The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[sleepness]

Most all of us that has downed H Protectors solo tanked it. We are the best class for it IMHO due to 2 abilities, Glyphed Guard and Diffuse Magic. Since you kill Kaolan first, your spikeyness is only at the beginning of the fight.

- Guard on CD
- Interrupt rotation on Asani
- Always stand in the waters for the buff
- Burn Kaolan, and use EB freely until he is dead.
- Alternate Guard, Diffuse, Fort as needed when the Corrupted Water spawns.
- Have some random person interrupt Regail when Corrupted water spawns.
- Loot boss.

It is very easy if you can work out the stat rotation. Tanks getting stacks early on makes this fight a joke due to the amount of vengeance we have, and shortend the kill time down alot.

Thanks! Yeah, thats pretty much what I'm doing although I know our problem is me not getting stacks. We are doing a 3-3-2-2 then 2-2-3-3 (tank in the 3rd group, ranged in first, add killers in second, meelee in fourth) rotation of stacks and I have a feeling our problem is with me not getting stacks. I did see your recommended strategy that you posted somewhere in the raid forums with a 6-4-4-4 or something strategy but our healers said it just wasn't feasible since their mana was in the shitter during the last phase (granted we only tried it once) so I'm really at a loss for how to get me more stacks quickly.

[Kisho]

I'm still putting my money on this scenario. I don't have any factual proof but that is my interpretation and first impression of the tool tip language.

See, my issue with that is if it works that way, the trinket fluctuates wildly in value depending on how you gear.

If you have balanced stats (say, 6k haste, 5.5k crit, 5k mastery), then the trinket is terrible. It'll only give you (6,000 - 5,500) + (6,000 - 5,000) = 500 + 1000 = 1500 stats. Compare that to the amount you're getting from other trinkets, and it's just plain awful.

However, if you stack a single stat to the heavens, then it becomes REALLY good. Imagine if you could get 9,000 haste, 2,000 crit and 1,500 mastery. Then the trinket gives you (9,000 - 2,000) + (9,000 - 1,500) = 7,000 + 6,500 = 13,500, which is far superior to any other trinket available. I'm not sure if these values are actually possible, but it illustrates the point.

The first option (2 stats being zero'd out and the third being boosted to crazy amounts) keeps it balanced, but has the downsides of losing all the stat points. While this is how I interpret the trinket, I don't think (or hope, at least) this is how it'll be implemented.

I'm actually thinking it'll be number 2 that is how it works: one stat being boosted, and the other two staying the same. It'll remain relatively balanced (going by current stat values I'd gain about 8k stats in a single stat, which sounds fair enough), and won't encourage weird gearing strategies, or actively trying to get rid of two stats. Keeping a balance of the 3 stats would be key, while ensuring the stat you want boosted is still higher. That seems interesting to me and actually keeps in theme with the whole expansion: balance between two (or three, in this case) opposing forces. Interesting how that works out.

[NRL1515]

See, my issue with that is if it works that way, the trinket fluctuates wildly in value depending on how you gear.

If you have balanced stats (say, 6k haste, 5.5k crit, 5k mastery), then the trinket is terrible. It'll only give you (6,000 - 5,500) + (6,000 - 5,000) = 500 + 1000 = 1500 stats. Compare that to the amount you're getting from other trinkets, and it's just plain awful.

However, if you stack a single stat to the heavens, then it becomes REALLY good. Imagine if you could get 9,000 haste, 2,000 crit and 1,500 mastery. Then the trinket gives you (9,000 - 2,000) + (9,000 - 1,500) = 7,000 + 6,500 = 13,500, which is far superior to any other trinket available. I'm not sure if these values are actually possible, but it illustrates the point.

The first option (2 stats being zero'd out and the third being boosted to crazy amounts) keeps it balanced, but has the downsides of losing all the stat points. While this is how I interpret the trinket, I don't think (or hope, at least) this is how it'll be implemented.

I'm actually thinking it'll be number 2 that is how it works: one stat being boosted, and the other two staying the same. It'll remain relatively balanced (going by current stat values I'd gain about 8k stats in a single stat, which sounds fair enough), and won't encourage weird gearing strategies, or actively trying to get rid of two stats. Keeping a balance of the 3 stats would be key, while ensuring the stat you want boosted is still higher. That seems interesting to me and actually keeps in theme with the whole expansion: balance between two (or three, in this case) opposing forces. Interesting how that works out.

I dunno, I've gone over the explanation of this trinket about 8 or 9 times, and the way I keep reading it is that (for simplicity's sake) if you have 4k crit, 5k haste, and 2k mastery, when it procs, all of your secondary stats will now be at 5k. So you'll now have 5k crit, 5k haste, and 5k mastery.

I think the key word here is: "Re-Origination converts all of your Critical Strike, Haste, AND Mastery into the highest of these 3 attributes for 20 sec."

I don't see blizzard creating a trinket to set all of the other values to 0, and one to a super high amount. I imagine the ICD will be pretty high.

[Zene]

Seems we have already begun talking about 5.2.

Is there a 5.2 overview for brewmasters? I see a thread on it for WW but haven't found one for BM.

Apart from mastery being more potent are there any other changes that a raiding brewmaster should be aware of?

[Kisho]

Seems we have already begun talking about 5.2.

Is there a 5.2 overview for brewmasters? I see a thread on it for WW but haven't found one for BM.

Apart from mastery being more potent are there any other changes that a raiding brewmaster should be aware of?

Nimble Brew helps us with stuns
Our raid Guards have been nerfed, takes twice as much damage to proc a guard (so we'll see half as many as we do currently)
T30 healing talents no longer cost Chi, so it's safe to weave them into our regular rotation: we'll use them a lot more than we do currently
Gogo get T15 ASAP, set bonuses are sexy

...That's the main bits I think? Off the top of my head, so y'know.

[NRL1515]

I think 5.2 has been discussed a little bit a few pages back; the mastery change is nice but it wont change any of our priorities or anything. Other than QoL changes, nothing really to change the way we have been playing/gearing/gemming for the most part IIRC.

[gynshon]

Bosses hit harder and mastery was slightly buffed in value which means you will be purifying a lot more. Current haste values at 4500ish might be fine now, but most likely will have to be pushed to 6k until T15 tier comes and we get the set bonuses for free PB.

[Archknight]

I took some time and made a table for 5.2 gear based on the one from the guide, if you want to use it in case some new monks want to check out gear that it's available for BrM in ToT.

If I missed anything just point it out for me so I can add it and if you want to add any kind of input you're welcome to aswell.

502 LFR/VP Table

	Item 1	Item 2	item 3
Two-Handers	Darkwood Spiritstaff(!)	Jalak's Maelstrom Staff	Shan-Dun, Breaker of Hope
One-Handers	Hand of the Dark Animus	Kura-Kura, Kazra'jin's Skullcleaver	Tia-Tia, the Scything Star(!)
More One-Handers	Wu-Lai, Bladed Fan of the Consorts	Zeeg's Ancient Kegsmasher	N/A
Helm	Fire-Charm Crown(Tier)	Lightning-Eye Hood	N/A
Neck	Necklace of the Terra-Cotta Archer	Quadra-Head Brooch	Talisman of Living Poison
More Necks	Flanker's Battletags(VP)	N/A	N/A
Shoulders	Fire-Charm Shoulderguards	Forgotten Mantle of the Moon(!)	Poisonblood Bladeshoulders
More Shoulders	Wallwalker Spaulders(VP)	N/A	N/A
Chest	Fire-Charm Chestguard(Tier)	Fusion Slasher Chestguard	Rockfall Ribwraps
More Chests	Roofstalker Shadowwrap(VP)	N/A	N/A
Back	Pinionfeather GreatcloakPinionfeather Greatcloak	Wastewalker's Sandblasted Drape	Longshot Forestcloak(VP)
Gloves	Fire-Charm Gauntlets(Tier)	Gloves of Cushioned Air	Grips of Vampiric Cruelty
More Gloves	Daggerfinger Clutches(VP)	N/A	N/A
Waist	Abandoned Zandalari Silentbelt(!)	Featherflight Belt	Darkfang Belt(VP)
Leggings	Crimson Bloom Legguards	Fire-Charm Legguards(Tier)	Worldbinder Leggings
More Leggings	Legguards of Hidden Knives(VP)	N/A	N/A
Wrist	Bindings of Multiplicative Strikes	Bracers of the Midnight Comet	Willow-Weave Armbands(VP)
Boots	Spiderweb Tabi	Spurs of the Storm Cavalry	N/A
Rings	Gore-Soaked Gear	Sign of the Bloodied God	Seal of the Shado-Pan Assault(VP)
Trinkets 1	Bad Juju	Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire	Fortitude of the Zandalari
Trinkets 2	Ji-Kun's Rising Winds	Renataki's Soul Charm	Rune of Re-Origination
Trinkets 3	Soul Barrier	Talisman of Bloodlust	Steadfast Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault(VP)
Trinkets 4	Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault(VP)	N/A	N/A

522 Raid Table

	Item 1	Item 2	item 3
Two-Handers	Darkwood Spiritstaff(!)	Jalak's Maelstrom Staff	Shan-Dun, Breaker of Hope
One-Handers	Hand of the Dark Animus	Kura-Kura, Kazra'jin's Skullcleaver	Tia-Tia, the Scything Star(!)
More One-Handers	Wu-Lai, Bladed Fan of the Consorts	Zeeg's Ancient Kegsmasher	N/A
Helm	Fire-Charm Crown(Tier)	Lightning-Eye Hood	N/A
Neck	Necklace of the Terra-Cotta Archer	Quadra-Head Brooch	Talisman of Living Poison
Shoulders	Fire-Charm Shoulderguards	Forgotten Mantle of the Moon(!)	Poisonblood Bladeshoulders
Chest	Fire-Charm Chestguard(Tier)	Fusion Slasher Chestguard	Rockfall Ribwraps
Back	Pinionfeather Greatcloak	Wastewalker's Sandblasted Drape	N/A
Gloves	Fire-Charm Gauntlets(Tier)	Gloves of Cushioned Air	Grips of Vampiric Cruelty
Waist	Abandoned Zandalari Silentbelt(!)	Featherflight Belt	N/A
Leggings	Crimson Bloom Legguards	Fire-Charm Legguards(Tier)	Worldbinder Leggings
Wrist	Bindings of Multiplicative Strikes	Bracers of the Midnight Comet	N/A
Boots	Spiderweb Tabi	Spurs of the Storm Cavalry	N/A
Rings	Gore-Soaked Gear	Sign of the Bloodied God	N/A
Trinkets 1	Bad Juju	Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire	Fortitude of the Zandalari
Trinkets 2	Ji-Kun's Rising Winds	Renataki's Soul Charm	Rune of Re-Origination
Trinkets 3	Soul Barrier	Talisman of Bloodlust	N/A

535 Raid Table

	Item 1	Item 2	item 3
Two-Handers	Darkwood Spiritstaff(!)	Jalak's Maelstrom Staff	Shan-Dun, Breaker of Hope
One-Handers	Hand of the Dark Animus	Kura-Kura, Kazra'jin's Skullcleaver	Tia-Tia, the Scything Star(!)
More One-Handers	Wu-Lai, Bladed Fan of the Consorts	Zeeg's Ancient Kegsmasher	N/A
Helm	Fire-Charm Crown(Tier)	Lightning-Eye Hood	N/A
Neck	Necklace of the Terra-Cotta Archer	Quadra-Head Brooch	Talisman of Living Poison
Shoulders	Fire-Charm Shoulderguards	Forgotten Mantle of the Moon(!)	Poisonblood Bladeshoulders
Chest	Fire-Charm Chestguard(Tier)	Fusion Slasher Chestguard	Rockfall Ribwraps
Back	Pinionfeather Greatcloak	Wastewalker's Sandblasted Drape
Gloves	Fire-Charm Gauntlets(Tier)	Gloves of Cushioned Air	Grips of Vampiric Cruelty
Waist	Abandoned Zandalari Silentbelt(!)	Featherflight Belt	N/A
Leggings	Crimson Bloom Legguards	Fire-Charm Legguards(Tier)	Worldbinder Leggings
Wrist	Bindings of Multiplicative Strikes	Bracers of the Midnight Comet	N/A
Boots	Spiderweb Tabi	Spurs of the Storm Cavalry	N/A
Rings	Gore-Soaked Gear	Sign of the Bloodied God	N/A
Trinkets 1	Bad Juju	Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire	Fortitude of the Zandalari
Trinkets 2	Ji-Kun's Rising Winds	Renataki's Soul Charm	Rune of Re-Origination
Trinkets 3	Soul Barrier	Talisman of Bloodlust	N/A

(!) - No specification where the item drops, could be a world drop from the instance or it might not drop at all, we'll see on the next PTR builds.
(VP) - Items purchaseable with VP.
(Tier) - Well, Tier pieces, what else.

Windwalker Tier is not included but if it's necessary I can just add it aswell, and Thunderforged gear is not included either but it should be pretty straightfoward since it's a direct upgrade.

If this is helpful to anyone, then it's good enough for me, if not, then at least I tried.

[Zene]

Bosses hit harder and mastery was slightly buffed in value which means you will be purifying a lot more. Current haste values at 4500ish might be fine now, but most likely will have to be pushed to 6k until T15 tier comes and we get the set bonuses for free PB.

Thanks for the reply. Seems the free t30 heals will help w/ lowering haste. As was said, very nice QoL.

[Ogait]

I am wondering if someone can explain some things about BrM monks, cause I am missing some things and I wanted to know more about my classe.

- When should I reforge/gem for Mastery or when should I reforge/gem for Haste/Crit?
- Dampen Harm also reduce damage taken from spells if they take more than 20%?

Thanks a lot,
~ Pandamorium

[Hinalover]

Our raid Guards have been nerfed, takes twice as much damage to proc a guard

This is actually not 100% true. A few people on EJ's Forum were able to confirm that it is actually a Tooltip update. the 1600% is actually live right now.

[SurrealNight]

See, my issue with that is if it works that way, the trinket fluctuates wildly in value depending on how you gear.

I agree here but this is really going to depend on it's proc uptime. I have ~14500 rating between Haste/Crit/Master, at what % of uptime would you accept having something like 9K haste but only 3k crit when the trinket wasn't active?

[The Madgod]

I am wondering if someone can explain some things about BrM monks, cause I am missing some things and I wanted to know more about my classe.

- When should I reforge/gem for Mastery or when should I reforge/gem for Haste/Crit?

Go for haste until you're comfortable with your energy regeneration, then go for crit. Get extra mastery only if you're having trouble with damage intake and you know you aren't doing something wrong with your active mitigation, and even then, it'd be better to have a separate set for mastery.

- Dampen Harm also reduce damage taken from spells if they take more than 20%?

Yes.

I dunno, I've gone over the explanation of this trinket about 8 or 9 times, and the way I keep reading it is that (for simplicity's sake) if you have 4k crit, 5k haste, and 2k mastery, when it procs, all of your secondary stats will now be at 5k. So you'll now have 5k crit, 5k haste, and 5k mastery.

I think the key word here is: "Re-Origination converts all of your Critical Strike, Haste, AND Mastery into the highest of these 3 attributes for 20 sec."

I don't see blizzard creating a trinket to set all of the other values to 0, and one to a super high amount. I imagine the ICD will be pretty high.

See where it says "all"? that's where we think that it means... well... all. If it converted those three stats's points to the highest score of the three, they'd say that. Blizzard isn't one for being vague in their tooltips. The "all" and the "into" at least lead me to believe that it means if you have 6000 haste, 5000 crit, and 2000 mastery, you're getting 13000 haste, 0 crit, and 0 mastery when this procs.

Also "and" would be used for either choice, so I don't think it'd be the word to use when discussing what it means... all it means is that whatever this proc does, it affects all three stats in some way, not just one.

[Ogait]

Go for haste until you're comfortable with your energy regeneration, then go for crit. Get extra mastery only if you're having trouble with damage intake and you know you aren't doing something wrong with your active mitigation, and even then, it'd be better to have a separate set for mastery.

I understand that, but what I want to know is when I should reforge Mastery or when I should regen Haste/Crit.

I want to know this, because I am MW / WW but I like to know all specs about my class and I have doubts about this and to help guild friends if needed. I read everywhere we should aim for Haste/Crit, all the websites say the same thing but after a quick search on armory for top Monks, they're reforged/gemmed for Mastery and then the other Monks are Haste/Crit. I understand that there are some encounters where Mastery will shine a lot, and those are the fights I want to know to understand better my class.

[Kisho]

I agree here but this is really going to depend on it's proc uptime. I have ~14500 rating between Haste/Crit/Master, at what % of uptime would you accept having something like 9K haste but only 3k crit when the trinket wasn't active?

Well that's just it, I wouldn't. Either you gimp your stats to make the trinket good, or have a sub-standard trinket. Either way, not good.

The only way I'd want the Rune is if it uses option 2 in my previous post. Otherwise, not bothering.

---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 08:33 PM ----------

I understand that, but what I want to know is when I should reforge Mastery or when I should regen Haste/Crit.

I want to know this, because I am MW / WW but I like to know all specs about my class and I have doubts about this and to help guild friends if needed. I read everywhere we should aim for Haste/Crit, all the websites say the same thing but after a quick search on armory for top Monks, they're reforged/gemmed for Mastery and then the other Monks are Haste/Crit. I understand that there are some encounters where Mastery will shine a lot, and those are the fights I want to know to understand better my class.

Mastery was useful in early progression. They may also be preparing for 5.2 progression. Essentially it's a tool for mitigating the effect of an undergeared tank. For the rest of us, it's not needed in the slightest, and we only ever need to stack haste/crit. For some fights we may require a higher stamina set, but even in those situations stacking mastery doesn't help much.

There really isn't a fight that I can think of where stacking mastery would be beneficial beyond mitigating the effects of an undergeared tank. That's it.

[Deleted]

This is actually not 100% true. A few people on EJ's Forum were able to confirm that it is actually a Tooltip update. the 1600% is actually live right now.

It is 800% on live right now, and the tooltip on live (1600%) is wrong. When the PTR came out, they updated the tooltip to 800%. That was what they were talking about it being a tooltip update. Then they nerfed the ability to be 1600% for real on another PTR build. So you will need to do twice as much damage to get one guard out.

[The Madgod]

I understand that, but what I want to know is when I should reforge Mastery or when I should regen Haste/Crit.

I want to know this, because I am MW / WW but I like to know all specs about my class and I have doubts about this and to help guild friends if needed. I read everywhere we should aim for Haste/Crit, all the websites say the same thing but after a quick search on armory for top Monks, they're reforged/gemmed for Mastery and then the other Monks are Haste/Crit. I understand that there are some encounters where Mastery will shine a lot, and those are the fights I want to know to understand better my class.

I just told you. If you're having trouble with physical damage, and you know your active mitigation (or in other words, your gameplay) is not to blame, then you want mastery. So in other words, on fights with lots of spike physical damage, mastery becomes more useful, but it does not outshine active mitigation, which haste and crit benefit more, hence why it has priority. Mastery is a last-resort to getting your mitigation up to par.

[SurrealNight]

The only way I'd want the Rune is if it uses option 2 in my previous post. Otherwise, not bothering.

Oh I wasn't saying it was better than the other trinkets just tossing my chips in which method the item uses to recalc your stats. As originally mentioned I only get like 1k Crit and 1200 mastery out of that version so the static agil is nice but the proc is sub-part in theory. Be interesting to see some real info from the PTR on it and settle the debate.

[kaiadam]

15-20 viable kills and coin rolls later and we haven't gotten one of those damn Runes to drop on the PTR to test its actual workings.

My feeling is that it's going to be the worst possible scenario first - and then when people figure out that the alchemy stone is better than the heroic version of that trinket, blizzard will buff it in patch 5.3. (I don't see how there can be any ambiguity in the wording. It clearly states it converts your crappy stats into your good stat).

[Archknight]

Since various people have already predicted it, I'll try to give some insight into this trinket.

So far, the info I got from the theorycrafter(s) that were asked to test the trinket, the proc itself is the one people don't like, which is reducing the other 2 stats to 0 and adding their ratings to the one with the most rating. For example:

7000 haste (proc)-> 15000 haste (proc ends)-> 7000 haste
6000 crit (proc)-> 0 crit (proc ends)-> 6000 crit
2000 mastery (proc)-> 0 mastery (proc ends)-> 2000 mastery

Now, this means the trinket isn't that good for us, but that also means it's not so great for a decent amount of other specs. Depending on the feedback, this trinket might get changed in the future, so time will tell.

Sadly I can't provide actual proof so some of you might call this total BS, but I won't judge you because well, without actual evidence it's hard to make a point isn't it?

Now, on the other hand, wouldn't the other way make the trinket BiS for pretty much every spec that uses agi and technically force most(if not every) spec to stack one of these secondary stats in order to get the maximum benefit of the trinket?

I'm currently trying going full crit in gems while keeping my haste high enough to keep myself at around 4.6k haste (14 EpS) and I'm currently at around 9.1k crit rating and on the PTR, with the new tier pieces I'm at 11.1k crit, which then would mean I would get to 11.1k haste and 11.1k mastery aswell. This is without counting Talisman of Bloodlust and people who'll try to push haste to the limit, which in combination could provide ridiculous amounts of crit and mastery from the proc.

I suppose I can't really put the discussion to an end, but there you go. Keep up the good work!