[BM] Brewmaster Tips and Tricks: Tier 14 Bosses

[Noventforme]

I'm actually curious about any seasoned raiders that raided as Brewmaster about their choices of glyphs and talents regarding specific bosses and what tips they might have to offer to the whole Monk Community!

Come down and share with us your eternal wisdom!

P.S. I just like to know for my progressions and entertainment!

EDIT: I also hope that once we gathered a decent amount of information here and this can be a sticky for every Brewmaster tanks out there.

[Deleted]

There are only a few talents/glyphs I change depending on bosses. Dampen Harm/Diffuse Magic obviously depends on if its high physical damage or high magical spike dmg that you are interested in mitigating. For example Elegon N/H it would be preferable to use the Guard glyph for 10% extra absorption, but also because you don't want your Guard to be used up from Elegons melee attacks before he does his breath (which ticks for about 50k x4 on normal + aoe dmg from add under 25% hp) because then you won't have anything mitigating that, while you have stagger to always mitigate physical dmg. With shuffle ALWAYS up, I personally prefer to almost always use my 2 chi for Blackout Kick rather than Guard in any situation except if im maybe <5% hp followed by Expel harm, it will really save ur life.

Where a in a physical oriented fight like Blade lord or example you'd want the usual Guard absorption together with Dampen Harm.

Those are really the only essential changes I do:
The guard glyph for magical fights (make sure to change back for a physical dmg fight because otherwise Guard will be rather useless)
Dampen Harm/Diffuse magic depending on what kind of spike dmg you want to mitigate.

those are my 2 cents, cant wait to hear insight from other fellow ascension seekers

[Kisho]

Two tricks for Lei Shi:

1. Pull with your statue by placing it next to Lei Shi. She'll cast her first Spray on the statue, meaning you take no damage at all. A minor thing, but it helps.

2. Zen Meditation is amazing. Spray won't break you out of it, so it's 8 seconds of near-zero damage taken. Very useful during an add phase if you're on the boss and the add is taking a while to die, so the other tank can't taunt off you so your Spray stacks are getting a bit high.

And obviously, glyph Guard and use Diffuse Magic on this fight as well.

Zen Meditation is also very useful on Garalon, because Furious Swipes won't break it. So if you're a bit low on HP, healers are struggling, you can at least help them out by removing the damage you take almost entirely for a short while.

What else... Eh, that's the main one I wanted to get out there really. I'll think of more later maybe.

[Caeth]

Definitely use Xuen on Garalon...its a dps check.

I was thinking of trying RJW on Wind-breaker....for more aoe....then a bit of SCK if I can get away with it.

I like to run with chi torpedo cause it's fun and looks cool....has anyone found it of particular use? How about with /walk...the heal was nice...dont know about the damage. I like it on Elegon/any fight with movement.

[Tharax]

As a preliminary matter, I would advise taking Xuen on all encounters. There's really no reason not too in most situations, even AoE ones, as we won't be spending a lot of time utilizing SCK as tanks. He scales with your AP, so cast him when your tanking and after your vengence has stacked up a little.

Second, for every tank switching fight or fight where you're not tanking for part of it - use the time when you're not tanking to stack up Shuffle. Then, when you are tanking, don't use a lot of Blackout Kicks and instead spend your chi on purifying all the Staggers you get and casting Chi Wave. In many cases, you can stack Shuffle to the point that it will last through the entire duration you have to be tanking. This is like the best trick in the Brewmaster arsenal and results in a really even, and noticeably easier, damage pattern.

Third, use Zen Meditation like a pro. It's removed on a melee hit, but that hit will still cause 90% less damage. If you have no other way to stay alive, you're low on health, and the next swing will kill you, USE ZEN MED. It gives your healers the extra second or two they will need to heal your ass up. This has saved me many times.

Also, cast Avert Harm and then Zen Med - that gives you a 20% raid CD and you'll take almost none of the damage redirected to you. It's a powerful raid cooldown that won't kill you.

Fourth, use Glyph of Guard wisely - if there's big magic damage that you want CDs for, it's useful. However, it's also useful in situations where there is HUGE physical damage such that Guard is less effective. If you're getting absolutely annihilated by the boss and you're getting constant external CDs anyway, Guard isn't terribly useful for it's damage avoidance component. Moreover, your healers will be precisely timing their heals with the damage you take, since you'll be spiking down. In these situations, I take the glyph and use Guard for the 30% healing buff it gives the healers. This is obviously very situational, but it's definitely an option to keep in mind.

Here are my observations based on specific fights:

Stone Guard (H): Brewmasters tend to do more damage to multiple mobs than other tanks, so you should try to be the tank that tanks 2 mobs. Glyph of Stoneskin, as the dogs do a bleed on you.

Feng (H): Leg sweep is good for the shield adds, but be sure to coordinate with your raid so you don't stun too early and DR them.

Garajal (H): We kick ass on this fight. Agi/Flask and food, as you will have CDs on you at all times. Death Touch the Severers when you can (duh) - make sure to tell your raid you can take 2 of the 3 Severers on your own (one with DT, the other just with DPS) so they can spend more time killing the other spirits. Don't DT the first one you kill, as vengence will make it really easy to kill on your own.

Spirit Kings (H): Utilize Transcendence to kite Meng when his energy gets high - he hits like a truck then. DON'T KEG SMASH AT MIND CONTROLS - you'll put weakened blows on all your melee and fuck your DPS. This tip goes for all MCs.

Elegon (H): Glyph Death Touch (you won't be able to use it usefully more than one every 3 min) and utilize it on the last wave of sparks you're killing. Tell the DPS assigned to that spark what's going to happen so they can use their CDs more effectively. Glyph Guard and use it for the breaths.

Will of the Emperor (H): This one is AMAZING for Brewmaster tanks. The bosses don't attack for long periods while they're doing the dance, so that gives us several great advantages. First, use the dance time to stack up Shuffle. You can easily get it up to 30-45 seconds, and then you can spend all of your chi when the boss is hitting you on Purifying Brew and Chi Wave. Second, glyph Guard and use it right when the boss is coming out of the dance - it will get eaten up by the Titan Gas, but this takes a long time and Guard will give you 30% increased healing taken while it persists.

Vizier (N): Don't keg smash the MCs.

Garalon (N): Save whichever one of the front legs is on the OUTSIDE of your kite path for JUST the tanks to DPS. It's a pain in the ass for DPS to get to, and we do good damage so it should go down decently fast.

Wind Lord (N): Try to tank the most mobs possible and practicable. We do awesome AoE damage, as noted above. This may be on of the rare occasions to use Rushing Jade Wind (especially on heroic).

Grand Empress (N): Tank all the little adds yourself. Again with the big AoE damage.

Tsulong (N): Definitely a Guard glyph fight. Don't glyph Death Touch - you can use it plenty on the small adds in Day phase.

Lei Shi (N): Glyph Guard. Zen Med when your stacks are high - her attack doesn't remove it!

Sha of Fear (N): Nothing special when taking the main boss, but we have some cool tricks on the platforms. Glyph Death Touch as you won't be able to use it more than once every 3 min anyway. The platform bosses are not tankable so don't bother stacking Shuffle - instead, abuse Chi Wave. It'll really help your healers. Spend most of your time collecting orbs so your DPS don't have to move, but be sure your healer can get as many as they want (for mana regen). Glyph Zen Med, and when Death Blossom comes you don't have to LoS - just pop Zen Med and continue to move around collecting orbs.

So yeah...not an exhaustive list of tricks by any means, but definitely some cool things to do!

[Noventforme]

I'm well aware of the benefit of using Zen Mediation for certain fights but I always seems to mistimed them.

For instance, on Feng 10N, I know you can use ZM to absorb some fires when Feng was drawing in fires, but it seems like it doesn't work?

But other than that, I often struggled with tanking and survive Meng's Craze and his hits on Spirit Kings when I tank it. So I figured I'd have to pop certain CDs before he cast Craze and kite Meng quite often as well.

[Needonboots]

Especially with most people taking Ascendency now, it's worth trying to keep 1 chi floating. So make sure when you're using BOKs and stuff you're using it on 3, and just never using that 1 chi. It only takes one extra jab early on. This means you'll always have that 1 chi IMMEDIATELY available to purify if suddenly needed, so you're never caught short on energy.

[Raidenwins]

@Tharax, how are you doing Heroic modes and not understanding how Guard works?? The healing boost is self-heals only, and will never be worth using the glyph just to take advantage of that increase on physical damage fights.

[Deleted]

Chi wave is amazing on garalon while "tanking". Had a plate dps with me to soak, and he spiked quite a bit from swipe, but chi wave on the legs bounced super quick to help get him back up. Swipe and chi wave also have roughly same cd which is great to help out healers. If you use it on the body though, it may not have the same good effect since travel time is longer and it can bounce away more easily.

[Leggomyeggo]

Definitely use Xuen on Garalon...its a dps check.

I was thinking of trying RJW on Wind-breaker....for more aoe....then a bit of SCK if I can get away with it.

I like to run with chi torpedo cause it's fun and looks cool....has anyone found it of particular use? How about with /walk...the heal was nice...dont know about the damage. I like it on Elegon/any fight with movement.

Chi Torpedo actually goes about 66% farther than a normal roll. I like to use this on Blade Lord. The healing it provides is helpful to the raid when I Chi Torpedo over them during the run through the tornado gauntlet.

It does take a little bit to get used to the new range so use it carefully. You might want to use it for a while so you get a feel for the new range. Using it and landing in a tornado wouldn't be cool.

[Deleted]

@Tharax, how are you doing Heroic modes and not understanding how Guard works?? The healing boost is self-heals only, and will never be worth using the glyph just to take advantage of that increase on physical damage fights.

I've heard it still increases all healing done to you, despite what the tooltip says. Someone please confirm.

[Noventforme]

There has to be some more useful information, While I am sure that few folks appreciated tips for heroic modes. But I'd like to some more tips about normal mode bosses as well!

Keep 'em coming, folks!

[Deleted]

On Garajal while offtanking, keep taunting. Even though the boss won't turn on you, you will still get the vengance for some reason for a massive dps boost.

[Sylvannah]

Mogu'shan Vaults - The Stone Guard

Easy Tank Strategy, where tank (1) tanks one guard, tank (2) two of them
- If tank (1) gets the active one, he taunts the former inactive guard off of (2), while (2) taunts the currently active one.
- If tank (2) gets the active one, nothing changes

Spotting Tipps:
The stone guards turn and run far too slow after taunting. So a lot of times they turn around midways after the 3s taunt effect wears of and run back to the tank having had aggro before because there is still a tank-dot on them. Solution: taunt and rights afterwards apply some sort of range attack immediately while the guard runs towards you. In our case crackling jade lightnings, which ticks after 1s, should suffice.

[Deleted]

On Garajal while offtanking, keep taunting. Even though the boss won't turn on you, you will still get the vengance for some reason for a massive dps boost.

no need to taunt to get vengence, you get that from his sweep attack anyway

[Alucin]

no need to taunt to get vengence, you get that from his sweep attack anyway

Well i'll not do that again... I wasn't watching to see if he got the run speed effect of provoke. I assume bosses don't...

[Bartolo]

Sha of Fear (N): Nothing special when taking the main boss, but we have some cool tricks on the platforms. Glyph Death Touch as you won't be able to use it more than once every 3 min anyway. The platform bosses are not tankable so don't bother stacking Shuffle - instead, abuse Chi Wave. It'll really help your healers. Spend most of your time collecting orbs so your DPS don't have to move, but be sure your healer can get as many as they want (for mana regen). Glyph Zen Med, and when Death Blossom comes you don't have to LoS - just pop Zen Med and continue to move around collecting orbs.

So yeah...not an exhaustive list of tricks by any means, but definitely some cool things to do!

Platform bosses are tankable and must be tanked. They make a special attack on their main aggro target.

[SurrealNight]

Lei Shi (N): Glyph Guard. Zen Med when your stacks are high - her attack doesn't remove it!

Lei Shei broke my Zen Med early, had about 3 sec left on it and got popped out (fortunately other tank taunted quick). I had it glyph'd for Sha and wasn't moving so no it wasn't canceled on my end.

10m Sha is easy to tank, just pop Elusive Brew for every thrash (which is roughly every 9 sec) assuming you aren't still rolling it anyways as with high crit you can build up > 10 stacks before a Thrash. Save Dampen Harm and Fort Brew for the occasional RNG of not getting any stacks (it happens) before a Thrash.

I found saving Xuen for the platforms worked out better than saving them for Sha unless it's at the end and you know he will go down before you finish your next platform phase. Getting the 5 people back to the main platform ASAP seems to be > individual boosts to damage on boss unless your already crushing the meters on him anyways.

[Deleted]

Two tricks for Lei Shi:

1. Pull with your statue by placing it next to Lei Shi. She'll cast her first Spray on the statue, meaning you take no damage at all. A minor thing, but it helps.

2. Zen Meditation is amazing. Spray won't break you out of it, so it's 8 seconds of near-zero damage taken. Very useful during an add phase if you're on the boss and the add is taking a while to die, so the other tank can't taunt off you so your Spray stacks are getting a bit high.

And obviously, glyph Guard and use Diffuse Magic on this fight as well.

Zen Meditation is also very useful on Garalon, because Furious Swipes won't break it. So if you're a bit low on HP, healers are struggling, you can at least help them out by removing the damage you take almost entirely for a short while.

What else... Eh, that's the main one I wanted to get out there really. I'll think of more later maybe.

Would add spam healing spheres to that list if you have sufficient threat too. They do retarded healing.

[Deleted]

On Garajal while offtanking, keep taunting. Even though the boss won't turn on you, you will still get the vengance for some reason for a massive dps boost.

no need to taunt to get vengence, you get that from his sweep attack anyway

You're confusing Gara'jal and Garalon....
Dak is right, on Gara'jal you can taunt the boss while he is focusing the other tank, as the boss is immune to the taunt he won't turn on you but you will receive some vengeance, a percentage of the other tank's vengeance I think.