Brewmaster Critique... i've been dubbed as the 'tissue tank'

[Szer]

BRM not a "tissue tank". Its one of the most hard to kill. If not the most
My 518 alt on Normal Ji-Kun w/o ANY external saves. Little overkill only at 12th stack:

[03:09:27.610] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake from Ji-Kun
[03:09:27.610] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка Absorb (379791)
[03:09:52.972] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (2) from Ji-Kun
[03:09:53.008] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 214147 (A: 391081)
[03:10:14.758] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (3) from Ji-Kun
[03:10:14.758] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 45363 (A: 838929)
[03:10:44.919] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (4) from Ji-Kun
[03:10:44.919] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 120267 (A: 999729)
[03:11:06.685] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (5) from Ji-Kun
[03:11:06.685] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 212663 (A: 776743)
[03:11:35.703] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (6) from Ji-Kun
[03:11:35.703] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка Absorb (1139479)
[03:11:57.449] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (7) from Ji-Kun
[03:11:57.449] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 207375 (A: 1140719)
[03:12:22.855] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (8) from Ji-Kun
[03:12:22.858] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 352419 (A: 1593539)
[03:12:44.592] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (9) from Ji-Kun
[03:12:44.592] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 503207 (A: 1117591)
[03:13:06.356] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (10) from Ji-Kun
[03:13:06.356] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 43314 (A: 1797947)
[03:13:28.107] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (11) from Ji-Kun
[03:13:28.107] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 104653 (A: 116213)
[03:14:03.189] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (12) from Ji-Kun
[03:14:03.189] Ji-Kun's Talon Rake fades from Сцерушка
[03:14:03.198] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 640183 (O: 153392, A: 1775422)

P.S. Its not mastery build. This is 2t15 usage.

[Renface]

You put QT in your toon's name, which has the hidden effect of enraging all enemies, causing them to deal 10% extra damage to you.

LOL This toon started out to be a joke toon... never thought it would be my main. I just can't justify spending money to get rid of 2 letters lol Don't hold it against me!

---------- Post added 2013-06-21 at 08:29 PM ----------

You are the living epitome of brewmaster monk that makes some random healers think that monks are bad tanks.
No offence :P. Well with all the corrections you got from this thread, Id say you are going to be pretty bad ass with that gear seeing as you guys are pretty much just starting heroics.

Well aware of that.. however, I don't see many of those 'bad tanks' trying to fix themselves.

---------- Post added 2013-06-21 at 08:30 PM ----------

BRM not a "tissue tank". Its one of the most hard to kill. If not the most
My 518 alt on Normal Ji-Kun w/o ANY external saves. Little overkill only at 12th stack:

[03:09:27.610] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake from Ji-Kun
[03:09:27.610] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка Absorb (379791)
[03:09:52.972] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (2) from Ji-Kun
[03:09:53.008] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 214147 (A: 391081)
[03:10:14.758] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (3) from Ji-Kun
[03:10:14.758] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 45363 (A: 838929)
[03:10:44.919] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (4) from Ji-Kun
[03:10:44.919] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 120267 (A: 999729)
[03:11:06.685] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (5) from Ji-Kun
[03:11:06.685] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 212663 (A: 776743)
[03:11:35.703] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (6) from Ji-Kun
[03:11:35.703] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка Absorb (1139479)
[03:11:57.449] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (7) from Ji-Kun
[03:11:57.449] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 207375 (A: 1140719)
[03:12:22.855] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (8) from Ji-Kun
[03:12:22.858] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 352419 (A: 1593539)
[03:12:44.592] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (9) from Ji-Kun
[03:12:44.592] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 503207 (A: 1117591)
[03:13:06.356] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (10) from Ji-Kun
[03:13:06.356] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 43314 (A: 1797947)
[03:13:28.107] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (11) from Ji-Kun
[03:13:28.107] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 104653 (A: 116213)
[03:14:03.189] Сцерушка afflicted by Talon Rake (12) from Ji-Kun
[03:14:03.189] Ji-Kun's Talon Rake fades from Сцерушка
[03:14:03.198] Ji-Kun Talon Rake Сцерушка 640183 (O: 153392, A: 1775422)

P.S. Its not mastery build. This is 2t15 usage.

Not calling monks tissue tanks.. I was calling myself a tissue tank This class is amazing, I just needed direction.

[Robb]

Don't worry, you are not alone! I started out tanking on my monk when HoF launched, and you should of heard the complaints from my healers. Once you get used to making sure shuffle is up all the time, and managing CD's a little bit better, you'd be amazed at the difference. I went from dieing on Feng due to lack of shuffle, to 6/12 HC ToT main tanking for my team. It really is a fantastic class to play. Keep at it, and let us know how you do in your next raid!

[Tarazet]

I'm going to disagree on heroic Rising Winds vs Relic of Xuen. The secondary stats on the 535 itself more or less equals the entire relic trinket (depending on your vengeance, it's anywhere from a 5% increase to a 10% dps loss going from rising winds to relic), and the 35% heal has some non-zero value.(You can tell I don't particularly respect either spell )

Maybe a slight overstatement, but Ji-Kun's Rising Winds is certainly not competitive with the other trinkets available in T15 or even T14. And the heal is so small, it might as well not be there. When it dropped for us, I tried it until the end of the raid day then had the GM turn it into a Haunting Spirit because the heal had proc'd a grand total of one time over 6 bosses for a whopping 20k.

[SurrealNight]

I usually do have Xuen on but I used RNW for Horridon to help with the ads and you're right, don't use dampen harm/Magic anywhere near enough!

I would still go with Xuen, he does cleave damage and usually still results in more DPS unless there are a LOT of targets. Also you can use him to "tank" adds for you. Best example of this is when the 2 bears drop down cast while one is targeted and he will play with them for the duration while you finish off his friends.

I use Xuen on Door 2, Door 4, and enraged Horridon.

[Felade]

Shuffle uptime. That's probably the big one. I think a lot of people see Shuffle as active mitigation (because, you know, it takes a button press), but I don't think that's a very good way to think about it. Every tank has a way to mitigate 50-60% or so of a physical hit. For shield tanks that's armor+shield, DKs get extra armor from blood presence, bears have bear form that gives them extra armor.

What about Monks? We don't get any extra armor, and our stance is fine but it isn't giving us something in return for that armor. No, our base mitigation comes from SHUFFLE (in tandem with Purifying Brew).

The corollary question to this is "what is analogous to Monks letting Shuffle drop?" Well, that would be equivalent to a Druid tanking in caster form, a Warrior or Paladin tanking without their shield, or a DK tanking without their Blood Presence. THAT should be ample motivation to increase Shuffle uptime :P

[Tarazet]

I would still go with Xuen, he does cleave damage and usually still results in more DPS unless there are a LOT of targets. Also you can use him to "tank" adds for you. Best example of this is when the 2 bears drop down cast while one is targeted and he will play with them for the duration while you finish off his friends.

I use Xuen on Door 2, Door 4, and enraged Horridon.

Why can't our treants be that awesome?

[Deleted]

Why can't our treants be that awesome?

Because tbh, guardians are the bastard child tank of this xpac. Just like Blood DKs until T13 in Cata.

[Deleted]

Hey mate. I haven't even looked into your logs but since I play resto druid as main, I can only say that BrM monks are squishy as hell. We had a BrM monk and a Prot Pala in my guild, healing the Paladin isn't even needed whereas the monk needs a ton of healing. And believe me I love monks, my WW monk is slowly becoming my main. I don't have any concrete experience in BrM as i am and only will be playing WW, but as a healer my opinion is fairly bad for BrM. And I don't believe it's the player's fault since in every occasion I've had to hear a BrM the results were the same; TOO much dmg in comparison with other tank.

[Greed001]

Hey mate. I haven't even looked into your logs but since I play resto druid as main, I can only say that BrM monks are squishy as hell. We had a BrM monk and a Prot Pala in my guild, healing the Paladin isn't even needed whereas the monk needs a ton of healing. And believe me I love monks, my WW monk is slowly becoming my main. I don't have any concrete experience in BrM as i am and only will be playing WW, but as a healer my opinion is fairly bad for BrM. And I don't believe it's the player's fault since in every occasion I've had to hear a BrM the results were the same; TOO much dmg in comparison with other tank.

You're basing the quality of an entire class/spec combo on your experiences healing one bad monk tank?

Also, OP, get rid of that god-awful Ji-kun trinket. A 5-man heroic trinket is better than that. =(

[SurrealNight]

And I don't believe it's the player's fault since in every occasion I've had to hear a BrM the results were the same; TOO much dmg in comparison with other tank.

Riiight it couldn't possibly be the players fault, no chance that so many people haven't figured out how to play a new and very different play style tank this expansion. There is also zero examples of heroic guilds bringing in under geared BrM specifically for their surviveability either.

[Renface]

I would still go with Xuen, he does cleave damage and usually still results in more DPS unless there are a LOT of targets. Also you can use him to "tank" adds for you. Best example of this is when the 2 bears drop down cast while one is targeted and he will play with them for the duration while you finish off his friends.

I use Xuen on Door 2, Door 4, and enraged Horridon.

Alrighty, I'll take this on board next lockout.. Thanks heaps!

---------- Post added 2013-06-22 at 08:49 AM ----------

Hey mate. I haven't even looked into your logs but since I play resto druid as main, I can only say that BrM monks are squishy as hell. We had a BrM monk and a Prot Pala in my guild, healing the Paladin isn't even needed whereas the monk needs a ton of healing. And believe me I love monks, my WW monk is slowly becoming my main. I don't have any concrete experience in BrM as i am and only will be playing WW, but as a healer my opinion is fairly bad for BrM. And I don't believe it's the player's fault since in every occasion I've had to hear a BrM the results were the same; TOO much dmg in comparison with other tank.

It would most certainly be the way your tank is playing. Please please refer him/her to this thread... they may be having the same problems and issues as me. They are not meant to be this squishy!

---------- Post added 2013-06-22 at 08:50 AM ----------

Don't worry, you are not alone! I started out tanking on my monk when HoF launched, and you should of heard the complaints from my healers. Once you get used to making sure shuffle is up all the time, and managing CD's a little bit better, you'd be amazed at the difference. I went from dieing on Feng due to lack of shuffle, to 6/12 HC ToT main tanking for my team. It really is a fantastic class to play. Keep at it, and let us know how you do in your next raid!

I'll stick with the monk, don't worry. I am in love with the class/spec

[Vargarii]

Hey mate. I haven't even looked into your logs but since I play resto druid as main, I can only say that BrM monks are squishy as hell. We had a BrM monk and a Prot Pala in my guild, healing the Paladin isn't even needed whereas the monk needs a ton of healing. And believe me I love monks, my WW monk is slowly becoming my main. I don't have any concrete experience in BrM as i am and only will be playing WW, but as a healer my opinion is fairly bad for BrM. And I don't believe it's the player's fault since in every occasion I've had to hear a BrM the results were the same; TOO much dmg in comparison with other tank.

I wanted to point out the ignorance in this post, but surreal had it covered before I even read the thread. BrM is one of the best tanks as far as dmg intake. It's entirely the player.

[stellvia]

Replace Glyph of Stoneskin with Enduring Healing Sphere. These are pretty much indispensible on most fights where you tank a boss in one position for an extended period of time. You can strafe to one side or the other for emergency healing, like having an extra healing potion or two.

Since we pull threat so easily from other tanks, I've also gone for a bit more mastery. It comes in especially handy on Horridon. I'm 530 ilvl and I sit at hard cap expertise, hit cap, 5000 haste, 40% raid buffed crit, and 18% raid buffed mastery. It really does make a difference.

People will say you don't "need" any extra mastery, which is true. But it can certainly help, and you don't give up a whole lot to get it. I can take 6-7 Punctures on H Horridon without need of cooldowns if I have to.

As others have mentioned: You need to be keeping Shuffle up. A number of people have Weakaura strings you can download for tracking the amount of damage staggered, etc. You should be using Keg Smash on CD, and saving Guard to use just before major hits like Triple Puncture. Use Dampen Harm when you're at like 4-5 stacks of Puncture. You should also be ready to use Expel Harm and Chi Wave right after taking triple puncture. And remember that under 35% health, Expel Harm has no CD, so you can spam it in emergencies if needed. Be quick on Purifying on Triple Puncture as well if it takes you into red stagger.

We're pretty much the most durable and long-lived tank in the game for physical damage fights with large telegraphed hits like Horridon. Definitely not Paper Tigers. Your damage needs to go up a ton as well. I see on Ji-kun normal you did 77kdps. You should be able to manage closer to 120-130k. BrM DPS is incredibly high, and should easily smoke DK tanks by 60-100%

Compare N Dark Animus between your log and mine (with me at that point like 526 ilvl) -- 114k vs 67kdps
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/o...?s=2973&e=3204

Also: Use Armor and Mastery Elixirs instead of Stamina flasks. An extra 15k health or whatever is rather irrelevant. While the Elixirs will give you effectively 3% more mitigation.

[Yorgl]

Well aware of that.. however, I don't see many of those 'bad tanks' trying to fix themselves.

This is the first think I thought. Good for you mate for being smarter than the avg. :P

About your Shiffle uptime, and more generaly, about monitoring all your BrM, I strongly recommand using Weak Auras, and if you don't want to make your own, Sunnier's are really really good.
The link : http://sunniersartofwar.com/brewmaster-weak-auras/

What you see on screen when you have them (she explains everything on the blog) :

[Shiven_87]

Hello Paladiinaa!

I've checked on the whole tread and there is some great advices and they pointed out the main issue was your shuffle uptime wich is quite critical for a monk.
Recommendation for keeping track of it: Tellmewhen or Weakauras as stated above.
The new reforging and gemming is quite alright. Change one gem in the belt and get the socket bonus instead it's still good with haste.
I would say 5.5k crit is slightly to low concidering you were running with 9k stated above. So you will feel alot energy starved. Try raise it to 6.5k instead.
You just have to find the balance on how you like it yourself.

I'm gonna post my own monk armory to show you how i have done
eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/outland/Shiv%c3%a1n/simple

Remember monk tanking can be done alot of diffrent ways there is no exakt way of doing it!

[Gallahadd]

woah... dat weakaura

I just got back from an extended break, still using the old weakaura setup, it's good but a little hard to read at times, that one looks sexy as hell

[Renface]

Replace Glyph of Stoneskin with Enduring Healing Sphere. These are pretty much indispensible on most fights where you tank a boss in one position for an extended period of time. You can strafe to one side or the other for emergency healing, like having an extra healing potion or two.

Since we pull threat so easily from other tanks, I've also gone for a bit more mastery. It comes in especially handy on Horridon. I'm 530 ilvl and I sit at hard cap expertise, hit cap, 5000 haste, 40% raid buffed crit, and 18% raid buffed mastery. It really does make a difference.

People will say you don't "need" any extra mastery, which is true. But it can certainly help, and you don't give up a whole lot to get it. I can take 6-7 Punctures on H Horridon without need of cooldowns if I have to.

As others have mentioned: You need to be keeping Shuffle up. A number of people have Weakaura strings you can download for tracking the amount of damage staggered, etc. You should be using Keg Smash on CD, and saving Guard to use just before major hits like Triple Puncture. Use Dampen Harm when you're at like 4-5 stacks of Puncture. You should also be ready to use Expel Harm and Chi Wave right after taking triple puncture. And remember that under 35% health, Expel Harm has no CD, so you can spam it in emergencies if needed. Be quick on Purifying on Triple Puncture as well if it takes you into red stagger.

We're pretty much the most durable and long-lived tank in the game for physical damage fights with large telegraphed hits like Horridon. Definitely not Paper Tigers. Your damage needs to go up a ton as well. I see on Ji-kun normal you did 77kdps. You should be able to manage closer to 120-130k. BrM DPS is incredibly high, and should easily smoke DK tanks by 60-100%

Compare N Dark Animus between your log and mine (with me at that point like 526 ilvl) -- 114k vs 67kdps
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/o...?s=2973&e=3204

Also: Use Armor and Mastery Elixirs instead of Stamina flasks. An extra 15k health or whatever is rather irrelevant. While the Elixirs will give you effectively 3% more mitigation.

Thanks, will try and pop a bit of Mastery in for heroic Horridon this week - will also try elixirs I would usually do more DPS... seriously, I took the logs of one of the worst raids I did lol So you guys have pretty much seen me at my worst.

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 09:22 AM ----------

This is the first think I thought. Good for you mate for being smarter than the avg. :P

About your Shiffle uptime, and more generaly, about monitoring all your BrM, I strongly recommand using Weak Auras, and if you don't want to make your own, Sunnier's are really really good.
The link : http://sunniersartofwar.com/brewmaster-weak-auras/

What you see on screen when you have them (she explains everything on the blog) :

That Weak Aura is amazing and better then the one I am currently using! Will defo get this one! Thanks heaps for the heads up!

Also, thanks to the awesome advice in this thread, my healers now call me 3 ply tissue! LOL Thanks again guys

Also, will log myself this week and let you guys see if i've improved

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 09:29 AM ----------

Hello Paladiinaa!

I've checked on the whole tread and there is some great advices and they pointed out the main issue was your shuffle uptime wich is quite critical for a monk.
Recommendation for keeping track of it: Tellmewhen or Weakauras as stated above.
The new reforging and gemming is quite alright. Change one gem in the belt and get the socket bonus instead it's still good with haste.
I would say 5.5k crit is slightly to low concidering you were running with 9k stated above. So you will feel alot energy starved. Try raise it to 6.5k instead.
You just have to find the balance on how you like it yourself.

I'm gonna post my own monk armory to show you how i have done
eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/outland/Shiv%c3%a1n/simple

Remember monk tanking can be done alot of diffrent ways there is no exakt way of doing it!

Hey, the over 9k was my haste... and I gemmed that gem to keep my hit down closer to the cap... I couldn't find another way to do this without doing what I did.. I also am rocking about 5.6k haste now which was better then the 9k And you're right, i've got some amazing advice!

[Deleted]

brm is crazy as fuck for high phys dmg fights :P yday half our raid was dead in last phase heroic horridon and both healers died, I solo tanked it for 18% of his hp without healers when I finally died :P