Are Brewmasters Really This Underplayed?

[PizzaSHARK]

RJW can't be made baseline for BrM only - you would sooner see a return of SCK. I think what BrM is experiencing is a lack of polish from Blizzard, you could even say the monk class in general. When MoP launched monks really weren't complete from a balancing/tuning perspective, in some cases mechanically short-changed, and importantly for the current game - aesthetically.

I'm talking about animations and spell effects and as basically every other class had their aesthetics improved monks got very little - perhaps the main thing we got is the special wielding position for the BrM relic. Otherwise there is nothing really new and our aesthetics are "old world"

Even our talent tree is "old world" in comparison to the rest of the classes. Simple case of monks receiving a minimal (I would say overall below minimal) redesign. Pretty sure Blizzard would be aware of this and monks will probably receive one of the larger overhauls next expansion but we can't count on it. If you love this class you have to be vocal about your dissatisfaction. Your best way of making a stand is a wallet vote and unsubscribing and citing monk shortcomings as the reason. Not going to be a viable option for many so that leaves twitter, official forums and in game feedback service.

I'm quickly reaching that point. I leveled my Monk from lvl 1 to see how the Legion leveling experience was (fucking terrible), and invested plenty of time doing archaeology, fishing, and cooking along the way when I didn't want to grind more XP. I don't really want to shelve him. But I picked Monk specifically because it was different from the plateboys I've always played in the past, and because it was one of the classes that can do all three roles - something that I think is very appealing due to how many things are still character specific. If I got bored of tanking, I could heal, and if I got bored of healing, I could dps, and if I got bored of dps...

But Brewmaster is just so BAD. It takes the hits fine, sure, whatever, but it's just not fun to play. I have to be perfect with how I use my brews or 10 seconds later I'm fucked and there's nothing the healer can do. At least a Paladin knows immediately when they fuck up, because they only have one "resource" (SotR charges) to keep track of. Brews have two different abilities that share a resource and two abilities that need to be woven into the rotation (which frequently features two abilities coming off cooldown at the same time!) as often as possible to continue to replenish those charges... while Paladins only have one (Judgement.) It's probably not an exaggeration to say that a Brewmaster is literally twice as hard to play as a Paladin, but for equivocal results.

Pallies and even fucking warriors can just faceroll through old content, yet a lvl 110 Brewmaster gets the shit kicked out of him in 10 man normal warlords raids because if you fuck up and use Expel Harm too soon and it doesn't heal you back above that 35% HP mark to proc Obstinate Determination (literally the only reason we can function as tanks, and it's not even a gold trait) then you're fucked because useless godawful Effuse certainly won't help you. I'm probably just going to take Effuse off my action bar, it's that bad.

I'm trying to get the dev team's attention with periodic questions on twitter but the fact that Brewmaster wasn't mentioned at all during the Q&A, hasn't been mentioned in 7.1 stuff, and hasn't received any sort of hotfix attention (beyond a Stagger buff which did fuck all for us when we really needed more armor or more health or more DPS or something.)

I'm really only continuing to play at this point because my friends are playing, but even that won't be enough to keep me going for much longer if they don't get their shit together. I don't think people are asking major changes, most of the necessary kinds of changes we need would already fall within precedent set with previous hotfixes, and the few that won't could easily be compiled with 7.1. But complete silence from that area makes me worry that they're ignoring the issues or - even worse - don't think the issues are issues. I mean, they admitted on live camera that they were wrong about Fury - this "new" team is showing themselves to be pretty great at their jobs, so maybe they should also wonder if they're wrong about Brewmaster being okay?

I mean, how the fuck else are you going to explain the spec being so rare? It's rarer than the next rarest class-spec by at least one order of magnitude!

[MrTharne]

It takes the hits fine, sure, whatever, but it's just not fun to play.

I mean, how the fuck else are you going to explain the spec being so rare? It's rarer than the next rarest class-spec by at least one order of magnitude!

First is : opinions.
Second is : go tell that to Frost Mages or SV Hunters.

[PizzaSHARK]

First is : opinions.
Second is : go tell that to Frost Mages or SV Hunters.

Opinions that are shared by the vast majority of the player base, yes.

[Deleted]

Opinions that are shared by the vast majority of the player base, yes.

I'm not sure but I think he's merely generalizing how "fun" is perceived as opinions, although I do share the same concern of BrM lacking on what I would refer to as "impact".

Regarding the second point, I don't get his reference to SV or frost mages. Mage specs has always rotated around their fotm moments in PvE or PvP (although rarely weak) and SV hunters being a melee spec on a class thats been ranged since its creation, no wonder people keep a certain "distance" (lol) to them.

My personal experience on how "rare" BrM is that Monks in general just haven't been a hit since they were introduced. Like the entire class with the comical-fat panda & Chinese culture approach doesn't seem to catch most peoples interest.. and we're the only expansion-introduced class that has to level from scratch. Those two factor in mind + "seniority" in consideration and its no wonder BrM particular isn't seen often. Aside from MoP, we only saw a small spike in them during WoD after our buffs went through the roof. I hardly doubt many stayed around the Monk/BrM as an interest in it as a whole rather than just taking advantage of how easy it was to play it.
The mechanical changes and how "weak" it "feels" doesn't help us ofc even if we can be pretty solid if fully utilized. Atm I feel most annoyed with BrM when doing solo stuff such as WQ, mostly wandering around at sub 40% hp because OD is what makes it barely possible to do anything without a healer on you.. Damage is low too but I imagine most tank being that way? Can anyone fill me in here as the only other tank I've played recently is Blood DK.

[MrTharne]

Regarding the second point, I don't get his reference to SV or frost mages. Mage specs has always rotated around their fotm moments in PvE or PvP (although rarely weak) and SV hunters being a melee spec on a class thats been ranged since its creation, no wonder people keep a certain "distance" (lol) to them.

He said "It's rarer than the next rarest class-spec by at least one order of magnitude!" but Frost Mages / SV Hunter if we look at number of parses in warcraftlogs are (even if you combine their numbers) a lot less than BrM Monk. So what he said his false since he didn't specify any restriction has to what "class-spec" combo could be discussed and the truth is : Frost and SV are the "rarest class-spec by at least one order of magnitude!" and fotm is no excuse else I could also say : "well, BrM is just not fotm".

[Volitar]

I mean Brew master feels like shit to play and is worse than every other tank in almost every regard. Not really surprising.