Brewmaster tank in serious need of advice - thank you!

[SurrealNight]

I'm mostly going off of what other well-progressed BrMs are saying (both in 10 and 25 man). An example on this forum, who I'm sure will show up sooner or later, is Kaiadam. Looking at his armoury, he's got ~3k more mastery rating than crit.

Kaiadam progression is ahead of the majority of the player/BrM base though so you have to factor in that he was pulling heroics with only like 1 clearing worth of gear T15 gear. I didn't count down our first heroic pull until I was i522.

[gynshon]

Daught runs more mastery due to 25's. I tried mastery on a cpl fights this tier and always went back to crit build after looking reviewing the raid, looking at logs, etc. In 10, there is literally zero reason to go mastery this tier. I even contemplated it for Ra-den and even PM'd Daught about it for ideas because of how hard Ra-den hits and it gets worse in P2. But I would also have some nice strings of avoidance. Ra-den kill - I dodged 79 melee hits. Average hit before mitigation is 450k and gets stronger throughout the fight.

[kaiadam]

I believe I maxed out at around 12-13k mastery or thereabouts, and have been shuffling about 1k of it into crit every week as we get more gear. It felt very comforting knowing that I was basically invincible to melee attacks during progression, and that I was the safety net for whenever any other tank died. It wasn't a huge hit to my damage either as you can see our first kills in my signature - always in the top 5 and usually the very top for our progression. At the apex of my mastery gearing, I was sitting at like 12500 mastery vs 5500 crit & 4500 haste (stupid hit/haste gear.)

On the other hand, gear only sets the maximum limits for our damage and survivabiilty, and it's the person at the keyboard who needs to realize those limits, and it's proper play, or the lack thereof, that makes the difference between living or dying. Personally, I think debating the merits of mastery vs crit in a "help me, I'm new to brewmaster" thread is completely academic. Despite what the guy says, he's probably dropping shuffle time, not EB'ing properly, using cds incorrectly, etc. and fixing those will contribute far more towards his survival than any sort of gear tweaking. Logs are neccessary.

That being said, I want to point out that the crit/haste setup is essentially the monk tank's glass cannon build and is more useful for the experienced brewmaster who is confident of her survival and wants to do more damage and a somewhat poor choice for a novice who is consistently dying. For example, I told Gynshon to stick with his crit/haste build on Ra-den despite the stupid retarded amount of damage he outputs ([00:45:30.903] Ra-den hits Daught 412144 (A: 599768))

I didn't count down our first heroic pull until I was i522.

I started heroics around 520 and was 525 by the end of our first week of heroics. I don't think the undergeared argument really make much sense; I had my pick of any gear I wanted in our our normal mode clears as we did multiple runs and there were only like 8 other mains in my raid. I went mastery simply because we lacked the experience that two months of clearing the instance brought, and I wished to minimize the number of times the raid wiped and a pull was aborted due to an inopportune tank death.

[Krazyfrog]

No he isn't right. You cannot stagger all damage that is incoming. Someone mentioned too much dmg on maegara, but you don't stagger breaths, so really it is about AVOIDING the melee hits, and staggering the ones that do hit. Save EB and pop it at the 2nd tick of each breath. With a Crit build, you will have 8-15 stacks after each breath, which is huge.

If you are 10m, you should be Haste to 5kish, crit for the rest. Can you do more haste? Yes. Do you need to? No. Just stick to the guidelines, and you will be fine. Again, most healers are not used to avoidance tanks and tend to focus on other people and freak out a lot because this is what happens:

- You just popped EB at 15 stacks and are avoiding a decent amount of hits.
- You build up your shuffle and you know a big hit ability is incoming so you pop guard for say 400k absorb.
- Boss melee swing hits you for 100k (300k left) and then 2 secs later big ability hits you for 250k (50k left)
- For 8ish or so secs you are not requiring heals so they focus on Joe Schmoe who is standing in the stupid.
- Guard is off, EB is off, and the boss melees you twice in a row for 125k each.
- Healers are slow to react, and the next big hit special is incoming for 250k with no active mitigation up.
- OH CRAP!!!!! SPAM HEAL OMGZORZ!!!!!!
- Wipe ensues. They blame the tank instead of their own crappy play.
- Brewmaster tank leaves guild, joins another one, progresses farther than the previous guild because they have healers with a clue.

That pretty much sums it up.

I am not telling the OP that they MUST go Mastery or they will never succeed. I am simply suggesting that they give it a try and see the results for themselves. Again speaking from personal experience in the impacts it made to my healers, it greatly calmed their nerves and we started killing bosses. This is also why I love monks so much. Blizz really hit the nail on the head with this class in that people can play them in several different fashions with each play style being acceptable. It is all about exploring the various ways to play and discussing it with your healers to get their take on how they feel. it is not all about the tanks or all about the healers, it is about the tanks and healers working together to find a solution that helps the team progress.

[Deleted]

It's quite simple. In 10man you gear for crit, in 25man you gear for mastery. If I had 2-3 healers focusing on me all the time in 10man I would gear mastery but that is never the case. Try to maximize your EB and use CD smartely and you will kill bosses

[Deleted]

Hey guys!

Thanks alot for ALL of your quick replies!
Iam now planning on doing:
Hit cap/Exp. Soft cap/5000 haste/crit

Will try to be better with the timing of my CD's.
I do have Weak auras to track what is needed.

I know that it sucks that I had no logs to give you. I Will try to log next raid and post it here

Again - thanks alot everyone!!

[Ulfhedinn]

May sound stupid but what type of healers do you have? From my experience tanking and healing as a monk trying to heal druids/monks is a bit of a pain. Druids and Shamans don't seem to be much better at healing that sort of damage even in 5 mans... At 504 ilvl but random healers of those three specs still scare me in heroics. Priests and Paladins I never have issues with.

If could be just that you are being ignored. I got into an LFR with a monk setup with stam/mastery so I got to see about what it looks like on sissy boss mode vs crit/haste. He took all kinds of damage... red stagger all the time but he never really was at risk of death. I rarely took damage but I would nearly die every time I took a few hits in a row.

[Felade]

You'll definitely take less damage using an avoidance build. However, you have to play perfectly, and you'll still take burst strings once in awhile, which is what contributes to the "spiky" feeling your healers are talking about.

If you are perfect at all times with your active mitigation, you can definitely get through all normal mode content in 10s. If your goal is to make you feel less spiky and more like a tank to your healers (which is a significant issue), you want more Mastery and Stam. It helps the most imo when you have to pick up adds for some reason or rough trash pulls that you can't always predict. I'm not talking fully reforging for Mastery or gemming all Stam, I'm talking more about maybe looking at the stam meta, or matching blue sockets with stam hybrids, and using a stam trinket. You only need a certain amount of haste to really get everything done. After that point, you can go for something else. Overall, yeah, Crit is going to give you the highest damage reduction, but Mastery and Stam are more reliable (especially if your skill level isn't tops).

http://www.sacredduty.net/2013/04/09...you-up-longer/

This was obviously originally written from the perspective of a Paladin, but it applies to Brewmasters as well.

Remember, damage doesn't kill tanks - BURST kills tanks.

[Biggety]

May sound stupid but what type of healers do you have? From my experience tanking and healing as a monk trying to heal druids/monks is a bit of a pain. Druids and Shamans don't seem to be much better at healing that sort of damage even in 5 mans... At 504 ilvl but random healers of those three specs still scare me in heroics. Priests and Paladins I never have issues with.

If could be just that you are being ignored. I got into an LFR with a monk setup with stam/mastery so I got to see about what it looks like on sissy boss mode vs crit/haste. He took all kinds of damage... red stagger all the time but he never really was at risk of death. I rarely took damage but I would nearly die every time I took a few hits in a row.

What you are describing sounds like either bad tanking or bad healing to me. In my experience, monks tanks are the least friendly to "casual" players because the penalty for dropping shuffle and not using cooldowns properly is binary: 1=life, 0=death. What this means is that the competence floor for monk tanking is pretty high. Once you reach that floor though, hoo boy. I routinely take less total damage, spend less time below 35% health, and have fewer deaths than any of my co-tanks while dealing much higher damage. The tanking toolkit for the class is very robust. Monks spike more than a paladin or warrior, but have better spike recovery tools in EH, our tier 30 talents and even vengeance buffed healing orb in a pinch.

Regarding gearing, I run 10-mans so crit/haste all the way. I have never died to a spike in 10-mans. On the other hand, our first Primordius kill, I kept myself and our warlock alive through the bosses' last 3% health to ensure a kill through elusive brew and a little luck.

[stellvia]

You may be spiky, but by 500 ilvl you should be solid enough in stats that you're not really at risk of dying. Healers also eventually learn the ups and downs of Monks and when they're likely to take spike dmg. Monks also have really good spike recovery though. Remember that there is no CD on Expel Harm under 35% health. So you can pop a Guard, and use EH 2-3x in tight situations. Your best bet is to just be proactive about soaking large hits. Have Guard or Dampen Harm ready, use Chi Wave/EH immediately after the hit, etc.

Another incredibly good thing on more static tanking fights: Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere.
You should have huge stacks of orbs on either side of you with this. Take a large hit and don't have CDs ready? Take a few steps to one or both sides and shoot up a few hundred k health. It's like having another CD or two at your disposal.

[Felade]

What you are describing sounds like either bad tanking or bad healing to me. In my experience, monks tanks are the least friendly to "casual" players because the penalty for dropping shuffle and not using cooldowns properly is binary: 1=life, 0=death.

This is much, much less true if you pay attention to mastery and stam.

[Deleted]

Hey Guys,

Can you please look up my parses also ? I am usually a Healer or DD. I think i can play both speccs quite moderate with WoL Rankings From time to Time i do also tank but my healers are always crying when i do. I know that i could expel harm more and my shuffle uptime sometimes isnt 100%. But still are there any elemental mistakes in my playstyle ?.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...s=9875&e=10304
http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/characte...doshi/advanced

[Yohassakura]

This is much, much less true if you pay attention to mastery and stam.

Personally I wouldn't try to cover up "incompetence" (might be a bit harsh) by stacking stats which are mainly undesirable, (at least they are in 10 man heroic, possibly with exceptions for some bosses - but "casual" players won't be) as you're not benefiting anyone. You should want to improve yourself and how well you play monk tank - not having shuffle up is like a warrior or a paladin tanking without a shield - there's no reason why it shouldn't be up 95%+ of the time that [you are tanking something, or at least in melee range]

If you know a hard hit is incoming - pop a CD, if you drop low on health - use expel harm.

From what I've seen, there's no "just aoe" fights, so even if they were concentrating on AOEing a little, they should still have some shuffle from previously focusing on something else. It's a little awkward on Horridon heroic for example when you're on the adds (and have to move out of the shit on the floor), but you can pretty much keep it up all of the time.

---------- Post added 2013-05-02 at 01:35 PM ----------

Hey Guys,

Can you please look up my parses also ? I am usually a Healer or DD. I think i can play both speccs quite moderate with WoL Rankings From time to Time i do also tank but my healers are always crying when i do. I know that i could expel harm more and my shuffle uptime sometimes isnt 100%. But still are there any elemental mistakes in my playstyle ?.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...s=9875&e=10304
http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/characte...doshi/advanced

From that fight, you weren't getting healed a lot (just some druid HoTs) plus your shuffle dropped off (for 3 seconds, which could have been 2 unmitigated hits - but you dodged one and got shuffle back up just in time) very close to when you died, which certainly wouldn't have helped.

By the looks of it, you were essentially keeping yourself alive with chi wave / expel harm - it was the healers fault for your death there.