Brewmaster performance in Mythics

[Blaek]

Quick question regarding Monks,

My main is a Resto Shaman, and I've cleared each Mythic dungeon this week. I noticed I have not seen one BM Monk tank (Not any in Heroics either), which I was hoping so because my Alt is a Monk. Can someone let me know how they are performing? I know in Beta they projected to be decent, but I don't have any first-hand experience.

Also, is it worth leveling as BM or should I just go WW?
Thanks

[Deleted]

first of all, brewmaster is probably the hardest tanks of all, that's why you will get many different answers, ranging from "it was pretty easy" to "it was impossible to do any mythic dungeons even though im 835+".

For me, i did every mythic dungeon with a guild group and we didn't wipe a single time in any mythic and we were all between ilvl 815 to 825. The healer was a druid and i never felt like i was in danger at any point. So yeah, in my opinion brewmaster are doing very well in mythic dungeons but i am 100% sure you will get different answers from other people.

[gdorneles]

It's been awesome, really.
At first i had very lol ilvl (805 or so) and my stagger would go crazy, but now that i got some pretty good itens my runs are verys smooth.
I only wipe when someone pulls a whole lot of trash or fuck up in important mechanics, but it's really rare tho.
But like Itsab11 said, there are monks out there who have no ideia what they're doing and they're going to shit on the class for sure.

[Steelangel]

I found that brewmaster tanking anywhere was stupidly hard since 7.0.3, but then again I also had gotten used to the particular playstyle from WoD (after having to relearn a bunch since Mists). I don't push Mythic Raids, so I don't much use "how to play" guides. I'd rather figure it out for myself, and what I feel comfortable with.

I mapped Ironskin Brew to the same key I had Guard mapped to, figuring that it would be the same idea as an "oh shit" button. It seemed to work ok when I was tanking in Hellfire. At that point, however, the whole thing was gimped enough that I wasn't nearly taking as much damage as I would have normally, and our healers were not letting me drop below 80%.

Then Legion hits. Ouch. I had literally been playing BM wrong.

Once I remapped Expel Harm to the same key I had Guard mapped to, my muscle memory is making me a better tank. Ironskin Brew is NOT an "oh shit" button. It's the same thing as Elusive Brew was; something you tap when you need a hand with mitigation, not an instant lifesaver.

I have a feeling a lot of monks are feeling the same way. I wouldn't be surprised if they add in a Guard-like ability soon though. As tanks, we're not competitive vs. Warriors' Ignore-Incoming-Damage-lol button.

[madmossy]

snip.

We don't lack mitigation as such, we do lack utility though and for the "most mobile" tank, we seem to be out classed by several others, in saying that once we get some of our higher up traits unlocked (30% move speed when chugging brews) then our mobility will shine.

Ignore Pain though is likely to be "looked" at in future, it is the best mitigation of all the tanks without question. 90% reduction in ALL damage with no CD. By comparison I got a trinket earlier today on my BRM that provides me with a 550k absorb shield on 1 min cool down, when I use it my health barely budges at all vs trash packs in mythic, now imagine that shield on a warrior but 4 times bigger.

[Ghier]

You aren't seeing Brewmasters, because there is literally no reason to play one when Warrior, DK, Druid, and Pally are so much better. I think the current state of stagger is just poor mitigation. Purifying Brew only reduces 50% of stagger and it shares stacks with Ironskin Brew. The stagger DoT is 10 seconds, so if you dont clear it quickly it really isn't even mitigation. You will see people talk about staying at ~35% health to take advantage of a bugged artifact trait, but that really tells you most of what you need to know; things must be pretty bad if people are relying on crap like that.

[Deleted]

I did all mythics with around 820 ilvl and a crappy comp (arms+arms+fire+Rdruid). I did not abuse corners just to see how I would do (with corners I pretty much don't need a healer at all). We wiped one time due to a unintentional tripple pull in Vault of the Wardens when neither of me or druid had cooldowns. Other then that it was really smooth sailing all the way with me being able to pull 2 packs at a time most of the pulls.

[Deleted]

Well the answer isn't simple.
I remember a lot of hardcore BM players being pretty bummed out about the changes to the spec and rerolling to other more interesting specs.
Also, monk overall is the least played class, so you are bound to bump to less monks overall.
Right now, Windwalker just do so much better than other classes in Mythic dungeons that BM are running as dps to make the dungs smoother.
And the last one is that there is too much DH's, everyone and his mother is trying out the new class, you don't have to lvl it from 1, everyone one can play one and the gameplay is so easy, so they push out other tanking classes.

To be honest, thinking about it, I only met one BM in heroics/mythics, and I run a lot of dungs these days.
The last reason might be the complexity of the spec, I actually tried tanking one Mythic myself and didn't register any hardship, but a lot of less skilled players might be least likely to pick up a hard spec, especially when they can just roll a DH.

[Tech614]

Brewmaster is less complicated then it is simply not fun. It's actually pretty strong for survival in 5 mans, easily top 2 even but the play style is dull and you lack any form of real utility along with your aoe dps being absolute garbage compared to Prot Pal and DH(who I think are actually the 2 worst tanks mitigation wise but they make up for it with insane utility, aoe dps and a much more fluid play style).

[Ray3andrei]

You aren't seeing Brewmasters, because there is literally no reason to play one when Warrior, DK, Druid, and Pally are so much better. I think the current state of stagger is just poor mitigation. Purifying Brew only reduces 50% of stagger and it shares stacks with Ironskin Brew. The stagger DoT is 10 seconds, so if you dont clear it quickly it really isn't even mitigation. You will see people talk about staying at ~35% health to take advantage of a bugged artifact trait, but that really tells you most of what you need to know; things must be pretty bad if people are relying on crap like that.

Bugged? Pretty sure it's intended.

[Deleted]

So, I did mythics with my guild last night. I wouldn't say i was a great brew master, but the dungeons from a tanking point were very easy. We had no problems with healing me and no problems with even pulling a bit too much. We did wipe but that was due to not knowing tactics. We were running with a off spec holy priest (Main Shadow) two hunters and a shaman. I didn't feel squishy at all.

[Deleted]

I did Mythics last evening. I've got to say that Brewmaster is just an offspecc for me, I main Windwalker. We managed to run the dungeon without a wipe, but it was really hard for me to stay alive. I tried to keep up ISB, but failed when I needed to purify my yellow-red stagger. In result, I had no more ISB left and the mobs just hit me unmitigated, because there was nothing I could do against till I had a new charge of my brews. I had to spend the new charge directly for purifying brew, because meanwhile my stagger became red.
I felt really helpless and all I could do was praying that the healer managed to keep me alive.
That was definitly the last time for me to tank as a Brewmaster in Legion

[Jaigar]

I've been offspec BrM tanking the last couple days (11 pts in weapon) and its pretty solid. Damage is decent, and i do get trucked on sometimesbut often a healing elixir use is enough with ironskin to keep me from falling too low too quickly. Hell, I tanked mythic darkheart with 4 artifact pts and had a couple trash wipes to multiple packs, but overall it was decent. I was having an issue with breath of fire hitting. Sometimes it just wont hit.

[Kedemel]

I did Mythics last evening. I've got to say that Brewmaster is just an offspecc for me, I main Windwalker. We managed to run the dungeon without a wipe, but it was really hard for me to stay alive. I tried to keep up ISB, but failed when I needed to purify my yellow-red stagger. In result, I had no more ISB left and the mobs just hit me unmitigated, because there was nothing I could do against till I had a new charge of my brews. I had to spend the new charge directly for purifying brew, because meanwhile my stagger became red.
I felt really helpless and all I could do was praying that the healer managed to keep me alive.
That was definitly the last time for me to tank as a Brewmaster in Legion

IIRC, you shouldn't be "trying to keep ISB up" anymore than a Paladin should try to keep Shield of Righteous up. You should never run out of stacks of brews because they aren't meant to be spammed and this is where a lot of nuance comes with tanking as a Brewmaster. You really need to pay attention - you can't slap up an absorb and snooze through packs of mobs. Instead, you need to understand when massive amounts of damage is going to come in and mitigate accordingly. Keep in mind Stagger is passive mitigation as is, so you don't need constantly be hitting something.

[Deleted]

Maybe the missing artifact trait is the key (the one which spawns an orb below 35% health)? I only have 3 traits unlocked.

[gdorneles]

Brewmaster is less complicated then it is simply not fun. It's actually pretty strong for survival in 5 mans, easily top 2 even but the play style is dull and you lack any form of real utility along with your aoe dps being absolute garbage compared to Prot Pal and DH(who I think are actually the 2 worst tanks mitigation wise but they make up for it with insane utility, aoe dps and a much more fluid play style).

I think funwise is more of a personal thing, I find the brewmaster as being the most fun of all tanks, and I played all of them on normals at least.
Utility is a bit of a problem tho, and it's gonna bite us in the ass when mythic+ comes.
Besides that, BrM is perfectly okay, it does it's job and it's easier to heal than some other tanks, so that's worth something.

- - - Updated - - -

Brewmaster is less complicated then it is simply not fun. It's actually pretty strong for survival in 5 mans, easily top 2 even but the play style is dull and you lack any form of real utility along with your aoe dps being absolute garbage compared to Prot Pal and DH(who I think are actually the 2 worst tanks mitigation wise but they make up for it with insane utility, aoe dps and a much more fluid play style).

I think funwise is more of a personal thing, I find the brewmaster as being the most fun of all tanks, and I played all of them on normals at least.
Utility is a bit of a problem tho, and it's gonna bite us in the ass when mythic+ comes.
Besides that, BrM is perfectly okay, it does it's job and it's easier to heal than some other tanks, so that's worth something.

[Gorlab]

You aren't seeing Brewmasters, because there is literally no reason to play one when Warrior, DK, Druid, and Pally are so much better. ...

Don't be ridiculous, I'm fine with you saying druid and dk are better. I am even ok with the warrior comment because of how OP ignore pain is pre-raids...but dk and pally are trash compared to Brewmaster. I believe that the problem is the spec is difficult to play well first and second there is still reams of misinformation about the spec.

[nuclayer]

I did Mythics last evening. I've got to say that Brewmaster is just an offspecc for me, I main Windwalker. We managed to run the dungeon without a wipe, but it was really hard for me to stay alive. I tried to keep up ISB, but failed when I needed to purify my yellow-red stagger. In result, I had no more ISB left and the mobs just hit me unmitigated, because there was nothing I could do against till I had a new charge of my brews. I had to spend the new charge directly for purifying brew, because meanwhile my stagger became red.
I felt really helpless and all I could do was praying that the healer managed to keep me alive.
That was definitly the last time for me to tank as a Brewmaster in Legion

Make sure you are just not spamming ISB. Use it if you are capped, low on health, or getting ready to take a big hit. There is no reason to keep ISB up all the time. You should be thinking about purifying instead. You naturally stagger 35% of all damage taken without talents or even 45% with High Tolerance. Try to save at least 2 charges at all times. I see a lot of Brewmasters running around using BlackOut Combo, which is not really the best choice unless you are very skilled at using it properly or enjoy that type of playstyle.

[Deleted]

IIRC, you shouldn't be "trying to keep ISB up" anymore than a Paladin should try to keep Shield of Righteous up. You should never run out of stacks of brews because they aren't meant to be spammed and this is where a lot of nuance comes with tanking as a Brewmaster. You really need to pay attention - you can't slap up an absorb and snooze through packs of mobs. Instead, you need to understand when massive amounts of damage is going to come in and mitigate accordingly. Keep in mind Stagger is passive mitigation as is, so you don't need constantly be hitting something.

No you shouldn't try, you NEED to have it up 100% of the time if you dont want to die. If you gear for haste and use BoC properly then stacks should really not be a big issue. The way to play BRM properly atm from my own testing is to use ISB as passive mitigation and then purify with remaining stacks as active mitigation. That combined with proper usage of BoC makes us pretty solid and almost stupid if you also have a good corner to stand in. Last time I heard the other classes couldn't tank 2 packs at the same time with no healer in mythics.

[Tech614]

Last time I heard the other classes couldn't tank 2 packs at the same time with no healer in mythics.

Prot War, Prot Pal and Vegeance all can quite easily. The later 2 will also kill said 2 packs much faster then brewmaster. Not that I disagree that brewmasters are hard to kill- they are but judging anything based off current mythics means nothing. They where AoE fests the second we hit max level.