Brewmaster monk Weapon choice, need big help here.

[Mushroomkin]

Alright here's the deal, i'm ms Mistweaver, and up until now i havent cared all that much for any other spec.
But the last couple of raids i've been tanking abit, since its the holidays and we needed a tank.

I'm running a Dual wield setup right now, with 496ilvl claws with sha touched gem + 476 gara'kal.. running windsongs on both weapons.
Tonight i got screaming tiger 2hander, and i'm a pickle here.. I'm unsure on what to use. I tried googling around, seeing if i could find some clear guidelines on the subject.. But really i'm all confused!

The loss of agility, and the gain of stam, mastery, and haste... plus only 1 weapon enchant..
some say EB stacks will be more steady flowing with DW, but others say its pretty much all the same..


What to choose?
- We're currently progressing on heroic Spirit kings, and heroic elegon..

[alysmera]

Mind you, I haven't played mainspec Brewmaster since beginning of T14, however...

Typically, it comes down to stats for tanking. If the iLevel of the 2H is greater than the ilevel of your MH, then typically you want to go with that. However, do the math on your MH + OH combination (which it seems like you've already done). My understanding is that tanks have a preference for 2nd stats over primaries, so I'll ignore that. In addition (at least when I played BrM), DW tended to give more consistent Elusive Brew stacks than 2H, which can be useful for you in H Kings. You've already stated it's a gain in stam and haste - which to my understanding is a greater gain than having the agility.

I'm currently running BrM as my offspec, but the last two weeks or so I have been tanking due to the holidays. I've noticed more of a burst of EB stacks (sometimes none for several seconds, and then suddenly 3-5) with my 2H, while I recall that when I used DW I received a fairly constant stream of them.

[The Madgod]

If it's a heroic weapon, that's very much a pickle. If it's normal, keep with what you have, the agi gem makes it quite good. If you're farming H Gara'jal, then try and get the weapon off of him and use some valor to upgrade your Claw of Shek'zeer.

[ViridianCC]

I err on the side of Polearms/Staves on my brewmaster.

Simply, that's a lot less hit I have to reforge to to hit every autoattack and maximize my stack potential for Elusive Brew and GotOx healing.

[TheWindWalker]

First of all, wow. I went from Mistweaver to Windwalker after the second wave of nerfs hit and I was feeling badass for having LFR Claws of Shek'zeer. My offhand is still the mace from Ook-Ook. This is with intentionally saving up coins to use multiple times on Shek'zeer (Turns out you really can still do that.) and doing Gara'jal. (LFR and Normal)

That said, if it's heroic like Madgod asked, then Validity's point about hit rating is kind of important. Dual-wielding misses often enough to throw off the smoothness of getting Elusive Brew stacks. If you're so well geared that you aren't hurting for haste, then not missing autoattacks should ultimately be better than having a slightly higher crit rating as missing will screw with the consistency of getting those crits. That and a little unwanted mastery is still beneficial to Brewmasters. It's a tiny bit more staggered damage which isn't something to be scared of.

[ViridianCC]

then Validity's point about hit rating is kind of important.

So basically what you're saying is Validty's point is valid?

[Zonex]

DW missing or not has nothing at all to do with EB generation. White attacks are on a 1 roll system, and thus EB stacks are directly dependent on crit (and to a lesser extent, haste) but it in no means has any correlation with Hit/exp.

2h EB generation is about 1% better than DW, it also has better stats. DW on the other hand, is more consistent in the EB stacking, and is slightly more dps.

As of now, the S-kings polearm, has godly awful stats on it, and has no legendary gem slot, if you are worrying about the 489 version, stick with DW, if you are going to get the 502 version.. well...

The agi gem makes up for the difference, along with the fact that only garakal has mastery on it. Not too sure on thisd with the PPM changes to Dancing steel and all, but having Dual Dancing Steels will tip it safely into DW > 502's favor. If it does indeed have the same PPm regardless of DW/2h, then 2H should slightly edge it out, and you conflict between the two will come down to smoother Eb generation, or overall better stats.

[TheWindWalker]

So basically what you're saying is Validty's point is valid?

If I were wearing sunglasses I'd have to remove them, yes.

DW missing or not has nothing at all to do with EB generation. White attacks are on a 1 roll system, and thus EB stacks are directly dependent on crit (and to a lesser extent, haste) but it in no means has any correlation with Hit/exp.

Going to need some clarification with plain English here. Does this mean B:EB happens regardless of whether you miss or hit? Like it checks "Would that have been a crit" and then stacks appropriately? Cause if it doesn't, then I don't see your point.

[Pisshands]

DW missing or not has nothing at all to do with EB generation. White attacks are on a 1 roll system, and thus EB stacks are directly dependent on crit (and to a lesser extent, haste) but it in no means has any correlation with Hit/exp.

2h EB generation is about 1% better than DW, it also has better stats. DW on the other hand, is more consistent in the EB stacking, and is slightly more dps.

As of now, the S-kings polearm, has godly awful stats on it, and has no legendary gem slot, if you are worrying about the 489 version, stick with DW, if you are going to get the 502 version.. well...

The agi gem makes up for the difference, along with the fact that only garakal has mastery on it. Not too sure on thisd with the PPM changes to Dancing steel and all, but having Dual Dancing Steels will tip it safely into DW > 502's favor. If it does indeed have the same PPm regardless of DW/2h, then 2H should slightly edge it out, and you conflict between the two will come down to smoother Eb generation, or overall better stats.

Yeah, people still don't remember that adding hit/exp only removes misses/dodges/parries, it never adds crits.

[Zonex]

Going to need some clarification with plain English here. Does this mean B:EB happens regardless of whether you miss or hit? Like it checks "Would that have been a crit" and then stacks appropriately? Cause if it doesn't, then I don't see your point.

Your white attacks (auto attacks/weapon swings) follow a 1 roll system. I.e. you have 0% hit/exp and youre attacking from the front, thats a 22.5% chance to not hit your target (7.5 miss, 7.5 dodge, 7.5 parry). Say you have 25% crit, gonna leave glancing blows out of this.

In a scenario where you bash on a mob for 1000 melee attacks, this is how it'll roll out.

225 attacks wont hit (22.5%)

250 attacks will crit (25%)

525 attacks will hit but not crit (100% - 22.5% - 25% = 52.5%)

So yea.. hit doesn't affect EB generation. Increasing your hit chance, just supresses the amount that misses, and makes them hits, but does nothing to the crits.

[Sinzaram]

Going to need some clarification with plain English here. Does this mean B:EB happens regardless of whether you miss or hit? Like it checks "Would that have been a crit" and then stacks appropriately? Cause if it doesn't, then I don't see your point.

The 1 roll system means that any time you swing a melee, wow generates a dice that is full of all your chances.
So if you have 30% chance to critically hit, there will be 1-30 chances for the dice to land on a crit.
The dice roll will always determine if things are crits, hits, misses, parrys, dodges etc.

What is a crit will always be a crit, a miss is always a miss. They don't relate to each other.

See more on attack tables here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Attack_table

Edit: Zonex also explains it better I lack real numbers atm

[ViridianCC]

Your white attacks (auto attacks/weapon swings) follow a 1 roll system. I.e. you have 0% hit/exp and youre attacking from the front, thats a 22.5% chance to not hit your target (7.5 miss, 7.5 dodge, 7.5 parry). Say you have 25% crit, gonna leave glancing blows out of this.

In a scenario where you bash on a mob for 1000 melee attacks, this is how it'll roll out.

225 attacks wont hit (22.5%)

250 attacks will crit (25%)

525 attacks will hit but not crit (100% - 22.5% - 25% = 52.5%)

So yea.. hit doesn't affect EB generation. Increasing your hit chance, just supresses the amount that misses, and makes them hits, but does nothing to the crits.

So by that logic, if you had 100% crit chance you'd never miss?

Okay, 107.5 for raid bosses. Or whatever. You know what I mean. Crit chance equal to or greater than avoid chance.

[Toxiel]

No, 100% crit chance will not make you never miss. The miss roll is done before the crit roll. I know that rogues in BiS ICC gear were running into a problem where they would need to get extra hit to increase their crit cap. More hit (After you got around ~72% crit) will increase your crit chance, as you get more of each. Also lowers glancing blows at this level as well... but the stats will never be that inflated again. (Like mages having 75% crit chance and 50% haste raid buffed)

[Zonex]

Meh i wish, but it follows a certain priority, you cant suppress misses with crits. The crits can only be taken from the attacks already hitting, so once you reach 77.5% crit, more crit will give you absolutely nothing, unless you get hit rating, which lowers the miss rate, and you can get more crit to fill the void.. and so on

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 05:11 AM ----------

Meh.. please Survival hunters in ICC 85% crit anyone? Granted MM was top then, seeing 85% crit on my paper doll was still fun ^^

[TheWindWalker]

No, 100% crit chance will not make you never miss. The miss roll is done before the crit roll.

There's more than one roll in the "one roll system?"

Just got that.

[Toxiel]

There's more than one roll in the "one roll system?"

Just got that.

I didn't main a physical damage character back when this stuff mattered but it's something like this.
Rolls to see if you miss. If it misses, nothing else rolls. You just miss.
Rolls to see if you get dodged/parried. ^ ^
Rolls to see if you crit. ^ ^ If you don't crit at this point you only have glancing blows and white hits left.
Rolls to see if you get a glancing blow.
I'm not sure if the dodge/parry are together with miss or even separated from themselves, but you got potentially 5 rolls being done every time you swing/use an ability. I also think someone above mentioned your crits will still average out to your crit chance even after misses so if you got 20% chance to crit and miss you will get 20% misses and 20% crits. Granted I never heard of this until I started monk tanking.

[herpecin]

No, 100% crit chance will not make you never miss. The miss roll is done before the crit roll. I know that rogues in BiS ICC gear were running into a problem where they would need to get extra hit to increase their crit cap. More hit (After you got around ~72% crit) will increase your crit chance, as you get more of each. Also lowers glancing blows at this level as well... but the stats will never be that inflated again. (Like mages having 75% crit chance and 50% haste raid buffed)

that was a very odd situation where many things happened with stats on many classes that were very odd indeed. using that as the reason behind your argument is not a good choice. the attack rolls are single roll, it has been said many times(even by blues).

[Toxiel]

that was a very odd situation where many things happened with stats on many classes that were very odd indeed. using that as the reason behind your argument is not a good choice. the attack rolls are single roll, it has been said many times(even by blues).

Well, at least back then (and yes, it was odd), having over 100% crit chance was possible. So how does it work in that extreme case? That's what I remember from rolls on things. As for my previous post before this one, I'm sorry I didn't notice it. Only gotten about 5 hours of sleep over the last 3 days.

[Mushroomkin]

The 2hander from spirit kings is only normal version.
So people are saying go with DW?

[Chuupag]

Yea DW is fine, and is probably slightly better in just about all circumstances right now. Using a 2H isn't wrong though, as the differences are fairly small.

Also glancing blows are before crits on the combat table. Crits are last, which is why they get 'pushed off' if you have too much misses/dodges/parrys/blocks/glancing. With current itemization even reforging away from hit/exp you can't really get to the DW crit cap, so don't worry about it. I had the math for this somewhere on the BrM sticky, but it's probably buried 50 pages in.