stagger tick can not possibly tick harder than melee hits, that would require you to have been hit 20 times in the past 10 seconds. Stagger doesn't build up to infinity it simply ticks for 5% of the damage you took in the last 10 seconds, every 0.5 seconds. With perma-ISB you have a completely flat curve of incoming damage, avoidance means it varies a little but not by much. I think you're the one that doesn't understand the mechanics, you seem to be under the impression that the stagger DoT is permanent until purified, and never goes away otherwise even if you stop taking damage at all.

Like, if a boss hits for, let's say, 1,000,000 damage before stagger, swings every 2 seconds, and assuming you never dodge an attack, with perma-ISB you will take melee hits for 100,000 damage each. The stagger dot will always tick for 250,000 damage every 0.5sec and this will never change until the boss stops attacking you. Random dodges will occasionally lower the tick amount but it can never spike higher than this value.

Unless things have changed drastically in Legion, this is not at all how stagger works. They very well might have changed, so I'm not saying you are totally wrong, but you might be totally wrong.

[keqe]

So the way the stagger bar worked is that it is the % of your max HP you take over the duration of the stagger DoT (10 seconds), unless things have changed. Which means with a full stagger bar you are taking 10% HP damage per second. The question I have is, is stagger capped at a full bar? For example, you are tanking a bunch of mobs on mythic +6, you fill your stagger bar up completely, then you pop Fort Brew and keep ISB up (with High Tolerance, so over 100% stagger), what happens?

Do you (assuming only melee damage):
1. Take 10% of your HP per second from stagger DoT, add 10% of your HP worth of incoming damage to stagger DoT per second, and otherwise take full melee damage?
2. Add all melee damage to stagger, taking more than 10% of your HP in stagger damage per second, but the bar doesn't reflect this since it would be capped the whole time?
3. Take 10% of your HP per second in damage from stagger DoT, add 10% HP damage per second from mob melees back to stagger DoT per second, and take no melee damage otherwise? (there is no way this would be true, it would be too powerful, just here for completion sake)

The reason I ask is because if you watch any videos, you know it is very feasible in a big pull to get your stagger bar high into the red during trash in Mythic+ dungeons. Unless stagger works like my #2 option, you are only able to smooth damage if you would be taking less than 10% HP per second from trash mobs, above that and your stagger caps out in some way, so it stops being smooth at some point when it starts overflowing. And without purify it will overflow. Watching videos, tanks are taking WELL beyond 10% HP damage per second on trash pulls in Mythic +3, and these are non BrM tanks that have actual mitigation. Not counting avoidance, BrM has no inherent damage reduction over a Rogue in legion without purifying.



Unless things have changed drastically in Legion, this is not at all how stagger works. They very well might have changed, so I'm not saying you are totally wrong, but you might be totally wrong.

Not sure about numbers itself but the way Xequecal describes it should be accurate. If boss hits exact same amount at same interval with no avoidance interfering, the stagger DoT should stabilize to certain level because you bleed it out at the same rate as you gain it.

About your first question, I am not quite sure which situation you mean. The % incoming damage we stagger goes over 100%? If that is the case we simply turn all damage to stagger DoT and the part that goes over 100% is wasted (except for things it is halved). Because stagger itself can't kill, this makes the monk invincible against damage that is fully staggered.

If you mean that our stagger DoT value goes higher than our max HP, (blizzard bar showing 100% and full), it simply goes above that normally. It is just a limit in the tooltip and design of the blizzard bar.

[v1perz53]

Not sure about numbers itself but the way Xequecal describes it should be accurate. If boss hits exact same amount at same interval with no avoidance interfering, the stagger DoT should stabilize to certain level because you bleed it out at the same rate as you gain it.

About your first question, I am not quite sure which situation you mean. The % incoming damage we stagger goes over 100%? If that is the case we simply turn all damage to stagger DoT and the part that goes over 100% is wasted (except for things it is halved). Because stagger itself can't kill, this makes the monk invincible against damage that is fully staggered.

If you mean that our stagger DoT value goes higher than our max HP, (blizzard bar showing 100% and full), it simply goes above that normally. It is just a limit in the tooltip and design of the blizzard bar.

Yea, that is what I meant, so the blizzard bar "max" is not a true max, just a UI issue, meaning the total stagger DoT can be for more than our max HP, and it works more or less as I thought in situation 2. Also, I just misunderstood the way Xequecal was representing the numbers, at least his second point is definitely correct with the boss that always hits for that much on that timer.

As an aside, I think there is a minimum hit we take no matter what. Just tested on PTR, and with High Tolerance + ISB + Fort Brew (which should be 105% stagger) I still took 282 damage from a 28,177 hit, or 1% of total damage. Probably put in to prevent exactly what you said, being unkillable against fully staggerable damage.

[keqe]

As an aside, I think there is a minimum hit we take no matter what. Just tested on PTR, and with High Tolerance + ISB + Fort Brew (which should be 105% stagger) I still took 282 damage from a 28,177 hit, or 1% of total damage. Probably put in to prevent exactly what you said, being unkillable against fully staggerable damage.

Yeah it makes sense to make it limited to 99% since 100% stagger is now very attainable, while previously it was attained through strange means like ToT trinket that turned all your stats into mastery.