The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Vasilisa]

This week we are going to start doing hc modes. Our raid leader told us to get ready for Jin'rok (obviously) and Ji'kun. Would any of you have any brewmaster-specific tips for these fights?

[Sorrior]

So here is another question.

I'm trying a mastery build as i said for my Brewmaster while aiming for expertise cap.

Am i right in guessing this is a DPS loss but a survivability boost?


Also i find this build is quite nice in that it gives me even mild leeway to get used to using my skills as active mitigation instead of just spamming them....I really wish there was a non raid place to practice tanking...

[Kisho]

So here is another question.

I'm trying a mastery build as i said for my Brewmaster while aiming for expertise cap.

Am i right in guessing this is a DPS loss but a survivability boost?

It's a DPS loss for a burst damage survivability boost. Subtle difference. If you're stacking mastery (assuming instead of crit/haste), then overall you're taking more damage but smoothing out the burst damage, making you easier to heal (but requiring more heals overall). If you're having issues with burst damage then mastery will help, and this is also why mastery is better in 25 mans (stuff hits harder, thus more burst damage). In 10 mans, mastery generally isn't required, but YMMV.

Also i find this build is quite nice in that it gives me even mild leeway to get used to using my skills as active mitigation instead of just spamming them....I really wish there was a non raid place to practice tanking...

Major Nanners, the rare in Vale of Eternal Blossoms, spawns with a huge group of elites. These elites have a lot of HP and can be quite damaging, but it's doable to kill them all in a single pull solo. If you pull them all, it can be nice training for learning to keep yourself alive while keeping mitigation active, using self heals, using your GotO orbs, avoiding crap (Major Nanners' banana throw, the jumping around shiz, etc.), and doing enough DPS to kill them before they kill you.

Alternatively, challenge modes will teach you a lot about your class and how to optimise for various situations.

[Deleted]

This week we are going to start doing hc modes. Our raid leader told us to get ready for Jin'rok (obviously) and Ji'kun. Would any of you have any brewmaster-specific tips for these fights?

For Jin'rokh

There will be moments when you have to tank the boss with the static wounds debuff still on you. Make sure you have EB up for those moments to avoid a lot of raid damage. I'd take Diffuse Magic and glyph of ZenMed to make storm phases easier on yourself. Make sure you have a guard ready when you get a Static Burst (I think that's what it's called) in the pool phase. It'll be ready then for the end of the storm phase. Most of our tank deaths happened at the end of the storm phase when he starts meleeing the tanks but there are still balls flying around. So make sure you have enough EB stacks ready and this will be the best moment to use FortBrew aswell. When off-tanking here just go in the pool but keep an eye on your threat. If your co-tank has problems with agro it's probably a good idea to switch to tiger stance while standing in the pool.

[siccora]

This week we are going to start doing hc modes. Our raid leader told us to get ready for Jin'rok (obviously) and Ji'kun. Would any of you have any brewmaster-specific tips for these fights?

ok first will be jin'rok. straight fight. put in diffuse magic glyphe when you have to dodge the lightningballs. a little backup-cd comes in handy. i like to put in the retreat glyphe so i can build up shuffle and doing insane dps in the pool, while not worry about aggro. break your stun with the brew after he throws you.

so now the fungame: ji'kun.
from my perspektiv. i was the first tank in the nest and needed to tank on big add in one upper nest. the add does a cleave, so tank it away from the other nest group. you don't need the feed buff so you can fly up first and tank that big one.
now there will be situations where you maybe have to soak up 3 rakes. here is a little tip i found out. you can use zen med while he is spinning around and throwing his feathers (don't know the name of the ability now) and right after that he will hit you with a talon rake. zen med will soak that one too. so after he spinns 2 seconds, you pop zen med and wait until he hits you with the rake. (you can only use that combo twice in that fight, because there are only 4 situations where he is spinning and talon rake right after) use dampen harm on other rakes. for the windphase you can go with tigers lust just in case the other tank is not in range and has no speed buffs available. you can teleport to the boss. the rest is coordination. good luck.

[Sorrior]

It's a DPS loss for a burst damage survivability boost. Subtle difference. If you're stacking mastery (assuming instead of crit/haste), then overall you're taking more damage but smoothing out the burst damage, making you easier to heal (but requiring more heals overall). If you're having issues with burst damage then mastery will help, and this is also why mastery is better in 25 mans (stuff hits harder, thus more burst damage). In 10 mans, mastery generally isn't required, but YMMV.



Major Nanners, the rare in Vale of Eternal Blossoms, spawns with a huge group of elites. These elites have a lot of HP and can be quite damaging, but it's doable to kill them all in a single pull solo. If you pull them all, it can be nice training for learning to keep yourself alive while keeping mitigation active, using self heals, using your GotO orbs, avoiding crap (Major Nanners' banana throw, the jumping around shiz, etc.), and doing enough DPS to kill them before they kill you.

Alternatively, challenge modes will teach you a lot about your class and how to optimise for various situations.

Thanks and kinda what i figured.

As for Nanners thanks alot. Yeah my issue isn't the irbs(been strafe grabbing those for awhile) more CD timing and getting used to popping certain skills at certain times.

Like say Elusive brew do i try to keep it on permanently or should i wait for spike damage same for Guard.


I get that dampen harm i should use for damage spikes as well as Fortifying brew. TBH my guild rebuilding so i'm trying to get alot better before we start fully raiding even if it is just normal 10 mans...Will still be new to alot of us.

---------- Post added 2013-05-13 at 12:33 PM ----------

For Jin'rokh

There will be moments when you have to tank the boss with the static wounds debuff still on you. Make sure you have EB up for those moments to avoid a lot of raid damage. I'd take Diffuse Magic and glyph of ZenMed to make storm phases easier on yourself. Make sure you have a guard ready when you get a Static Burst (I think that's what it's called) in the pool phase. It'll be ready then for the end of the storm phase. Most of our tank deaths happened at the end of the storm phase when he starts meleeing the tanks but there are still balls flying around. So make sure you have enough EB stacks ready and this will be the best moment to use FortBrew aswell. When off-tanking here just go in the pool but keep an eye on your threat. If your co-tank has problems with agro it's probably a good idea to switch to tiger stance while standing in the pool.

Annnd questions answered LOL.

[Biggety]

As for Nanners thanks alot. Yeah my issue isn't the irbs(been strafe grabbing those for awhile) more CD timing and getting used to popping certain skills at certain times.

Like say Elusive brew do i try to keep it on permanently or should i wait for spike damage same for Guard.

I get that dampen harm i should use for damage spikes as well as Fortifying brew. TBH my guild rebuilding so i'm trying to get alot better before we start fully raiding even if it is just normal 10 mans...Will still be new to alot of us.

Really depends on the fight, and the 2-piece set bonus makes that a more complicated question. For fights where there is an undodgeable, hard-hitting boss ability (e.g. triple-puncture, talon rake) it is useful to time your EB to end just before that ability comes off cooldown to get the 12% extra stagger buff. A /cancelaura macro will do the trick as well if the timing is off. This has the benefit of high avoidance prior to the hit and high survivability during the hit. Tortos, otoh, you want to try to time the EB to be active for every snapping bite like you would for sha of fear's thrash.

[Vasilisa]

Thanks for the suggestions, we shall see tomorrow how it goes

[Alucin]

Jin'rokh: the tank damage really isn't too bad. So other than already mentioned eb for taunting back with the static wound debuff, it's just putting up guard going in to lightning storm. Using cooldowns particularly when he's meleeing with his balls out...

Make sure the pools on the first two are next to each other too, not diagonal.

Ji-kun, the killer is infected wounds. Some rng involved but your best shot at dropping that off is using EB as he finishes feed young or quills. Often if you can avoid one or two it will drop off. (sometimes it will stack high, there's not much more you can do). If you have 2 piece, a cancelaura macro could be enough for the first talon rake. Make sure you have 1 chi to purify right after it lands and expel harm.

On the second guardian, he spawns just before a talon rake. Stay in for the talon rake, then fly up (make sure your raid knows). and tell dps to stay back as down draft finishes...

[ares1023]

Hey all, looking for some advise, my guild raiding group has been slowing making progress in ToT (slow because of attendance issues really), and we have been working on Megaera (10). Due to lack of attendance we have been pugging people every week and not able to make much progress since DPS tends to be an issue as well as only having 1-2 competent healers that are not pugs.

I haven't had much survivability issues in ToT, maybe with the exception of Horridon when we first started him, but I am finding it difficult to stay alive during Megaera. If I die, it usually happens after the third head goes down, and I start taking heavy damage due to their increased haste. We have been able to get Meg down to the 20-28% range, but we cant seem to survive long enough. I do feel dps is a problem cause I end up getting 3 stacks of the debuff before the head dies, but I its the increased haste the boss gets as the fight progresses that seems to kill me. While I know the healers aren't perfect, I am aware it is me as well. We have a warrior tank as well, and he can handle it well enough, my question is if the problem with my character has anything to do with my lack of gear, my gemming or enchanting, or w/e. I really don't feel like its my "rotation" or managing cooldowns, but I really don't know at this point. While it would help to provide raid data, all I can provide is the link to my character. So if anyone could help that would be great.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...osidius/simple

[Rockets]

The only thing I can suggest is to replace all your stamina enchants with agility/other dps stats. You have plenty of base health from your gear to handle everything on 10m, except maybe bat-wrangling on Tortos.

Try this thread for a recent discussion about Megaera tactics.

[Biggety]

Megaera is 90% a healing fight and 10% a dps fight. Tank damage is manageable, except healers are generally scrambling to keep the raid up and tend to forget you when you take zero damage for 10 seconds (as monks tend to do). If your healers are undergeared or bad you won't be able to do the fight. If you are not on the kill head, you can take some of the pressure off them by 1) Banking up a good shuffle window early in the fight when healing is easy, 2) using EH when you dip below 65%, 3) keep between 40 and 70 energy pooled so you can EH twice if you spike below 35%, and 4) use healing spheres on yourself if you don't need the chi for shuffle.

If you are on the kill head, you should probably dps more aggressively to prevent the third breath and hope your healers are paying attention to your green bar when you spike.

[Vasilisa]

Hey all, looking for some advise, my guild raiding group has been slowing making progress in ToT (slow because of attendance issues really), and we have been working on Megaera (10). Due to lack of attendance we have been pugging people every week and not able to make much progress since DPS tends to be an issue as well as only having 1-2 competent healers that are not pugs.

I haven't had much survivability issues in ToT, maybe with the exception of Horridon when we first started him, but I am finding it difficult to stay alive during Megaera. If I die, it usually happens after the third head goes down, and I start taking heavy damage due to their increased haste. We have been able to get Meg down to the 20-28% range, but we cant seem to survive long enough. I do feel dps is a problem cause I end up getting 3 stacks of the debuff before the head dies, but I its the increased haste the boss gets as the fight progresses that seems to kill me. While I know the healers aren't perfect, I am aware it is me as well. We have a warrior tank as well, and he can handle it well enough, my question is if the problem with my character has anything to do with my lack of gear, my gemming or enchanting, or w/e. I really don't feel like its my "rotation" or managing cooldowns, but I really don't know at this point. While it would help to provide raid data, all I can provide is the link to my character. So if anyone could help that would be great.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...osidius/simple

You don't want mastery & stamina (unless boss is one-shotting which shouldn't be an issue), so e.x. you dont want expertise/stamina gem in order to get 60 mastery, I would use 320 crit gem instead. I've also looked at your enchants - as far as I'm concerned 7,5 expertise is enough, getting more haste would benefit you more (most people run with 6-7k). As for magera take diffuse magic and glyph guard, the heaviest spike dmg is from their breaths, for physical attacks you have elusive brew. Oh and get xuen, he will help you more on most of the fights then rjw.

[Pazx]

You don't want mastery & stamina (unless boss is one-shotting which shouldn't be an issue), so e.x. you dont want expertise/stamina gem in order to get 60 mastery, I would use 320 crit gem instead. I've also looked at your enchants - as far as I'm concerned 7,5 expertise is enough, getting more haste would benefit you more (most people run with 6-7k). As for magera take diffuse magic and glyph guard, the heaviest spike dmg is from their breaths, for physical attacks you have elusive brew. Oh and get xuen, he will help you more on most of the fights then rjw.

i'd just like to ask, does xuen really do the dps it could on megera ? i mean mine like swims there and i swear it doesnt do much i think...

[Kisho]

I noticed that recently. Xuen is indeed kinda bugged for Megaera, he just melees a little bit and never bothers to do the lightning spell thing. Or well, let's go to WoL for a more accurate idea:

Megaera kill
Ji-kun kill

As you can see, even though the Megaera fight is longer, Xuen has a lot less applications of Crackling Tiger Lightning. Doing a bit less melee too. If we look at the mobs he damaged (click the 'Damage By Actor' tab), you can see he did far more damage on the Frozen head than the Venomous head. Considering I summoned him twice on Venomous (we do G-R-G-B-G-R-G, so he gets summoned on the first green, the blue, and the last green), the fact that he does way more damage on the Frozen head means something is going very wrong.

It seems the Venomous head is bugged for positioning, whereas he's fine on the Frozen. I didn't test on the red head.

[Kiqjaq]

Hey all, looking for some advise, my guild raiding group has been slowing making progress in ToT (slow because of attendance issues really), and we have been working on Megaera (10). Due to lack of attendance we have been pugging people every week and not able to make much progress since DPS tends to be an issue as well as only having 1-2 competent healers that are not pugs.
-snip-

That's sufficient dps for Megaera really. When we were doing her on week 2 or 3 (something like that) of ToT we were actually getting up to 4 stacks of each breath (4-healing the fight... lulz), and tankswapping when Red was up to keep the dot from getting ridiculous. Since you're mentioning boss haste I'm assuming that you're leaving Blue head up always, so you can do the same.

What I did, and what you can do, is go through logs and just look at how long each head lasts. I figured that each breath is 17 seconds apart so I could (as a DK) AMS the first and last breath of each head, and with proper Blood Shield/Bone Shield management maintain Bone Shield into the 2nd breath of each. Then I could Vamp the third, and that's all breaths taken care of, with most major cooldowns to be used adaptively (IBF for 3rd breath of Red head was usually needed). I'm afraid I can't speak as well for Monk, or for what your expected dps/damage intake will be like, but checking through logs and planning out your cooldown rotation to the second could be invaluable.

[Vasilisa]

Listen to Kisho regarding proffesional theorycrafting.

As for xuen, I was using him mainly on red head as this one hurts the most. That's probably why I haven't seen many problems with him.

[Ahsakura]

My guild finally managed to get Iron Qon down after extending the lockout last night, then we downed the Twins on our first pull after our GM said "Don't worry about big feasts or flasks for this one, let's just test the fight and see what we need to do." Felt pretty cool about that.

So now we're on Lei Shen, on our 2nd of 2 pulls for the night we got into the 2nd phase and probably would have gotten through a good bit of the phase had we not messed up some simple parts. I'm guessing we'll down him on Sunday when we have 4 hours of non-stop Lei Shen. Really fun boss so far, and I love being a vengeance whore and topping the DPS charts :P

[Ampere]

I personally recommend Celerity and Chi Torpedo for Megaera. 3 Vengeance buffed Chi Torpedos can provide a lot of extra healing during Rampage when everyone is grouped up.

Here's a log of mine where Chi Torpedo was particularly effective during Rampages: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/z...?s=3730&e=4128

[Archdrood]

I personally recommend Celerity and Chi Torpedo for Megaera. 3 Vengeance buffed Chi Torpedos can provide a lot of extra healing during Rampage when everyone is grouped up.

Here's a log of mine where Chi Torpedo was particularly effective during Rampages: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/z...?s=3730&e=4128

(I know that is normal and I'm about to talk about heroic- but the same principals apply.) Wow, that looks too good too be true. So essentially all you are doing is rolling through the raid 3x while rampage is going? You don't do any damage to the head though?

Edit. Also I read that Zen Sphere: Detonate was the better talent to use while stacked up, but I checked our kill from last week and your chi wave healed for much more than my detonate
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3571&e=3949

Our MT had to work late last week, so we used an offspec palli tank to fill and killed it early on that night. Last night our war MT was back and we were having trouble again during the 5th rampage. So I'm trying to make up for the diff in healing. Looks like chi torpedo/chi wave might work out great