The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[The Madgod]

You should add that the inscription-crafted staves are BoA, so you can craft them on an alt.

Done and done, though personally I don't think it matters all that much. In order to send it over, you need to level another toon to 90, level their inscription to cap, and then get the mats necessary, as well as level another two (minimum) professions for your monk. Having the ability to make the staff on the toon that will be using it is a major decrease in time spent making it, and therefore, is more time for you to gather gear from other sources.

[Protean]

Done and done, though personally I don't think it matters all that much. In order to send it over, you need to level another toon to 90, level their inscription to cap, and then get the mats necessary, as well as level another two (minimum) professions for your monk. Having the ability to make the staff on the toon that will be using it is a major decrease in time spent making it, and therefore, is more time for you to gather gear from other sources.

True, but you stated the best profession is alchemy, and from my understanding engineering is second best (or close-ish). So, to me, it isn't worth dropping "the best" profs just for a staff. For those who already had plans to level inscription on another toon for gold related reasons, it seems like a reasonable detail that could save them some time and net them a staff.

[The Madgod]

True, but you stated the best profession is alchemy, and from my understanding engineering is second best (or close-ish). So, to me, it isn't worth dropping "the best" profs just for a staff. For those who already had plans to level inscription on another toon for gold related reasons, it seems like a reasonable detail that could save them some time and net them a staff.

Actually, engineering is not second best. Blacksmithing is. Engineering's okay, but its not amazing.

And it's certainly true, but still. We have a couple days left, that's plenty of time to get your monk effectively on par with any other 525 scribe, and being able to do it just on ONE toon will be more effective. Sure, if you want to min-max professions, it'll be better to get the staff on another toon, but if you want to min-max early expansion gearing, it's much better to get the staff on your monk. Once you're raid-worthy, you won't need to run as many dungeons, and THEN you can switch over to a more desirable profession without it negatively influencing how quickly you gear your brewmaster. Either way is arguably fine, I just feel it's more efficient overall (though certainly more expensive!) to level inscription purely for the staff, then switch to a better profession when you're less swamped with gearing up.

[Deleted]

The staff wil require at least 20 days to be available to craft, as scrolls of wisdom are daily locked to 1 (19 if you can craft 2 the first day) !! So in comparaison 2 raid lockout and 1 LFR lockout. Might worth it if you're not raiding before third week of raid opening.

[seigert]

Actually, engineering is not second best. Blacksmithing is. Engineering's okay, but its not amazing.

I'm not sure that I do understand correctly math beneath 'alchemy is the best profession'.

In comparison with my beloved engineering it's basically +2750 armor (mantid elixir) versus +1320 (1k from flask and 1920/6=320 from synapse strings mk2) agility. Is damage reduction from armor bigger?

[The Madgod]

I'm not sure that I do understand correctly math beneath 'alchemy is the best profession'.

In comparison with my beloved engineering it's basically +2750 armor (mantid elixir) versus +1320 (1k from flask and 1920/6=320 from synapse strings mk2) agility. Is damage reduction from armor bigger?

It's not just the armor elixir, it's also the battle elixir, which can help you get to your hit / expertise caps or continue pushing higher haste / crit percentages. So in combination, they'll beat out the flask.

[Deleted]

After reading your guide I'm going for Alchemy + Inscription. I know Blacksmithing is better but the mats required are a pain in the ass while Inscription is easy to lvl.

[SurrealNight]

Question about what happens when a monk misses an attack.
1) What happens if an Energy based attack misses? Does a CD power still go on CD, what (if any) energy is refunded?
2) What happens if a Chi based attack misses? Does a CD power still go on CD, what (if any) Chi is refunded?

I'm a huge fan of castsequence macro's to save bar space on the easy to reach stuff but missing a power you then need to hit again can really mess those up. Couple examples I was considering:

/castsequence reset=30 Guard, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw
/castsequence reset=6 Blackout Kick, Jab, Jab

The Guard macro seems fine since it can't miss and you can put as many tiger paw repeats as you need for a 30 second period but if BK can miss and doesn't go on CD you'd want to use it again.

[The Madgod]

After reading your guide I'm going for Alchemy + Inscription. I know Blacksmithing is better but the mats required are a pain in the ass while Inscription is easy to lvl.

Yeah, basically just go with what you want. Min-maxing professions is all well and good, but it's not going to be a large difference. I'm going for BS / Inscription just because I don't have those two yet, and they're both completely viable.

Question about what happens when a monk misses an attack.
1) What happens if an Energy based attack misses? Does a CD power still go on CD, what (if any) energy is refunded?
2) What happens if a Chi based attack misses? Does a CD power still go on CD, what (if any) Chi is refunded?

I'm a huge fan of castsequence macro's to save bar space on the easy to reach stuff but missing a power you then need to hit again can really mess those up. Couple examples I was considering:

/castsequence reset=30 Guard, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw
/castsequence reset=6 Blackout Kick, Jab, Jab

The Guard macro seems fine since it can't miss and you can put as many tiger paw repeats as you need for a 30 second period but if BK can miss and doesn't go on CD you'd want to use it again.

If an energy-based attack misses you do get a refund of energy, but it isn't a full refund. The number was somewhere on either this guide or the discussion thread on elitistjerks... I think it's somewhere around the ballpark of 30-36 energy? The main point is that you do get a penalty if you miss with your chi generators. Abilities that use chi (basically, just BoK... everything else is a heal / self-targeting ability) do not refund chi.

And I will admit that I am no expert on cast sequence macros, but that guard one seems... meh, to be honest. Since the Tiger Palm buff lasts 30 seconds, you should want to spread out the TP's to points where chi generation is a bit low. Using them all at once is 3 GCD's worth of no active mitigation from things that would go before Guard (like the parry from Shuffle or dodge via Elusive Brew).

[SurrealNight]

And I will admit that I am no expert on cast sequence macros, but that guard one seems... meh, to be honest. Since the Tiger Palm buff lasts 30 seconds, you should want to spread out the TP's to points where chi generation is a bit low. Using them all at once is 3 GCD's worth of no active mitigation from things that would go before Guard (like the parry from Shuffle or dodge via Elusive Brew).

The BK one seems worthless unless you are expertise hard capped then Getting a BK parry would result in the macro hiding it for 6 seconds but it wouldn't be active. Or you would need another spot for BK for when you did miss and need to retry.

I think you misunderstand the Guard one. The macro would display Guard and once you used it the Tiger Palm ability would be displayed for 30 seconds (giving you time to use it 3x for max buff). The idea is to let Guard + Tiger Palm share the same hotkey.

I used these heavily on my DK to save bar space. IT+PS to put up dots, Outbreak+Pestilence, Raise Ghoul+Death Pact all shared the same hotkey.

[The Madgod]

The BK one seems worthless unless you are expertise hard capped then Getting a BK parry would result in the macro hiding it for 6 seconds but it wouldn't be active. Or you would need another spot for BK for when you did miss and need to retry.

I think you misunderstand the Guard one. The macro would display Guard and once you used it the Tiger Palm ability would be displayed for 30 seconds (giving you time to use it 3x for max buff). The idea is to let Guard + Tiger Palm share the same hotkey.

Ahh, okay. Like I said, I am not an expert on cast sequence macros. To be honest I thought was something to chain abilities... At any rate..

Technically speaking, if you want to max out your efficiency, getting hard capped expertise and learning to use your Gift of the Ox healing orbs is the way to go, so yeah. I guess your macro won't be as good until then, but it's certainly something you can use once you get all your raiding gear and the like.

[SurrealNight]

Does missing put abilities like BK and Keg Smash on CD? Don't think that was clarified.

[The Madgod]

Does missing put abilities like BK and Keg Smash on CD? Don't think that was clarified.

I do not believe so, though I can check quite easily in a second.

EDIT: yeah they don't put abilities on CD. They do if they're dodged or parried though.

[SurrealNight]

yeah they don't put abilities on CD. They do if they're dodged or parried though.

In that case the BoK macro works fine assuming you always stay at hit cap. Getting dodge/parried will result in the loss of Chi and the ability to go on it's 6 sec CD so might as well display Jab while you wait for it to come off CD. So hitting the expertise hard cap will affect your up time but not really your rotation as you won't be able to respam parried abilities anyways.

That also means I can display something for Keg Smash while it's on CD, maybe Jab or Breath of Fire. Time to make a bunch of macro's tonight on my roguesoontobemonk placeholder =P

[Deleted]

Does anyone have a working macro for using Provoke on Statue without losing your primary target. Last time I tried the best I could manage was a

/target Black Ox Statue
/cast Provoke
/targetlasttarget

[Djolisimo]

Thanks a lot for this awesome guide, as I plan on leveling Brewmaster I will refer to your guide often.

[SurrealNight]

Does anyone have a working macro for using Provoke on Statue without losing your primary target. Last time I tried the best I could manage was a

/target Black Ox Statue
/cast Provoke
/targetlasttarget

Is it considered a pet of the Monk? if so I'm thinking this might work?
/cast [@Pet:Black Ox Statue] Provoke
or would simple
/cast [@Black Ox statue] Provoke
do the trick?

[Kamadenhu]

Just as an FYI for your macros, blackout kick has no cool down. It applies six seconds worth of shuffle, but based on the macro you have there, you'd never be able to stack more.
The duration for Shuffle stacks with subsequent BoKs.

[SurrealNight]

Just as an FYI for your macros, blackout kick has no cool down. It applies six seconds worth of shuffle, but based on the macro you have there, you'd never be able to stack more.
The duration for Shuffle stacks with subsequent BoKs.

Didn't know it stacks (would be nice if at least one tooltip said so).
I'd probably link Keg Smash+Jab together and leave BoK on it's own hotkey.

[r3d3mpt10n]

It does stack, this means that it could potentially make it easier on our rotation i'd imagine, so we dont have to refresh it every 6 secs, meaning if gives us a little more leighway to use other abilities too, which is nice..

I was just looking at our glyphs, and i don't know if its been asked or answered at all yet... but does Glyph of Enduring Spheres work on out Healing Spheres procced from Gift of the Ox?

I notice that The Madgod hasn't included it as a glyph, but if it does increase the time of our procced Healing Spheres, i reckon it'd be a good Glyph for BrM.