Brewmaster feedback

[Deleted]

Now there's something I don't really get. I was reading stuff on the frontpage and found this :

We still need to give the Brewmaster better defense against magic. This will either be a passive damage reduction or some rework of an ability.

I'm frankly surprised. Exactly when I thought monks were already the new magic tank. They get permanent -20% damage taken, guard is absolutely amazing against magic damage (I can make 45k shields with my premade monk, wearing 378, not even gemmed, enchanted nor reforged, not to say you can add the guard from the statue leading to a nice 90K shield with a very long duration), they have this nice ability that reduces 90% of incoming magic damage and cleans all magic debuffs, and this AMAZING anti-magic raid CD. (Zen meditation)

(Also not so sure but I think you can even stagger magic damage, which is ... kind of amazing too. No other tank can claim that his basic mitigation mechanic can effectively mitigate magic damage.)

So, I wondered how I could do with my premade monk while soloing and went for Kael'Thas. The fight was definitely easier than on my DK. Guard literally absorbs everything, when you take damage you can heal yourself with spheres or a direct heal, and if things get really bad, there's two super CDs that will keep you alive. (-90% magic damage and fortifying brew that doubles your health and reduces damage taken (yeah, magic damage too)) To be clear, I never had to interrupt anything, not even the succession of pyroblasts, because there was simply no need to. I wasn't taking ANY damage.
(To those wondering, the other phases were quite easy. Aoe is very good, with the fire breath and the spinning kick, the weapons died easily. The four adds died quickly too, I just killed the mage with touch of death, spammed roll to keep distance from the warrior and killed the other two, then the warrior. Brewmaster damage is actually pretty good.)

Honestly, they already are better than warriors and paladins at magic tanking, if not Death Knights. I might be sounding like a whiner to you, but I'm very (VERY) curious about this, as I can't seem to understand why they would need better tools for this.

[Yorgl]

Well, I agree with you. The only explanation that comes to my mind is that they intend to replace the 20% DR from the stance by a regular Armor modifier and only talked about the magic mitigation without mentionning this change. And to be honnest, I'd rather see them do that because I feel that completly different mechanics between tanks (armor vs flat DR) might just lead to one (or several) class(es) being OP for a fight and the other(s) unpleasant to play. :-/

On a totally unrelated note, I like you cat, (s)he looks a little bit like mine. ^^ (And mine is not the one on my avatar)

[Gallahadd]

I just had a though on the 'low' 'medium' and 'high' stagger thing...

it wouldn't make much sense if they were flat numbers, as there will always come a time when we're being hit for so much, and Mastery is shifting so much damage that the first time we stagger, it will go right to 'high'

it would make more sense to have it as % of your total health. So say if the total damage of the DoT is =<20% then you're at low =<40% you're medium and any higher puts you in high stagger. This could also explain why it's not working on the beta, as they've not put the %'s in yes, so it can't go to med/high, because low is 100% stagger.

Also as someone with colourblindness, I heartily agree on the change from green to blue, and even now with hugh versions and nothing in my way I have a hard time telling betwen the green and yellow ones, in a boss fight I'll have no chance(of course I'll probably just wait till it gets red anyway ).

[Deleted]

Well, I agree with you. [...] On a totally unrelated note, I like you cat, (s)he looks a little bit like mine. ^^ (And mine is not the one on my avatar)

Haha, ain't my cat either, but I love them so much ! (Cats in general. I think I'm one of these freaky crazy about cats people, lol)

Regarding all this, I completely agree with you. Back in the WotLK days, frost presence had a flat 10% modifier for health, and it was scaling way too good. This kind of mechanics is problematic when you get more and more equipment with bigger stats on them. I hope they change the damage reduction percentage for an armor buff, and the health modifier by a stamina one. Seems only logical to me, everyone should rely on a similar and fair base. (These might even actually be placeholders from the start, and that's just me panicking for nothing ^^)

[Deleted]

Now there's something I don't really get. I was reading stuff on the frontpage and found this :



I'm frankly surprised. Exactly when I thought monks were already the new magic tank. They get permanent -20% damage taken, guard is absolutely amazing against magic damage (I can make 45k shields with my premade monk, wearing 378, not even gemmed, enchanted nor reforged, not to say you can add the guard from the statue leading to a nice 90K shield with a very long duration), they have this nice ability that reduces 90% of incoming magic damage and cleans all magic debuffs, and this AMAZING anti-magic raid CD. (Zen meditation)

(Also not so sure but I think you can even stagger magic damage, which is ... kind of amazing too. No other tank can claim that his basic mitigation mechanic can effectively mitigate magic damage.)

So, I wondered how I could do with my premade monk while soloing and went for Kael'Thas. The fight was definitely easier than on my DK. Guard literally absorbs everything, when you take damage you can heal yourself with spheres or a direct heal, and if things get really bad, there's two super CDs that will keep you alive. (-90% magic damage and fortifying brew that doubles your health and reduces damage taken (yeah, magic damage too)) To be clear, I never had to interrupt anything, not even the succession of pyroblasts, because there was simply no need to. I wasn't taking ANY damage.
(To those wondering, the other phases were quite easy. Aoe is very good, with the fire breath and the spinning kick, the weapons died easily. The four adds died quickly too, I just killed the mage with touch of death, spammed roll to keep distance from the warrior and killed the other two, then the warrior. Brewmaster damage is actually pretty good.)

Honestly, they already are better than warriors and paladins at magic tanking, if not Death Knights. I might be sounding like a whiner to you, but I'm very (VERY) curious about this, as I can't seem to understand why they would need better tools for this.

I think currently designer try to fix the stagger mecanism and the remark was certainly write with some change in mind that we are not aware.
For the solo try you made i'm not surprise because in the current patch some thing are not tuned (passive avoidance for an example) so we can only test the gameplay and how thing fit together. (Stagger seems to not stack enough for another example)

Also it is difficult when you solo old content to affirm that some abilities are too powefull because you outgear the boss and also that the thing could be easiest than for a DK for an old raid is not a factor of balance. No offense on my side, i do the same, running old content too, it's just that thing have to be replaced in current raid environment to really see impact of thing. (And could also go to the same conclusion that you write)

[Deleted]

I understand, yeah.

I went for Kael'Thas because I had the pyroblast phase in mind, which is a short phase you'll have to take a LOT of magic damage on your own, with no external help. Fact is that every single point of damage was absorbed with the help of guard, stagger and/or cd's, demonstrating that when it comes to taking a lot of magic damage without healing, monks are really good, that's what I'm saying, hence me being so surprised about the announcement.

Now, I don't have numbers in mind, but if a 378 non-optimized character can take on something that spams a magic attack virtually dealing half his health every time, all by himself... then I guess a fully geared, gemmed, enchanted and reforged character will do fine against any magical fight happening on the current tier. (Especially with one or several healers to watch his back.)

[Deleted]

I updated the first message with the new patch experience, also i place a coyp here (patch 16657)

Overall: The evolution seems goods considering the fun. New mecanism (automatic stagger for exmple) open new form and fun form of tanking and various thing seems testes to see how it goes (increase parry for example.) When you play the fun increase and you get more and more the feeling to tank (because the passive mitigation has been modified). However some questions remain and some thing seems to not work properly (stagger stacking)

-chi generation have three forms:


-keg smash
-jab
-expel Harm

With a 30% buff in energy regen in new patch you really feel different, and chi generation becomes easiest, so the 1s brewmaster GCD is really used

Still the question with expel harm allowing chi generation outside fight. I think something that will allow brewmaster to refill chi outside fight directly like chi brew could be best.

Waiting 1mn to cast four expel harm can be annoying for the same

-abilities

-Stagger: Now you automaticly stagger. Baiscly with some mastery in my premade 85 monk, the brewmaster stagger 36% of the damage and take so 64% directly.

Since you get lower armor, you take basicly same amount directly than another tank with better armor.

For a short comparaison:
100k on a paladin will make 85k with the -15% passive of sanctuary, and 34k taken with a 60% armor mitigation
100K on the brewmaster will result in 80k with the -20% stance effect, than 56k by the 30% armor. Stagger effect will than be something like 36k directly take and 20k delayed

The idea is that the automatic stagger negate spike damage possibility.

Also you feel now really that you stagger some damage. I will write more about stagger after seeing some othe abilities

-Black out Kick

Now add very powerfullbuff: add 20% to the stagger part (so becoming 56%) for 6s, and 30% parry chance;

- Tiger palm, elusive brew, purifying brews, guards doesn’t change (but guards is no more in mastery)


New stagger mecanism is nice but currently you feel that it can’t stack so much. (Didn’t get any feedback that some have get the experience of a medium or high level of stagger)

They are obviously several reasons:

-With parry BOK buff, you go over 50% passive avoidance so you are hit less often

-You can even usive 50% dodge bonus for 10s with elusive brew and so are immune to physical hit with the added BOK bonus. And since stagger last for 10s, you clear it.

-Purifying brew is on 6s CD and also chi generation are much better, and you can use it more often without get the impress to sacrifice some other part of the defense

-Stagger is a 10s timer, so it’s quite short


-some debate about stagger

Lets take some hypothese for the brewmaster (that could be wrong of course)

-better stamina bonus
-a better passive avoidance (certainly too high in the current test but it look the good direction)
-but when you are hit you seems supposed to take potentialy more (direct+stagger DOT)
->the passive stagger effect seems here so the Brewmaster would not take more than another tank in a short time (spike damage, particulary in long fight raid)
->also it take some more damage form a stagger dot that the brewmaster is suppose to manage (three level, gree, yellow, red)


I think it can’t works properly because stagger timer is too short

If one of the brewmaster concept is to manage with its stagger dot, we can suppose that during the lenght of the fight stagger should increase.

several thing can be made

-increase timer (30s for example will alow multiplr stack more easely)

-Make a mecanism to dissociate the DOT tick and the stagger purge: i mean in my limited english, you take 100 stagger damage frome the tick but stagger overall damage decrease only 50 , next tick you will take 95 (and not 90)
It can be a not good idea, it just an idea

Than brewmaster could have some tool to manage it:

-guards: with stagger concept, guards will peharps fit more with the brewmaster with something like sacred shield concept: a 30s duration but with an absorb amount by 6s (can be 4s, 8s, just to get an idea)

-Intent to let stagger in the green level
There can be a sinergy in the guards scaling for example that will make brewmaster interest to keep stagger in the green level because it will buff more the guards than the stagger damage during the 30s for example.

When stagger grow too much (yellow level or higher) that will indicate that stagger increase but don’t buff anymore the guards capacity, overall the buff granted still better than the stagger reached (because there will be a cap limit, a % of the brewmaster health for example )
Stagger will become red when another critic limit of the stagger DOT is reached. (the dot bypass the bonus granted, it means that is time to clear it)

Guards will absorb of course another source of damage but it will atenuate them to compensate the stagger mecanism.

Than purifying brew would be used. Could be used early also but that will not be to the monk advantage.


Just some idea

For the rest, spinning crane Kick costing only energy is fine. Also with the energy regen you can use them without pause, i don’t know if it is the final intent or not.

[Feelsgood]

I feel myself a little bit weak after i ran 2 instances and in both of them i felt bound to Blackout Kick spamming after 2 chi generated, to maintain the effect from it. When 2 chi generated the time for Shuffle almost close to 0-1 sec. and then i need to generate those 2 chi one more again to "renew" this effect... and there is no time to do anything else.

Sorry, for my english.

[Deeth]

For the most part i agree with you Feelsgood. I am to the point where i can maintain the Shuffle Proc and keep Guard up most of the time but after my opening sequence i find it hard to generate enough chi to maintain both w/o using our Statue. This wouldnt be a problem if i was the only one using my statue but unfortunately there are other members of the group. Another issue i am running into is that aoe pulls seem to overwhelm me because im trying to maintain my defensive buffs but run out of resources to have aggro on all mobs.

[Gallahadd]

bumping this thread to discuss new changes.

Spinning Crane Kick now Generates 1 Chi: I petition it for a name change, it's now called WINNING Crane kick...

Desperate Measures New: While at or below 35% health, your Expel Harm has no cooldown: nomnomnomnomnomnomnom

Purifying Brew now has a 1 sec cooldown: next patch :PB is now off the GCD and has no CD or cost... basically just macro that badboy into all your moves

Summon Black Ox Statue has been reworked: Sancturary of the Ox (Passive) -Everytime the Monk deals damage equal to 50% of their health, the Black Ox statue will cast Guard on an injured party or raid member within 40 yards absorbing 14,232 damage lasting 30 sec. This effect cannot be cast onto the Monk: This is a strange change... I'm guessing the % will be changes, because at the moment I can only see Touch of Death proccing this effect :S, maybe it's meant to be 5%.... either way it's a bit of a hit to monk survivability, but tbh we seem to be doing pretty well anyway.

overall, some very nice changes, I've got to say it's looking more and more like my Monk will be my main for MoP .

[The Madgod]

I'm a little sad we can't abuse our statue and have double guards anymore, but yes, definitely some great changes!

And more Guide to update. Blah. BLAH I say!

[Hijiri]

This will lower what brewmaster can solo by how much, am uncertain.
Maybe blizzard thinks if guard is to powerful that Brewmasters might not need to group with healers?

In any case, moving on and adapting to the new changes.

[Anastacy]

Ox Statue change is pretty sweet, at least from a healers perspective. The dog in Moshu Palace that randomly aggroes someone, stuns them, and WTFPWNS them was totally negated by BM's statue shield (shield had proc'ed on me, then dog aggroed and stunned me...took NO damage).

So, the proc is working, although I'm not sure what damage percentage is needed to proc it (certainly not 50% of the BM's health, unless he hit for 100k repeatedly on a boss [aka no Touch of Death]), and it seems like it will go a long way to mitigate raid damage, especially in a 10man.

[Gallahadd]

good to know Spaz, I'm guessin it's just a tooltip error, and the next patch will show us how it really works.

[Anastacy]

good to know Spaz, I'm guessin it's just a tooltip error, and the next patch will show us how it really works.

I noticed multiple shields on group members during all the fights; curious to know, since I think Keg Smash is BM's hardest hitting move, if you can get multiple procs, since Keg Smash hits more than one target? Would be sort of OP, in reality, but a nice thought.

For soloing content, yeah it is kind of a bummer that it won't proc on the BM itself...but as I said, it'll probably be a nice raid-wide utility.

[elfporn]

it seems like the shield procs every time you deal damage equaling 50% of your hp, though not in a single hit, like you're just auto attacking, and when your damage done equals half your hp, a shield procs, and another comes when you hit that threshold again.

The shield from the statue does go on the monk, atleast while solo. Noticed this at lvl 75 when i solo'ed Drak'Tharon Keep

The absorption also increased the more/faster i did damage. IE: an aoe pack i'd proc the shield a bunch of times and the amount absorbed kept increasing.

[Gallahadd]

ooooh shit... we didn't think about that elf we read the tooltip over and over, read the 50% bit.... ya know what we DIDN'T read? the bit where it says 'in one hit' so say you have 100k health, over the course of the fight every time you deal 50k damage over however many strikes, you'll cast a bubble on someone in the party/raid, I actually quite like that way of doing it .

Would be interesting if it DID cast on the monk, but only if they're the only member of the party/raid, so the statue is still awesome for soloing, but doesn't effect survivability while in a group.

[Anastacy]

Hrm, minor technicality on the "50% damage" bit. Still a nice change raid-wide, but less of "another personal cooldown for BM tanks" (which they probably don't need anyway).

[elfporn]

The interaction with provoke and the statue is broken, i havnt been able to get the statue to taunt anything at any point.

[Deeth]

If you are the only one around the statue WILL cast guard on you. I tried the statue out while dpsing a dummy and it worked. So as far as soloing stuff at this point it should be pretty sweet.