[BrM] Gearing strat question

[Geodew]

Hi guys. I main Mistweaver, but for my guild's weekly Flex raids our comp often has me tanking just to get a raid going, and I'd like some help optimizing my gear. This is regarding 15-to-25-man Flex raids (14/14 so regularly tanking Garrosh). My armory is here, but it's likely I'll be logged out in my MW gear so here's a link to an Ask Mr. Robot profile with my current Brewmaster gear instead.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that my gems are all over the place. That's because I'm kind of confused how to gem. Don't worry, I read the guide, but I'm a bit confused. It says to gear for Mastery/Stamina over crit if I need more effective health, but it doesn't really say how to determine whether or not I need more effective health XD... I'm also unsure of the threshold of max HP versus mitigation at which I should gem Mastery or gem Stamina.... It seems to me that Stamina gems increase my max HP proportionally quickly, but Mastery scaling is kind of bad (8.4k rating for +8.73%? And the base stagger is 20+5% without raid mastery buff? Edit: Derp +20% shuffle too). I have seen around that Stamina is mainly for high-magic-damage fights, but Mastery looks weak at first glance in comparison for surviving a spike, and Garrosh definitely has a fair amount of tank damage from the magic DoT. I assume that since I regularly tank large raids, and they're only Flex on top of that, that the extra raid damage from Crit isn't necessary (which is also why I'm using tank legendary items), but ultimately I'm unsure whether to grab more Mastery or more Stamina... Can someone give me more insight into this?

By the way, just noting here that I cannot upgrade anything and my gear is kind of shoddy and random item levels because it's my offspec so I only get stuff our Rogue doesn't need or that I win from personal loot, and can't spend any valor on my gear (Though I have one upgraded ToT trinket from valor capping at the end of last tier :P)

Thanks in advance for any help! (And don't be afraid to tell me something I said is totally wrong ^.^)

[Solial]

Hit and Expertise to caps. 7.5% and 15%
Haste until comfortable 4000-8500
Crit if you don't need to reduce spiky damage
Mastery if you need to reduce spiky damage

Mastery is insanely good for EH. Example: Boss hits for 1 million damage and you have 50% stagger (20% from shuffle, 20% from stance, 2% from mastery (about 2k), 3k from mastery buff and te base 5%. That's roughly 50%. Now lets say you drop 2k haste and 4k crit for 6% damage reduction.
Now, the boss would normally hit you for 500k damage, but if you get that extra 6% stagger he will hit you for 440k damage. 60k from a 500k hit is 12% damage reduction.

The magic dot on garrosh is meh, doesn't tic that hard. His melee swings are what hit hard if a lot of them connect in a short time span.
Tank legendary meta is 20% damage reduction on what is normally over 50% uptime (10%+ damage reduction average).
Tank legendary cloak is decent for hard hitting bosses, and bosses with those hard hitting magical abiities (6+ stacks on blackfuse).

How do you know if you need more EH? If you are dieing when you and your healers are playing properly.

Something like that anyways....

[stellvia]

Shuffle adds another 20% to Stagger so realistically you have a base of 45%. Always keep SHuffle up.

16% Mastery is a bit high to maintain at only 537 ilvl. I would probably shoot for 35-40% unbuffed crit, then leave the rest in mastery. Possibly go with Armor+Mastery elixirs for an extra 3-4% mitigation. Your haste is fine, especially with the haste trinket.

BrM is all about active mitigation. Maintaining Elusive Brew uptime, using Guard and Dampen Harm before large hits, using Expel Harm at under 35% health to buy time for healers. Stepping into healing orbs for extra emergency heals, etc.

"Enough Mastery and Stam" is completely subjective to how well you can play the spec. Many excellent BrMs can do 10H without more than 10% mastery and no STA trinkets or STA leg enchants etc. Others with sloppier play will need the extra STA and Mastery to keep them afloat.

[Geodew]

Okay right I forgot about Shuffle for a moment, derp. So I can see that Mastery is essentially x2 damage reduction of the character pane tooltip.

However, have you guys tanked Flex? From healing the same tanks on both 20-Flex and 10N it seems Garrosh hits WAY harder on normal than flex. So it would seem the damage comp on Flex is probably more skewed towards the DoT than on the more serious difficulties. Do you guys know anything about that?

Regarding EH, I have died basically when healers were distracted and/or unable to cast, like during Empowered Whirling, if that helps. I also sometimes spike low when other AoE is going out.

Since it seems I usually build up lots of EB stacks in between Garrosh swaps, and the raid DPS seems unnecessary, I was avoiding crit gems. Why do you suggest crit, stellvia?

Basically since it is my offspec and I am essentially pretty new to it, having just tanked overgeared Normal ToT and Gold Proving Grounds, I was just going total survival. So you can assume my play is fairly sloppy. :P

[stellvia]

Crit auto-attacks are what give you Elusive Brew stacks. So the more you crit, the more you can keep EB up. Expel Harm spam and saving Guard for empowered Whirl can keep you up a pretty long time. I suppose at a certain point though it's just healer fail and they need to play better if they really ignore you too long.

Part of Empowered Whirl is not getting too far away from the healers, though.

[Deleted]

Since it seems I usually build up lots of EB stacks in between Garrosh swaps, and the raid DPS seems unnecessary, I was avoiding crit gems. Why do you suggest crit, stellvia?

Most fights the taunt periods is long enough to benefit from popping 15stack EBs and then building a new one before the other tank taunts. You're right that Garroshs quick tank swaps devalues crit as a defensive stat. However, most people that gear crit over 40% agree that it's not a main defensive stat. It's just that after capping hit exp, getting comfortable haste and 50-55% mastery buffed (for 10m and flex at least) there is nothing else to put your secondary stats into and doing mental dps benefits small raids quite a bit.

When i tank garrosh normal the worst part is p1 handling the adds really, if the rest of the raid are slow with aoe stuns and the like. The damage in the later phases of the fight can be dealt with using glyphed guard (learn how to use this glyph, it's awesome for chi waves/expel harm combos, gets eaten quite fast on garrosh though), there are no real physical bursts other than melee hits you can guard so i prefer to smoothen the dot and the whirlwinds.

Brms are a lot more about playing than about stats. 2% mastery here or there makes a difference, but it's not the cause of endless wiping, then something else is also going wrong. Gearing a Brm is highly personal really, what works for you, your content and your guild.

[nocendi]

I'm running with 9500ish mastery, and then back to crit. I feel like that makes me survivable enough for the healers to STFU. Haste just happens to be whatever I can't get rid off through reforging, but I believe around 5000.

[Geodew]

I'm running with 9500ish mastery, and then back to crit. I feel like that makes me survivable enough for the healers to STFU.

What do you mean? That you got your Haste to 5k, Mastery to 10k, and then put the rest in crit?

[Hottie4Hire]

That's what I did for tanking normals. Don't really need more than 10k. At 557 with one stat trinket (540 ebon detonator) I'm getting very close to 100% EB uptime already. I run 6k haste but I put no real thought into it.

[Geodew]

That's what I did for tanking normals. Don't really need more than 10k. At 557 with one stat trinket (540 ebon detonator) I'm getting very close to 100% EB uptime already. I run 6k haste but I put no real thought into it.

Cool, useful info. But everyone, keep in mind I'm not great at the rotation and my gear is more like 535.

[allaiva]

As for gearing, everyone has their opinion on "what is the best"

The problem with this thought process is that most of what makes up BrM tanking is very much a "feel" for what's best for you. Some run higher haste, others run lower, some go high mastery, others push into crit. The best I can say for 100% sure is to talk to your healers and have a discussion for what works for your individual group.

If you notice your health spiking a lot and/or healers comment on your spikey nature I'd suggest stacking mastery to higher levels. For progression myself and others go this route which severely limits the chances of a tank death during normal tanking situations. While the damage is lower, my group's dps is strong enough that my personal dps isn't important to push time sensitive events in fights.

Now if your group's damage is lower or your health isn't in danger of dropping constantly, you can push a heavier crit build. While your chances of dying increase, as a monk there are few events that will one-shot you (one example being tanking thok at 5-6 stacks of the debuff >.> ). This will increase your ability to keep EB up 100% and thus grants you 30% dodge, but the real focus of a build like this is the extra damage you can push out. It also requires you to monitor effective use of Expel Harm and Lvl 30 talents to improve self heals on yourself (as well as GotO orbs).

For a new monk I've always stressed staying alive to "epic dps" that monks can push out. Get hit and expertise to at least 7.5% each, expertise to 15% if you want to maximize chi generation. Get haste to a comfortable level so that shuffle doesn't fall off. Depending on your play preferences that can be anywhere over 5k haste. After that push mastery and then leave the rest into crit. Even at 535ilvl that should leave you with plenty of crit for a solid uptime of EB and keep your spike damage from being too crazy. After that, at your desires reforge your stats into whatever you want and enjoy the fact that monk gearing is less important than knowing how the spec works =)