Blackout Combo into Ironskin Brew

[Tuskchi]

Hi All,

I'm "flying around" the internet trying to find the answer for some Brewmaster Meaningful questions ... so I'll ask my question here as well.

I did a decent feedback/thoughts and issues on the Legion Brewmaster in the EU forums. If anyone is interested, I'll link in the end.
Since I love the Blackout Combo, it will be my go-to talent in Legion.

You have to know that Ironskin Brew combos into "Pausing" your Stagger damage. Although that's really vague description, what it does thankfully is that it mitigates your Stagger damage for those 3 seconds. Here is where my question comes in. During those 3 second, you still have your Stagger and Ironskin Brew active. So how exactly the damage you inherit during that window is calculated?

As I shared

" Going back to Stagger damage calculations, the Aura (Debuff) and my add-on seem to get a bit confused when I do this. So let's say I have a 6k Stagger, I do BO into IB and for the next 3 seconds, my Stagger amount still stays at 6k, while I don't take damage. Then as the effect expires, it drops to 5,5k or whatever is the amount of Stagger damage left and continues from there. "

However, if you actually inherit new stagger damage during that time - How does the calculation go? I'm 100% positively sure, that the Aura (Debuff) won't inherit new numbers, but all logical sense says that there should be going in the background. Has anyone researched?


Cheers,
Tusk-chi

[Xiaojin]

I have to admit, I haven't tried Blackout Combo yet, but I'd be really surprised if your stagger level didn't increase while the DoT is paused. If it didn't, Combo + IsB would be an on-demand, frequently available 75% damage reduction CD. So my guess is that all that combo'ed IsB does is keep you from bleeding off damage for 3sec. But you continue to stagger damage normally. Maybe the debuff does not get updated dynamically for technical reasons until after the combo effect wears off.

I want to underline that the above is just a guess, I haven't tried it ingame. But if it works any different, that would be insanely OP (and/or the tooltip would be misleading).

[Ampere]

You still gain more Stagger like normal, it just doesn't tick until the 3 seconds end

It does sound really cool, and there's a potential to stop almost all incoming damage for 12 seconds or so if you banked brew charges, but then you'd have a potentially tremendous amount of Stagger ticking afterwards. Maybe still useful in some scenarios, but it's not the best talent right now afaik

[Tuskchi]

I agree totally, but as tracking your Stagger damage is critical imho for playing Brewmaster properly, having the Tooltip malfunctioning is pretty lackluster.
I imagine something like this goes in the background.

You have 6k Staggered damage left. Trigger combo. If no damage occurs calculations should be ... 3sec = 30% of 6k = 1,8k ... so the Aura (debuff) should resume with a ~4,2k Stagger Left.

Now if you inherit a 10k attack in that window. You have 75% stagger, so that's 7,5k in let's assume the 2nd out of the 3 seconds duration. So at this point you should have 5400 current stagger + 7500 new stagger = 12 900 stagger with 2 seconds of the buff up ... so that's 20% of 12 900 = 2580 ... Aura (debuff) should resume with 10 320 damage.

Of course, in case 1) you get a 6k to 4,2k change in numbers in the other, case 2) you get 6k to 10,3k change.

That should be the framework, right?

You still gain more Stagger like normal, it just doesn't tick until the 3 seconds end

It does sound really cool, and there's a potential to stop almost all incoming damage for 12 seconds or so if you banked brew charges, but then you'd have a potentially tremendous amount of Stagger ticking afterwards. Maybe still useful in some scenarios, but it's not the best talent right now afaik

So you are saying that the New Stagger doesn't stack and tick off together with the Old Stagger? So what I wrote above isn't correct?

[Ampere]

So you are saying that the New Stagger doesn't stack and tick off together with the Old Stagger? So what I wrote above isn't correct?

It doesn't ignore any damage, only pauses it. Blackout Combo buffed ISB = 0 damage reduction, just delay.

In your example the 6k staggered damage would still be 6k after the 3s

[Tuskchi]

I don't think so ... I tried it on Live last night and 6k was 4,3k after Blackout Combo buffed ISB ... Tooltip and otherwise ...

Even in my frames I saw "miss"-ing the ticks of Stagger, rather than not displaying anything. ( which a Pause should do )
So, I'm pretty sure it's actual mitigation in that sense ...

[pmkaboo]

each point represents one second:
- add 6000 stagger
- tick for 600, activate BO-ISB
- add 7000 stagger
- nothing happens
- add 7000 stagger
- ISB ends

if you take no damage afterwards, youll tick 10 times for 1940 (7000+7000+5400 / 10)

[keqe]

I don't think so ... I tried it on Live last night and 6k was 4,3k after Blackout Combo buffed ISB ... Tooltip and otherwise ...

Even in my frames I saw "miss"-ing the ticks of Stagger, rather than not displaying anything. ( which a Pause should do )
So, I'm pretty sure it's actual mitigation in that sense ...

Is your addon showing the damage per second of stagger, or damage of total amount? Because of course the damage per second changes up and down even when paused. If your addon showed the total amount, you would only see rise or stable amount on it.

[Tuskchi]

Is your addon showing the damage per second of stagger, or damage of total amount? Because of course the damage per second changes up and down even when paused. If your addon showed the total amount, you would only see rise or stable amount on it.

I'm tracking the total damage Staggered.

As I said 6k damage prior Combo.
Activate for 3 seconds no change.
After that it goes into the new amount (lower), not the same as the 6k.

[keqe]

I'm tracking the total damage Staggered.

As I said 6k damage prior Combo.
Activate for 3 seconds no change.
After that it goes into the new amount (lower), not the same as the 6k.

Working as intended? For 3 seconds it was paused. You didn't bleed the stagger. After the 3 second duration ended you took the first stagger bleed tick and lost some stagger.

[Tuskchi]

Working as intended? For 3 seconds it was paused. You didn't bleed the stagger. After the 3 second duration ended you took the first stagger bleed tick and lost some stagger.

I have to look exactly at the damage again. If it ticks only for 10%, i.e. from 6k to 5,4k ... then it works as you say. If it goes to 4,2k ... it means that it mitigated damage during the "Pause".

Also, if it works as you suggest, doesn't that mean that if you "Pause" the duration of the Stagger, should stay on "9 seconds" for 3 seconds ... i.e. 12-13sec Total?

[keqe]

I have to look exactly at the damage again. If it ticks only for 10%, i.e. from 6k to 5,4k ... then it works as you say. If it goes to 4,2k ... it means that it mitigated damage during the "Pause".

Also, if it works as you suggest, doesn't that mean that if you "Pause" the duration of the Stagger, should stay on "9 seconds" for 3 seconds ... i.e. 12-13sec Total?

The duration stays as it is when it is paused if you don't get hit by anything. If you do get hit the duration goes to 10 seconds and stays it until the pause buff runs out. And then you start to bleed it out normally (5% of total per 0.5 seconds).

[Tuskchi]

The duration stays as it is when it is paused if you don't get hit by anything. If you do get hit the duration goes to 10 seconds and stays it until the pause buff runs out. And then you start to bleed it out normally (5% of total per 0.5 seconds).

I see ... Will test it out tonight. If it's like that, it will make sense to not mitigate any damage during the pause, but to simply delay it.
If that's the case, I feel it's the weaker sauce.

[meob]

As far as I noticed stagger dots are reset every time it is refreshed. So there was 400k in your stagger dot, it will bleed for 20k every tick. If you get hit again and again, those 400k will ramp up to 2m and then bleed for 100k every tick once BOC-freeze runs out. Atleast that's what Blast Furnace feels like after you tanked two bellow operators and feldspar for whatever reason.

[keqe]

I see ... Will test it out tonight. If it's like that, it will make sense to not mitigate any damage during the pause, but to simply delay it.
If that's the case, I feel it's the weaker sauce.

It isn't as overpowered some people might see it at first. You literally delay your problems to the future. But maybe that future can handle that better? (Most/all mobs are dead so you don't care if you bleed 50% of your HP per second).

- - - Updated - - -

As far as I noticed stagger dots are reset every time it is refreshed. So there was 400k in your stagger dot, it will bleed for 20k every tick. If you get hit again and again, those 400k will ramp up to 2m and then bleed for 100k every tick once BOC-freeze runs out. Atleast that's what Blast Furnace feels like after you tanked two bellow operators and feldspar for whatever reason.

The same would happen even with regular stagger if the damage taken increased. Blackout Combo just can achieve the similar thing with same damage taken. Stagger mechanic stays the same.

[Jaigar]

I found BoC extremely useful when Im getting trucked on, like the first phase of mythic archie if Im tanking both him and the add. If I take advantage of BoC right, I can purify a higher percentage each time, and BoC keg for more brews during his cast. At max stagger its roughly 75k a sec feom stagger.

[Deleted]

Since you probably use ISB anyways, empowering it is very strong. It delays the stagger to later times, where you can then purify a bigger ammount (your decision how bursty you want to be vs how much you want to mitigrate)

And yes it only pauses the stagger bleeding out, it does not remove any damage.

[Tuskchi]

Confirmed. I checked it on live last night. It simply delays the stagger damage, rather than mitigate it under any form.
Still, I love the concept as it allows you for much better Purifying Brews which is the real mitigation of the BrewMaster.

Not only you will be taking ~15% damage on each attack for 6 seconds ( 2 brews), but then you will mitigate a higher amount ( 50% of 200k i.e., rathern than 50% of 100k) ... very solid plays and rewards skill

[Arazen]

I was also wondering about that, but I couldn't find too much interesting info, so I just did the theory-crafting myself.


Imagine, you get hit for tons of damage "TOD".

Brewmaster #1 uses BoC + Ironskin Brew and then he uses Purifying Brew
Brewmaster #2 uses 2x Purifying Brew

To make it easier to calculate, we're going to assume that brews are a) a free action and b) have no inner cooldown that prevents spamming. Note, that this benefits Brewmaster #2 and doesn't really affect Brewmaster #1.

BRM #1 takes 0.25*TOD immediately and staggers 0.75*TOD (35% Stagger baseline + 40% from Ironskin Brew). Purifying Brew heals for 0.375*TOD.
As a result, BRM #1 mitigates a total of 37.5% of TOD

BRM #2 takes 0.65*TOD right away and staggers 0.35*TOD (35% Stagger baseline). Purifying Brew #1 heals for 0.175*TOD and Purifying Brew #2 heals for 0.0875*TOD.
As a result, BRM #2 mitigates a total of 26.25% of TOD

Since we didn't actually put a number in for "tons of damage", this rule applies to any value. You will always mitigate more damage if you use Ironskin Brew followed by Purifying Brew.

Why is that?
Purifying Brew heals for 100% of its value (cptn obvious alert), but makes your next Purifying Brew heal for only 50%.
Ironskin Brew heals for nothing, but makes your next Purifying Brew heal for 214.29%.

214.29% is already more than 100% + 50%.

On a side note, Ironskin Brew's healing increase on Purifying Brew stacks. So, in order to mitigate the highest amount of damage, you basically use BoC + Ironskin, wait 3s for the buff to almost drop, expand it with another BoC + Ironskin, wait another 3s and then use Purifying Brew for ridiculous value.

If you use this combo on a heavy-hitting pull, you are basically reducing damage taken by 75% for 6s. If you are running Light Brewing you can increase that to 9s and make Purifying Brew even more godlike.

As a Brewmaster you have a lot more control than other classes over how much damage you take. If you use the combo above, you will mitigate the highest amount of damage possible. But here's the catch: As soon as your Brew charges run out, you are basically made of paper. You will in fact take so much damage, that your healer won't be able to keep you up. What makes Brewmaster more punishing than the other tank classes is the lack of passive mitigation! Other tank classes have longer cooldowns, but they take far less damage while they have nothing up.

Mastering Brewmaster means to anticipate incoming damage in order to make your health bar as smooth as possible to heal. If you play perfectly, your healer won't even notice if you suddenly start taking more damage. I can really feel the themes of "balance" and "restraint" in monk.

[Deleted]

While it is true that ISB + PB does more than PB x2 theese Numbers are a bit missleading.

let us consider you take One TOD per second and have a window of 6 seconds (you were tanking the boss before that)
So when the "Sim" starts your staggered Damage is 10 * TOD * 0.35 = 3.5 TODs (making you bleed out 35% TOD/s and 35% TOD/s go into stagger => balance)
If you use PB x2 then you would use one at 0 seconds and the other at 6.
the first one gets 3.5 TODs / 2 = 1.75 TODs, leaving 1.75 TODs in the Dot, which will ramp up to about 2.41 TODs after 6 seconds (have to trust me here, its a google docs sim).
So your second PB clears 1.21 TODs for a total of 2.96 TODs from 2 Brews.

If you use ISB and then PB 6 seconds later, the Stagger while again start at 3.5 TODs and ramp up to ~5 TODs, making the purify clear 2.5 TODs which is actually less. However this is due to the expactation that you start with a stagger balance which will rarely ever be the case. In fact you can only reach stagger balance with BoC -> ISB or with a short period of time where the boss does more damage. This favours the PB x2 strongly.

Btw Boc->ISB -> PB 6 sec later results in a ramp up to 5.71 TODs making the Purify clear 2.855 TODs which comes close even in this unrealistic scenario.


You do however also have to consider that 2xPB leaves you with a way smaller stagger dot (1.21 TODs left in stagger) than the ISB variant with 2.5 TODs left in the dot. This damage is considered in the comparison but my point is that you will have more to worry about later, it somehow delays the problem.

Aaaaaand i just realized all assumptions i made above from the spritesheet sim were done with Legendary +3s stagger ring :/

That beeing said IISB (Improved ISB) is still really strong. If you keep a rotation of ISB - 3 sec - PB - 4.5 sec you would remove 33% of damage taken via PB for 2 brews every 7.5 sec. This is not doable forever but it gives some kind of direction aka 2 Charges = 33% DR over 7.5 seconds.

Disclaimer: all numbers are completly theoretical and assume that the boss hits for the exact same ammount every second without dodges. And like I said stagger balance should not be reached in a normal scenario so this is the worst case (meaning it favours PB x2)