The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Mcbears]

What Ilevel do u feel like going into 10 man ToT is high enough?

How much HP do u think is necesarry to tank bats on Tortos. Im a 485 ILevel and got raped every time. I see your advice above so ill try that, but seems with monks low health, and how hard the bats hit that i just fall over fast.

[thedr8993]

Unit frames - pitbull
Buttons - dominos
Important buttons in middle - tellmewhen
Buff bars on player - needtoknow
debuff bars on target/cast bar - quartz
Raid cds - hermes
Enemy plates - tidyplates

Thank you very much kind sir. You are a scholar and a gentleman.

[Deleted]

I have a question to people who gem Mastery (be it 10 man, 25 man NHC or HC):

Why would you ever use Mastery gems over Stamina gems?

I'm taking kaiadam's armory values to support my point with a quick (hopefully correct) calculation:
You get 11.73% additional Mastery for a rating of 11,257. That means you get approximately 0.33% upfront damage reduction (+ Stagger) per Mastery gem.
On the other hand, you get approximately 3373 HP for a Stamina gem.

0.33% damage reduction equals 3373 HP for an incoming hit that deals 1,011,688 damage. So that's the "break-even boss hit" when a Mastery gem would become better than a Stamina gem. As you all know, hits of that size do not exists in ToT, neither in 10 man nor in 25 man.

The question whether you should use Stamina or Mastery gems basically simplifies to the following question for any given point of time during an encounter: "Do I want 0.33% damage reduction or additional 3373 HP for the next hit?" As my calculation shows, you should always choose the 3373 HP option.

And I'm not even considering the fact that there's often magic damage involved in many encounters and the fact you need to purify your staggered damage; both points additionally support the notion that you should gem Stamina over Mastery. The potential argument that "prevented" damage through additional Mastery (when purified) is superior to the ability of surviving larger hits through Stamina would just be valid if your healers regularly went OOM due to tank healing (!). Yet, as far as my experience goes, that's never been and never should be a problem.

Of course, reforging to Mastery may still be a good option for any encounter but just because you can't reforge to Stamina.

Looking forward to your answers!

[Deleted]

You can't really take mastery in a vaccuum, as it becomes progressively more beneficial the more you stack and doesn't seem to have diminishing returns. Raidbuffed with shuffle up we roughly stagger 50% of damage if I'm not mistaken. Let's say you stack heavy mastery now and have good gear, enough to get you another 20% (just an example). That's not a 20% up front damage reduction but a 40% up front damage reduction. Let's say you get some more gear and get it up to 75% staggered damage. We now take 25% immediate damage instead of 30%, which is a drop of 16.67% less physical direct damage!
Stamina boost your healthpool yes, but stacking massive mastery will make you cheaper to heal mana-wise for your healers. You don't really need to purify for it that often, just if you got a really unlucky streak of no dodges/parries that you can opt to do it, whereas with stamina you'd just fall flat anyway. Smooth damage is easy to heal for healers, since they can do it very efficient with cheap spells.

And yeah, stamina is pretty much the only thing that helps vs magic fights. Pretty sure most tanks have some sort of back-up enchants/trinkets/gear for if it would be needed tho.

[Deleted]

You can't really take mastery in a vaccuum

Of course, I can compare the values of two quantifiable competing alternatives. That has nothing to do with a vacuum.

Raidbuffed with shuffle up we roughly stagger 50% of damage if I'm not mistaken. Let's say you stack heavy mastery now and have good gear, enough to get you another 20% (just an example). That's not a 20% up front damage reduction but a 40% up front damage reduction. Let's say you get some more gear and get it up to 75% staggered damage. We now take 25% immediate damage instead of 30%, which is a drop of 16.67% less physical direct damage!

Your "percentage-magics" provide an interesting angle to look at incoming damage but don't affect my argument. Regardless of the absence of diminishing returns, Mastery just provides a flat upfront damage reduction. And this damage reduction can be quantified, which I did for 320 Mastery gems in my post. I don't understand why you say that I cannot compare their value to Stamina gems.

Stamina boost your healthpool yes, but stacking massive mastery will make you cheaper to heal mana-wise for your healers.

While this point is of course valid, I already adressed it in my post, remarking that I don't believe that this has ever been a problem in T14 or will be a problem in T15 either. By gemming Stamina you'll probably receive 3% more damage than when gemming Mastery (10 gems á 0.3% damage reduction). However, this difference is miniscule and is usually -manawise- compensated for by a lower percentage of overhealing (heals are cast anyway and go into overhealing, HoTs, Beacon, AoE Healing, self-healing stuff and whatnot) when using Stamina gems. Have you made a different experience?

[Deleted]

The magic word is Effective Health.

Some random numbers:

before: 500k HP - 50% dmg reduction = 1000k Effective Health

after1: 500k HP - 60% dmg reduction (10% additional stagger -> from 9600 mastery rating -> from 30 mastery gems) = 1250k Effective Health

after2: 604.4k HP (from 30 stamina gems -> 7200 stamina -> 104.4k HP) - 50% dmg reduction = 1208.8k Effective Health

Edit: removed faulty argument

[Deleted]

Thanks, hakhu! That makes sense. I think now that's the point that Derpette tried to hammer through, too. Sorry then for my first reply. Me is stupid guy and needs examples

[Deix-EU]

Thanks, hakhu! That makes sense. I think now that's the point that Derpette tried to hammer through, too. Sorry then for my first reply. Me is stupid guy and needs examples

Stack stamina until the point you don't die due to heavy magic damage incoming. Above 600k raid buffed, in 5.2, Mastery starts to become better than stamina as far as EH is concerned while considering physical.

If you are > 600k raid buffed AND if you die to burst
A) Magic ? => stamina
B) Physical ? => Mastery

Simple as it.

[Hinalover]

The magic word is Effective Health.

Some random numbers:

before: 500k HP - 50% dmg reduction = 1000k Effective Health

after1: 500k HP - 60% dmg reduction (10% additional stagger -> from 9600 mastery rating -> from 30 mastery gems) = 1250k Effective Health

after2: 604.4k HP (from 30 stamina gems -> 7200 stamina -> 104.4k HP) - 50% dmg reduction = 1208.8k Effective Health

Edit: removed faulty argument

Not exactly the way you figure out effective health. The formula is:

Health
-------
(1 - armor reduction against a boss level mob) [ (Player Armor) / ((Player Armor) + 4,037.5 * (Attacker Level) - 317,117.5)]
-------
(1 - 0.25) [Ox stance]
-------
(.80 - .20 - .05 (Baseline stagger) - Stagger from mastery) * 0.90 (90% Uptime [this can change based on playstyle] [600 mastery = .00625 Stagger]

So as an example I'll use my monk's armor as an example (who has 18534 armor or 24.1% armor reduction against a boss mob)

Example A (only Mastery buff)
500,000 / (1 - 0.241002) / (1 - 0.25) / ((0.80 - 0.20 - 0.05 - 0.3125) * .90) = 1,881,340 Effective Health

Example B (9600 Mastery)
500,000 / (1 - 0.241002) / (1 - 0.25) / ((0.80 - 0.20 - 0.05 - 0.13125) * .90) = 2,330,616 Effective Health

Example C (7200 Stamina)
604,400 / (1 - 0.241002) / (1 - 0.25) / ((0.80 - 0.20 - 0.05 - 0.3125) * .90) = 2,274,164 Effective Health

[Deleted]

I know I was simplifying it by a significant margin, I just didn't want to over-complicate it, only communicate the general concept.

Do you have a link to that formula. I'm sorry to say that the readability of your formatting is suboptimal.

[gynshon]

The only difference is Heroic Tortos on bats. Stamina is key because it provides you with a buffer of health before hitting the 550k drain life mechanic, and your shield is increased in direct relation to your health pool.

[Hinalover]

I know I was simplifying it by a significant margin, I just didn't want to over-complicate it, only communicate the general concept.

Do you have a link to that formula. I'm sorry to say that the readability of your formatting is suboptimal.

Unfortunetly I don't. It's something that I picked up while working on the bear module back when I was working on Rawr. The only change is adding in the stagger amount at the end. I'll do it in a programming terminology if that helps:

AttackerLevel = 93f
PlayerArmor = 18534f
DamageReduction = (1 - ((PlayerArmor) / ((PlayerArmor) + 4,037.5f * (AttackerLevel) - 317,117.5f))
OxStanceReduction = (1 - 0.25f)
MasteryConversion = 0.00625f
MasteryBase = 8f
Mastery = (MasteryRating / 600)
Stagger = 0.80f - 0.20f - ((MasteryBase - Mastery) * MasteryConversion)
StaggerUptime = 0.90f

EffectiveHealth = Health / DamageReduction / OxStanceReduction / (Stagger * StaggerUptime)

the "f" I placed after each number is a Visual C# thing.

Edit:

Fixed Mastery Conversion in this post and the previous post (was not thinking clearly and thought base mastery was 5 mastery)

[Deix-EU]

I know I was simplifying it by a significant margin, I just didn't want to over-complicate it, only communicate the general concept.

Do you have a link to that formula. I'm sorry to say that the readability of your formatting is suboptimal.

Think of it as :

You have HP raid buff
Effective Health (EH) is the amount of damage boss has to do to you to kill you before reduction.

If you have for example DR% armor reduction, boss will do 100-DR% only of his damage. So, you are effectively killed when :

HP= 100-DR% * EH <=> EH = HP / 1-(DR/100)

With 500k HP raid buff and 25% damage reduction, boss has to do :
EH = 500k / 0,75 ~= 666666 (When doing 666k base damage to you, boss will in fact do 500k after reduction which kills you)

This includes only % armor but you can add all of you reduction (like stagger) with :
EH = HP / ((1-(DR/100)) * (1-(Stagger/100))) etc.

[kaiadam]

I have a question to people who gem Mastery (be it 10 man, 25 man NHC or HC):

Why would you ever use Mastery gems over Stamina gems?

In addition to the above where it was pointed out that each point of mastery is stronger than the last, and its strength depends on current stagger %, as a bonus, we have two abilities that directly affect our stagger % - 2pT15 & fortifying brew - both of which further amplify your existing stagger. eg. Fort brew on a guy with 50% stagger is ~54% damage reduction, whereas fort brew on a guy with 60% stagger is ~60% damage reduction, fort brew and 2pT15 on a guy with 60% stagger is ~80% damage reduction.

Even if mastery were slightly worse at stamina for EH purposes though (like it was last tier), I think I'd still take it for the intangible feel of it being smooth damage rather than spiky damage with a larger buffer. I like to ride a car with good shock absorbers rather than one which can take a bounce but rocks on every speedbump.

AttackerLevel = 93f
PlayerArmor = 18534f
DamageReduction = (1 - ((PlayerArmor) / ((PlayerArmor) + 4,037.5f * (AttackerLevel) - 317,117.5f))
OxStanceReduction = (1 - 0.25f)
MasteryConversion = 0.00625f
MasteryBase = 8f
Mastery = (MasteryRating / 600)
Stagger = 0.80f - 0.20f - ((MasteryBase - Mastery) * MasteryConversion)
StaggerUptime = 0.90f

Totally confused. Why is MasteryBase 8? and conversion is 1% per 960. Also, shuffle uptime of 0.9? o.O
As far as I know, total stagger % = (45+(mastery rating + [a]*3000)/960 + [b]*20)*(1 + [c]*0.12), where a, b, and c are 1 if the buff is present and 0 if not:
a = might
b = fort brew
c = 2pT15

I suppose you can break that 45 down to 25 + 20*shuffle uptime, but honestly full shuffle uptime should be expected while tanking.

Stack stamina until the point you don't die due to heavy magic damage incoming.

Going to have to veto this one. Heavy magic damage is cooldowned, not soaked with stamina. I just checked and the damage I took from Megaera's breaths all added together combined for roughly 7% of my damage intake on our kill.

Ox wave is up for every single wave of bats, where leg sweep isn't.

Pretty sure bat waves are 46 seconds apart and leg sweep is 45 sec cd.

So I've been tanking the bats on Tortos and I honestly need someone to give me some advice here. Do I just need to pop everything to keep living through these things?

Yeah, pop everything. Elusive brew each wave, and on our kill I rotated shieldwall and six external cooldowns (and I still lost shield a ridiculous number of times).

I hate you and 2 piece. 25 mans.... /sigh. 8(

25mans? more like it was due to the three full raids we made with 60% alts in each Slightly painful to clear stuff with an average raid ilvl of about 10 below what it was designed for, but the ~50 pieces of tier we got was worth it!

[Deleted]

Unfortunetly I don't. It's something that I picked up while working on the bear module back when I was working on Rawr. The only change is adding in the stagger amount at the end. I'll do it in a programming terminology if that helps:

AttackerLevel = 93f
PlayerArmor = 18534f
DamageReduction = (1 - ((PlayerArmor) / ((PlayerArmor) + 4,037.5f * (AttackerLevel) - 317,117.5f))
OxStanceReduction = (1 - 0.25f)
MasteryConversion = 0.00625f
MasteryBase = 8f
Mastery = (MasteryRating / 600)
Stagger = 0.80f - 0.20f - ((MasteryBase - Mastery) * MasteryConversion)
StaggerUptime = 0.90f

EffectiveHealth = Health / DamageReduction / OxStanceReduction / (Stagger * StaggerUptime)

the "f" I placed after each number is a Visual C# thing.

Edit:

Fixed Mastery Conversion in this post and the previous post (was not thinking clearly and thought base mastery was 5 mastery)

Thanks, much better!

Though, aren't the 20% Stagger + 5% (from Elusive Brawler) static and effective even without Shuffle?

BaseStagger = 0.75f
ShuffleStagger = 0.2f + Mastery * MasteryConversion
EffectiveHealth = Health / DamageReduction / OxStanceReduction / (BaseStagger - (ShuffleStagger * StaggerUptime))


This raises the question (at least for me): Is the 5% Stagger from Elusive Brawler indeed static or applied through Shuffle? How about Mastery gained through rating? I searched but haven't found an answer so far.

[Hinalover]

Totally confused. Why is MasteryBase 8? and conversion is 1% per 960. Also, shuffle uptime of 0.9? o.O
As far as I know, total stagger % = (45+(mastery rating + [a]*3000)/960 + [b]*20)*(1 + [c]*0.12), where a, b, and c are 1 if the buff is present and 0 if not:
a = might
b = fort brew
c = 2pT15

- MasteryBase is 8 is from a holdover from Cata. Just in Mists, Blizz took out the whole mastery thing and only show the results (saying it was too confusing). Even though it shows "Increases your Stagger amount by an additional 5%." In reality each mastery is "5% / 8" or .625% per mastery.

- The whole "mastery rating + [a]*3000)/960" is correct since each old mastery is equal to 600 mastery rating. Since the conversion is .625% per mastery, in order to get 1% Stagger you would need (1/.625)(600) or 960 mastery rating.

- the 45 includes the 5% baseline that I referred to before.

- I didn't think to include the T15 2-piece but that would also be calculated in as well.

Edit
Probably what I should probably do is change my previous stagger calc to (1 - total Stagger %) as shown by the previous post but the net results should be the same.

[Quotey]

0.33% damage reduction equals 3373 HP for an incoming hit that deals 1,011,688 damage. So that's the "break-even boss hit" when a Mastery gem would become better than a Stamina gem. As you all know, hits of that size do not exists in ToT, neither in 10 man nor in 25 man.

Well, you say this, but...

[20:22:55.179] Horridon hits Quotey 207982 (A: 487805)
[20:22:55.282] Horridon Triple Puncture Quotey 482852 (O: 8723, A: 623265)

(i may have been on 8 stacks since the other tank died...)

Looks like a bit more mastery would have saved me! Of course, so would purifying the 30k stagger I was on. And it wouldn't ahve saved me from the next puncture. But 25H Horridon does hit very, VERY hard.

[Deleted]

Yes, you had 8 stacks. I should have been clearer: If you don't "ignore" encounter mechanics hits of that size don't exist. Edit: Apparently, your Holy Pala had still CD on Hand of Protection. Bad luck

Clearly, if you're stacking tanking debuffs beyond of good and evil you can be hit for much higher amounts of damage. But this is a) not intended and b) doesn't sound like a good argument in favor of stacking Mastery

Anyways: I was comparing Mastery in relation to Stamina. Gemming Stamina would've also saved you. Still, my argument was wrong since I didn't account for the fact that EH is overproportionally increasing in Mastery. So, Mastery is superior to Stamina for surviving physical damage when adequate purifying behavior can be assumed.

[Deleted]

This raises the question (at least for me): Is the 5% Stagger from Elusive Brawler indeed static or applied through Shuffle? How about Mastery gained through rating? I searched but haven't found an answer so far.

Has my question been overlooked or does nobody have an answer?

To clarify further: If I don't have Shuffle up, how many % do I stagger?
- 20% Baseline? --> 20% + 5% + X% would be applied through Stagger
- Or 20% + 5% (Elusive Brawler)? --> 20% + X% would be applied through Stagger
- Or 20% + 5% + X% (from Mastery Rating)? 20% would be applied through Stagger

[kaiadam]

Has my question been overlooked or does nobody have an answer?

To clarify further: If I don't have Shuffle up, how many % do I stagger?
- 20% Baseline? --> 20% + 5% + X% would be applied through Stagger
- Or 20% + 5% (Elusive Brawler)? --> 20% + X% would be applied through Stagger
- Or 20% + 5% + X% (from Mastery Rating)? 20% would be applied through Stagger

As far as I'm aware of, shuffle adds only 20% stagger. So you have your baseline 20 from ox stance, 5 from mastery, X from mastery rating, then 20% more if you have shuffle up.

Yes, you had 8 stacks. I should have been clearer: If you don't "ignore" encounter mechanics hits of that size don't exist

I wouldn't be so sure of that. 8 stacks is a fair number to be at imo.

Talon rake is another ability that hits for about a million damage around 3 stacks on heroic, again - reasonable.