New to BrM..

[ChristopherD87]

hey guys, I got a couple of questions on BrM tanking...FYI I am only ilvl 502 atm, so not highly geared

I have looked thru the sticky post and others but didn't really see definitive answers to these questions.

1) What add-on can u use to track my stagger %, all it shows on mine is colors green (low) yellow (med) and red (high)..but I see people talking about 150% or whatever stagger?

2) I usually use purifying brew as soon as I hit red stager in my case, is that important? I always try to keep shuffle up 100% of any fight and use KS when its off cd, just curious on how important PB is in the list of things to use

3) not really a BrM question but, besides WOL, is there a way I can track fights like LFR and stuff to see my shuffle up time and everything I did on the fight??

4) the last one is, I'm sitting at about 5k haste, I feel I could use a little more, but not sure on maybe a number to shoot for, or if it's a personally kind of thing, then after haste should I go with mastery?? i'm about 8.6% on mastery atm

thanks in advance ..I am a novice BrM tank so any advice would be helpful, trying to get a spot on out 10 man team

[Deusvult]

1. can probably set up a WeakAura to track stagger

2. purify when u have excess chi and in red / yellow stagger, doing damage and popping shields on raid members is better

3. skada can show buff uptimes, not sure if recount has that option or not

4. i run with 4.5k haste and find myself getting well over 1 min shuffle timers, and the general rule of thumb is crit > mastery, especially for 10man

[Shamanberry]

1) What add-on can u use to track my stagger %, all it shows on mine is colors green (low) yellow (med) and red (high)..but I see people talking about 150% or whatever stagger?

There's a way to make a weakaura for it, but having a good value on it is nontrivial to set up.

If you look through the forums a bit, you'll find a weakauras thread, and can find several examples there.

2) I usually use purifying brew as soon as I hit red stager in my case, is that important? I always try to keep shuffle up 100% of any fight and use KS when its off cd, just curious on how important PB is in the list of things to use

Hitting it at red is a sufficient strategy for newer brewmasters just starting out, but if you're looking to optimize, then it's not optimal. PB is our real active mitigation. How much you need it depends heavily on the content you're doing, the fight, and how much of your own healing you're doing.

Usually, stagger is a damage smoothing effect, and burst damage is what kills tanks, not smooth, predictable damage. However, if a burst of damage comes in from the boss while you have stagger ticking, the ticks effectively add to the burst since they come in so quickly. Therefore, a better strategy for dealing with stagger is to clean it up if it gets too high, and pay special attention to cleaning it up when big damage is coming in.

My advice is to treat purify as self-healing, along with EH/orbs/guards/talents. If you do that, the strategy starts to develop, and you'll get used to when to use it quickly.

As an aside, one thing you should focus on (moreso than exact uptime of shuffle or how often you're at whatever color stagger, since you seem to have both of those concepts down) is chi generation. An easy mistake to make is to spam Jab as your primary "filler" ability as soon as you hit 40 energy, and keg smash as often as possible. That strategy actually ends up netting you LESS chi than if you only use Jab when you're about to hit 100 energy, make sure that you hit Keg Smash the instant it comes off cooldown (or as close to it as you can manage), and spam Tiger Palm as filler instead. The bonus of that strategy is that you'll always have some energy built up for an EH if you need it.

95% of the time, the reason anyone has gaps in shuffle or feels like they can't purify, or whatever, the problem isn't that they're not trying, it's just that they're not getting enough Chi. Easy way to check - look at fight length divided by number of keg smashes you got. That's the number you REALLY want to optimize to be as close to 8 as possible. Do that, and the rest will fall in to place.

3) not really a BrM question but, besides WOL, is there a way I can track fights like LFR and stuff to see my shuffle up time and everything I did on the fight??

World of Logs is going to be your best bet for that. As Deusvult said, you can use skada/recount, but the picture you get isn't going to be fantastic from just that.

4) the last one is, I'm sitting at about 5k haste, I feel I could use a little more, but not sure on maybe a number to shoot for, or if it's a personally kind of thing, then after haste should I go with mastery?? i'm about 8.6% on mastery atm

Haste is more of a personal thing and depends on your gearing strategy. Some people sit as low as 4k, others go as high as 7k (outside those ranges on either extreme is rare). The general consensus is that you want "enough" haste that you can use your abilities smoothly, but not so much that you find yourself energy capping and having to wait to resolve it more often than once in a while.

If you're: 10 man, normal modes, stacking crit, and feel your healers are doing fine. Stack LESS haste.
If you're: 25 man, heroic modes, stacking mastery, or feel like your healers need help (so you have to purify more). Stack MORE haste.

As for the exact number - start off guessing high when you're new to the class, and then go down if you find yourself capping. If you want a "quick answer", start at 5500, and then adjust up or down depending on how you feel after you try it for a week.