The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[gynshon]

I was going to chime in here, but decided it just wasn't worth it.

Most end game monks know what stats works for them, and what doesn't. We aren't progressing when there is only 2 weeks left in a tier, but did it when the gear levels were much lower in blues.

Personally I like to have 5k haste with Ascension, the rest into Crit. That feels good to me. I have 15% expertise now, because we are going to try and shoot for last set of ranks next week before release. So figured I would give it a shot and see what I could pull. Unfortunately, I server moved, and had to do a name change, then another once I raided for 2 weeks due to another issue. So I have ranks under 3 names lol.

At any rate, I know whats best for me and my raid group. Larra does as well. Log analysis should be done on comparable 10mans for your mastery builds compared to ours.

[djtravitrav]

your "My way or you suck" attitude is quite frankly not one that I would like to see here. Hell, I agree with you in a sense. The less haste and expertise you feel is necessary for you to play well, the better off you'll be (by stacking more crit). I'm not really arguing against the math or the general theory, more of the polarizing, elitist attitude.

Never once did I indicate that it's "my way or you suck", I was giving everyone who reads this forum another viewpoint to how to gem because stacking crit isn't advocated on this forum at all. I've had a great deal of success with my build, and own many top 10 ranks because of it. If anyone has this attitude it has been you or other "high end raiders" who feel offended that someone would challenge their ideas about the class.

[Kisho]

Never once did I indicate that it's "my way or you suck", I was giving everyone who reads this forum another viewpoint to how to gem because stacking crit isn't advocated on this forum at all. I've had a great deal of success with my build, and own many top 10 ranks because of it. If anyone has this attitude it has been you or other "high end raiders" who feel offended that someone would challenge their ideas about the class.

I'm not sure where you've got this idea that stacking crit has never been advocated. I've said several times that haste is a stat that you get 'enough' of, then you stack crit after that. Madgod as well, in the post you're quoting, says that the less haste you need the better, since you can put more of it into crit and improve your overall survivability. I'm fairly certain other people have said similar things.

Crit is useful. Nobody is really arguing against that. Ignoring the benefits of haste in order to get more crit though? Doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

[gynshon]

Never once did I indicate that it's "my way or you suck", I was giving everyone who reads this forum another viewpoint to how to gem because stacking crit isn't advocated on this forum at all. I've had a great deal of success with my build, and own many top 10 ranks because of it. If anyone has this attitude it has been you or other "high end raiders" who feel offended that someone would challenge their ideas about the class.

I beg to differ: http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/mal'ganis/clamlapper/

25 Heroic:
Feng - 39th
Garajal - 30th
Elegon - 28th

Those are your best of the best ranks for your parses. The rest are garbage. Sure, some strats dictate you will be lower, no biggie.

Haste is essential for Chi generation, and smoothing out the playstyle.
Crit is essential for maintaining higher elusive brew uptimes.

The general rule: Haste until you feel comfortable. If 4500 with Ascension/Power strikes is enough. Great, move to Crit. If 2k is enough (it isn't, but whatever) then fine. If 9k, same thing. But once you find your mark, put it into Crit. You will be amazed at how good it feels, how much nicer it is to avoid attacks completely, and your healers will rave. I personally love watching Thrash miss all 3 shots, and Dread Thrash missing 5 of 6.

[Asmalya]

I beg to differ: http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/mal'ganis/clamlapper/

25 Heroic:
Feng - 39th
Garajal - 30th
Elegon - 28th

Those are your best of the best ranks for your parses. The rest are garbage. Sure, some strats dictate you will be lower, no biggie.

Haste is essential for Chi generation, and smoothing out the playstyle.
Crit is essential for maintaining higher elusive brew uptimes.

The general rule: Haste until you feel comfortable. If 4500 with Ascension/Power strikes is enough. Great, move to Crit. If 2k is enough (it isn't, but whatever) then fine. If 9k, same thing. But once you find your mark, put it into Crit. You will be amazed at how good it feels, how much nicer it is to avoid attacks completely, and your healers will rave. I personally love watching Thrash miss all 3 shots, and Dread Thrash missing 5 of 6.

Above you said you are happily putting everything into Mastery after the haste sweet spot. Did you meant Crit? Would make more sense from what i have read before from you.

[The Madgod]

Never once did I indicate that it's "my way or you suck", I was giving everyone who reads this forum another viewpoint to how to gem because stacking crit isn't advocated on this forum at all. I've had a great deal of success with my build, and own many top 10 ranks because of it. If anyone has this attitude it has been you or other "high end raiders" who feel offended that someone would challenge their ideas about the class.

Please review the following quotes... my responses were because of the bolded.

All of you guys should honestly take a raid week and regem all crit instead of the haste you're using. You will then realize that gemming haste as a priority has been completely hyped up for no reason. You will barely notice a difference in your energy regeneration, and you will see greater results both defensively and dps wise.

I took the chance to do this over a month ago, and I don't regret it. It's like playing a different game.

By your own statement the only purpose to stack more haste is to allow room for errors to be made in your rotation. Why not just play the game correctly and stack a stat that is actually beneficial to you and your raid? Trying to condescend me saying I don't understand how the class works is quite silly.

See how I could get "polarizing" and "elitist"? Saying "Why not just play the game correctly" over how much of a stat you have is pretty damn strong.

Also, I'd take a look at the bit you quoted because like Kisho says, it's exactly what I say. Really, the only difference is that you say "IGNORE HASTE!" for some reason, which has been proven time and time again to be highly beneficial until a point, that point being relative to each person.

Once more, really, it's a lot to do with your wording and understanding that not everyone is at the same level which makes it bad advice. It's something to shoot for, sure. Mathmatically it's going to do better, but we're all human, which means we might not be able to do it LIKE the computer, or as easily. Just saying "haste is bad" is shit advice, because it isn't. It's an important stat. Saying that you want to try and have as little haste as you can while still comfortable with your shuffle uptime is good advice, because it's telling the truth. Haste is an important stat, but it ultimately doesn't affect your mitigation as much as other stats, once shuffle's been taken care of.

[Deleted]

stacking crit isn't advocated on this forum at all. I've had a great deal of success with my build, and own many top 10 ranks because of it.

I quite agree, being myself a crit lover. One could even say that i actually use my secondary spec gear for tanking bosses with my primary spec...
One advantage of this is that, when you're off tanking a boss, you can stack your Shuffle, and haste becomes less important since you take the boss with some advance in you Shuffle duration. And taking the boss with those 15 EB stacks is aways helpful. I've tanked all heroic bosses, and that crit build works very well, except on Stone Guards, Windlord (one which requires much more haste), and to some extent, Shek'Zeer.

I play in a 10-man guild, so most bosses have virtually no chance to kill the tank, why then would i not stack crit ? Crit being, in my opinion, not only efficient, but much more funny. And world of logs tells me that, just like djtravitrav, i did some top 10 parses on quite a few bosses.

[Zonex]

Alright a lot of hate is being flung around i have a genuine conundrum i'd like to bring to light;

That is, the choice between agi stacking, and complete secondary stat stacking.

It's a preached fact that people will stack haste to w/e their playstyle advocates and then start stacking crit. My haste plateau is 4k (it's still too much sometimes, but rather have it be a little too high, than a little too low). Now comes crit, crit's main pro is that it lets you swim in EB stacks on top of which its a better DPS stat point for point that haste. WHat I'm wondering is how Agi fits into this.

We've established haste breakpoints are a personal thing, but can't EB generation be as well?. Yea yea, we wont ever get 100% EB uptime but what about all our other abilities, Guard/ EH/GotO pooling. A lot of times these are great (and the only) fallbacks you have after dodge RNG (even with EB up) bites you in the ass, but more times than not, if you rotate properly, after a point you start to have more EB than you can perfectly work with (ala, rotate the other mitigators with).

So then the choice comes down to, Agility. This gives us dodge, crit and AP, however that AP really isn't worth much in the grand scope of Vengeance, and the dodge is good (I'd like to think, miniscule, but adds up) and it still gives a bit of crit. Is it worth even stacking agility (orange gems in yellow sockets etc). Would the budget better be spent going full secondaries (and perhaps piling in exp cap).

This DOES have a lot to do with the DPS we pull, like i mentioned haste has a personal plateau, but i feel EB might have one as well (keyword - feel). It might just be better to go full crit/exp hardcap after the plateau, but in my mind, agi is a really weird stat to be playing with.

Also, personal note, i first started stacking Agi because i liked playing WW, but my guild's offtank is so bad, that I end up tanking every single boss. So the |keeping readily gemmed" for WW doesn't apply to this particular situation.


TLDR; Agi stack, Crit stack, or Hardcap -> Crit stack, OR hardcap ->agi stack

[The Madgod]

Alright a lot of hate is being flung around i have a genuine conundrum i'd like to bring to light;

That is, the choice between agi stacking, and complete secondary stat stacking.

It's a preached fact that people will stack haste to w/e their playstyle advocates and then start stacking crit. My haste plateau is 4k (it's still too much sometimes, but rather have it be a little too high, than a little too low). Now comes crit, crit's main pro is that it lets you swim in EB stacks on top of which its a better DPS stat point for point that haste. WHat I'm wondering is how Agi fits into this.

We've established haste breakpoints are a personal thing, but can't EB generation be as well?. Yea yea, we wont ever get 100% EB uptime but what about all our other abilities, Guard/ EH/GotO pooling. A lot of times these are great (and the only) fallbacks you have after dodge RNG (even with EB up) bites you in the ass, but more times than not, if you rotate properly, after a point you start to have more EB than you can perfectly work with (ala, rotate the other mitigators with).

It's not as comparable as you think. Haste doesn't need to be stacked after you're sorted with shuffle because shuffle's already at max uptime. You won't ever be able to get EB to max uptime, so more crit will constantly benefit you in that regard... which you've said... unless it's a niche fight where you just need to have EB available for something (like Sha of Fear) or a primarily magic fight, where boosting your Guard's absorbs via attack power (IE agility) would prove to be more fruitful.

I don't think we'll realistically get to a point where EB becomes a bother to manage due to an abundance of stacks.

That having been said gemming for agi when you can's not going to hurt you. I know some brewmasters do it because they go windwalker a lot and that's the best setup for them I think.

[Chuupag]

Glancing Blows is only 24% of all white attacks, after that it's Hit + Exp + (Crit + Crit Seprestion) + hit makes up the rest of the white attacks

I really don't think it's all that necessary to get into crit depression since after raid buffs you will still have more than your paper doll numbers say when you are unbuffed after crit depression is taken into account. And if that glancing blow number is accurate then they have changed it, I just haven't seen any good data to support any number.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 10:25 AM ----------

I was giving everyone who reads this forum another viewpoint to how to gem because stacking crit isn't advocated on this forum at all..

Like the others have said this is a disingenuous statement. If you go back a bajillion pages to the week 5.1 came out you can see me arguing for crit and that I had been stacking it even prior to 5.1.

[Ergar]

So i assume we'll be going for the stamina + 20% physical damage reduced legendary meta gem, instead of the crit + aoe damage at 5 stacks meta?

[The Madgod]

So i assume we'll be going for the stamina + 20% physical damage reduced legendary meta gem, instead of the crit + aoe damage at 5 stacks meta?

Ayep. Damage reduction is awesome, and we're already the best AoE tanks in-game :P

[SurrealNight]

That having been said gemming for agi when you can's not going to hurt you. I know some brewmasters do it because they go windwalker a lot and that's the best setup for them I think.

I'm using Agil/X gems in red/blue slots for that reason, in 25m you need to have at least 3 tanks on your roster and it's hard to deny that I have a beast DPS set compared to other classes that have to build an entire new set of gear. When I get a chance I'd like to compare what difference that makes in my crit/dodge #'s as BrM.

Not sure how the "people here don't stack crit" thing got rolling. Pretty sure all I see is Haste to X rating then 100% crit. I roll with ~6500 mostly for fights like H Wind Lord so I can use PB more frequently while keeping up Shuffle/Guard, I know it's overkill for other fights but I'd rather have to much than to little and to lazy to change between fights so I just throw out some Chi Waves on those.

[djtravitrav]

I beg to differ: http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/mal'ganis/clamlapper/

25 Heroic:
Feng - 39th
Garajal - 30th
Elegon - 28th

Those are your best of the best ranks for your parses. The rest are garbage. Sure, some strats dictate you will be lower, no biggie.

Haste is essential for Chi generation, and smoothing out the playstyle.
Crit is essential for maintaining higher elusive brew uptimes.

The general rule: Haste until you feel comfortable. If 4500 with Ascension/Power strikes is enough. Great, move to Crit. If 2k is enough (it isn't, but whatever) then fine. If 9k, same thing. But once you find your mark, put it into Crit. You will be amazed at how good it feels, how much nicer it is to avoid attacks completely, and your healers will rave. I personally love watching Thrash miss all 3 shots, and Dread Thrash missing 5 of 6.

Considering I raid one night, 4 hours a week per character in a GDKP where I profit 60k gold per week, I'm fine with what I accomplished. You put no stock in normals, I have three #2 ranks this tier. If I was ever so inclined to join a progression guild, I would dominate their raids as well. I guess my point is link your character some time so I can embarrass you in the same way you attempted to do to me. I'm sure if you're amazing.

Actually I just found your character, you appear to be just another guy that gets carried by his gear and the quality of the guild around him. Zero challenge modes done? That speaks volumes of your personal skill more than anything dude. You have no right to be throwing any stones at anyone. Considering you raid 10m as well lends even less credit to your accusations.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 05:01 PM ----------

So i assume we'll be going for the stamina + 20% physical damage reduced legendary meta gem, instead of the crit + aoe damage at 5 stacks meta?

From the front page of MMO, that tanking meta gem is only 1 PPM for an unknown duration. The crit/dps meta gem is 15 ppm and discharges at 5 stacks each, so 3 lightning strikes per minute. Assuming vengeance stacks in the range of 140-150k attack power in that tier you're talking at a minimum a 5600 DPS increase simply from using a meta gem on a single target. Unknown whether or not this gem will be an aoe effect or not.

[The Madgod]

Considering I raid one night, 4 hours a week per character in a GDKP where I profit 60k gold per week, I'm fine with what I accomplished. You put no stock in normals, I have three #2 ranks this tier. If I was ever so inclined to join a progression guild, I would dominate their raids as well. I guess my point is link your character some time so I can embarrass you in the same way you attempted to do to me. I'm sure if you're amazing.

You're ilvl 500 and you're doing normals, with the exception of the easy heroics. Normals don't count anymore. The people who were previously getting the top parses have moved on to heroic content. You're competing with old data with bloated numbers. In your heroic kills, you didn't log on Stone Guards, you were 39th in the world on Feng, 30th on Gara'Jal, 28th on Elegon, and 200th on Wind Lord. For DPS.

While it is a good way to tell a good brewmaster from a bad brewmaster, it's not really the way to tell the difference between a good brewmaster and a great brewmaster. Your DPS is going to be inflated because you're capped on expertise and are shunting a lot of stat points to crit. What really matters though is damage intake and buff management.

For tanks, you can't just point at DPS and say "I logged higher than you, therefore I did my job better than you!"... DPS means little for tanks. That's just not our job.

Actually I just found your character, you appear to be just another guy that gets carried by his gear and the quality of the guild around him. Zero challenge modes done? That speaks volumes of your personal skill more than anything dude. You have no right to be throwing any stones at anyone. Considering you raid 10m as well lends even less credit to your accusations.

Because Heroic raiding guilds require you to have done X amount of challenge modes before even being considered

[Chuupag]

Zero challenge modes done? That speaks volumes of your personal skill more than anything dude.

Challenge modes have absolutely nothing to do with raids. Different skill sets, different environments, different strategies.

[gynshon]

Considering I raid one night, 4 hours a week per character in a GDKP where I profit 60k gold per week, I'm fine with what I accomplished. You put no stock in normals, I have three #2 ranks this tier. If I was ever so inclined to join a progression guild, I would dominate their raids as well. I guess my point is link your character some time so I can embarrass you in the same way you attempted to do to me. I'm sure if you're amazing.

Actually I just found your character, you appear to be just another guy that gets carried by his gear and the quality of the guild around him. Zero challenge modes done? That speaks volumes of your personal skill more than anything dude. You have no right to be throwing any stones at anyone. Considering you raid 10m as well lends even less credit to your accusations.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 05:01 PM ----------



From the front page of MMO, that tanking meta gem is only 1 PPM for an unknown duration. The crit/dps meta gem is 15 ppm and discharges at 5 stacks each, so 3 lightning strikes per minute. Assuming vengeance stacks in the range of 140-150k attack power in that tier you're talking at a minimum a 5600 DPS increase simply from using a meta gem on a single target. Unknown whether or not this gem will be an aoe effect or not.

Wow. Well, don't care if I get warned or not at this point. The whole community knows you are wrong, so on with it.

1st - Challenge modes are irrelevant to this conversation. However, just because I haven't done Challenge modes, doesn't mean anything. I don't care to, because I don't like the look of the gear gained from them, so see no reason too. Many in my guild feel the same way. It is not a priority for us. Besides, it is 5 man heroics. Are you going to bring up Brawler guild too? How about old raid soloing? Tiddlywinks? I am a mean Go Fish player, let's try that.

So do you really think that a 16/16HM Brewmaster with top world ranks in Heroic kills in the #2 US 10man guild wouldn't be able to complete miniscule Challenge modes with said guildmates? Please.

2nd - LOL, the old 10m versus 25 debate again? When you down 16/16hm 25man, come talk. Until then, don't bring up the argument, when even 25man raiders said that most fights this tier were more difficult in 10 versus 25. You can COMPLETELY ignore mechanics in 25man this tier. 4 tanks for Stone Guard, Garajal voodoo doesn't hose a raid because there are 15 more targets to choose from, Multiple people assigned to sparks, and DK's were KING on there, Rages were CC'd and ignored. That is just MsV, want me to continue?

3rd - You are wanting me to put stock in normals, when no one does, and yet you bring up Challenge modes against me. Pot meet Kettle. I have multiple top 10 ranks in normals back when it was progression on normals, while in BLUES. You have top 10 ranks after you have had months of daily grinding, LFR, Normal gear gained, etc. Congratulations, you are a pro player.

But for fun and giggles:

When I was in Topped Off (15/16HM before I left and they finished top 5 US 10man):
http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/illidan/genshin/

Nightmare Asylum:
http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/mug'thol/genshen/
http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/mug'thol/ginshen/

4th - You obviously do not know me, or anything about me. You obviously do not know that I used to raid in Adept back when T11 came out, World 9th 25man. You also didn't know that I held over 60 top 200 world parses on my Shaman. You obviously didn't know I held top ranks on my alt lock during the same time frame. You obviously didn't know that I have had offers from several top 25 man guilds, but I prefer the 10man raiding environment with my current guild because I have a job, family, and a social life.

5th - If you knew anything about 10man and heroic raiding, you wouldn't be making the claims you have. See, in 10m, you don't carry people like you can in 25. I know a tank that was horrible, never used his personal cooldowns, trinkets, etc. Flat out horrible. Was sat for every boss in progression. He then went to a 25man guild where the other tank actually TOLD HIM what to do, when to do it, how to do it, etc in every fight. Literally. "use your cooldown now", "move boss now", "interrupt now" etc etc. He was carried to 16/16HM. Can't do that in a 10man environment.

[initialt]

If I was ever so inclined to join a progression guild, I would dominate their raids as well.

Join one. Prove it. Come back when you do.

[Deleted]

hmmmmm....i thought this was the thread for brewmaster tanking guide......................

[Yorgl]

Actually I just found your character, you appear to be just another guy that gets carried by his gear and the quality of the guild around him. Zero challenge modes done? That speaks volumes of your personal skill more than anything dude. You have no right to be throwing any stones at anyone.

I don't remember having read something that stupid on the forums since a long time... But I guess you felt cornered because you were proven wrong (as if it was a big deal to be wrong but anyway) and didn't find a better defense.

Oh btw, you progression sucks compared to mine so, according to your way of thinking I'm right. Lolol.