WoD Brewmaster changes

[Totaltotemic]

Hopefully not the statue since it will just explode immediately, faster than the GCD to cast it, and also encourage weird gimmicks like statue-kiting. You could do that with Leer, but it only worked on 1 target, and sort-of with Provoke, but that's an 8yd radius.

30yd AoE threat pulse would make using the statue to "lead" adds around actually plausible, at least temporarily, giving lots of time for them to waste plodding between you and the statue (especially since Provoke would easily bring them to you once they get too close to statue). Would be exploitable any time you have adds that don't need to be actually attacked or can design a strat around it, etc.

If the statue just passive pulsed threat to you then it would be a ghetto version of Mocking Banner / Consecration and that would be a cool new tool, saving some GCDs on throwing barrels but not pulsing enough threat (guaranteed) to actually hold off dedicated DPSing if you don't get in there and add more.

Patch notes

The Black Ox Statue has been modified to aid Monks in establishing aggro on new enemies.

It heavily implies that it goes to the Monk.

[Lovestar]

Yeah I saw that, but with Blizzard I consider any ambiguous wording to automatically be the worst possible outcome until proven otherwise, hahaha.

[arcuro]

no guard for ox statue? well the threat pulse is nice but 0-cost dizzing haze spammable works fine, hell this brew just works now with energy costs combined with RJW and keg smash now and then who needs an extra low threat pulse on the statue?
sure depands on the boss encounter but i dont think the statue will be this usefull anymore cince its 800% AP guard back in early MOD.
With the new secondary and tertier stats, there would be planty of ways to change the statue to something more interresting and even room for a WW statue

[Gallahadd]

Aww, so we lose raid utility in favour or threat? I GUESS that's ok, seeing as they really were a little stong, but without vengeance would they have as much presence as they do now? I mean we won't have the insane scaling on them...

As for the threat pulse, if it's directed to the monk, that's awesome, if it's too the statue, that's still cool, especially tied with Statue>Provoke.

[Deverick]

Statue change seems interesting for sure, i'm definently going to miss clash I thought it was a pretty awesome ability in certain situations! Overall BrM looks pretty good so far

[Deleted]

Monks already have a hell of a lot of tools to establish threat on new mobs. Unless they're removing most of those, we don't need our statue pulsing a low amount of threat. It just doesn't fit in the cutting-redundant-abilities philosophy.

We could, however, use some form of ranged interrupt, especially after the removal of Clash.

[Ampere]

Aww, so we lose raid utility in favour or threat? I GUESS that's ok, seeing as they really were a little stong, but without vengeance would they have as much presence as they do now? I mean we won't have the insane scaling on them...

They really had to do this if they were committed to tanks just being tanks. Blood DK loses worms (which could also heal the DK), we lose raid Guards, Bears lose Tranq, Paladins already "lost" battle healer (glyph that removes self heal proc), and Warriors just had raid CDs which are also removed. It's utility loss, but in a balanced fashion across tanks. We still have a little raid healing via level 30 talents and ability to cast Surging Mist on other players, although since Resolve doesn't buff heals towards other players so those heals will be much smaller.

Monks already have a hell of a lot of tools to establish threat on new mobs. Unless they're removing most of those, we don't need our statue pulsing a low amount of threat. It just doesn't fit in the cutting-redundant-abilities philosophy.

We could, however, use some form of ranged interrupt, especially after the removal of Clash.

The statue still provides a way to AoE taunt, but I agree that the threat pulse is slightly redundant.

The change means you won't have to put the statue down anymore, particularly on a pure single target boss. It becomes a situational tool for AoE taunt/picking up ads

[Rockets]

Ox statue's really iconic, and they already cut WW's statue back in MoP beta, so I'm sure they'd get a swarm of complaints on the forums if they just cut it. Since they're getting rid of raid utility from tanks, they had to kill the statue guards but needed some new personal utility tied to the statue.

Yeah the threat pulse is a little redundant, but it saves you a taunt CD and saves having to actually get the statue targeted first, so I'm not gonna complain. If you already have a macro for targeting your statue, maybe you won't need that anymore and this change will free up that bar slot.

[Lovestar]

It's a useful tool and it adds another new ability to the Brew toolbox. It's perfectly welcome. There are situations where Barrel GCDs or Statue Provoke are difficult to find space for.

Basically, it is not necessary (especially when you look at poor Pallies, Druids, etc). But it's certainly welcome. If it survives to Live it will be a useful and non-redundant tool, just like how useful Mocking Banner could be.

[darkwarrior42]

Basically, it is not necessary (especially when you look at poor Pallies, Druids, etc). But it's certainly welcome. If it survives to Live it will be a useful and non-redundant tool, just like how useful Mocking Banner could be.

Useful, but incredibly niche. There won't be any situation where it's necessary, because brewmasters (almost said we, but since I'm retiring my monk in WoD as a result of the changes that's not accurate anymore) will be the only ones with that sort of functionality, and even in mythic they can't assume the presence of a specific tank (a specific class perhaps, but not a specific tank). They make any situation where the statue has a notable effect on gameplay, and brewmasters instantly become mandatory.

So many things that I love that are getting cut, and they still aren't doing anything to fix the things that I actually would consider QoL issues (namely, no single target alternative to Keg Smash, and Keg Smash is affect by AoE reduction/immunity even on your primary target, plus a way to stop spinning crane kick outside of needing a /stopcasting macro key bound).

[Lovestar]

I don't know about that. In MoP we see lots of differences in how comfortable a given tank spec is picking up adds, eg, look at Pallies spazzing trying to get that first HotR out and relying on Holy Wrath (of all things) for the initial snag vs. Blood just kind of hitting buttons. Generally it's balanced (ish) once everything's held and being hit with sustained cycles.

Being able to park a statue somewhere and let things trickle over to you, while spending GCDs on more useful things than aiming barrels, would be welcome. Potentially too lazy vs. other tanks, tbh.

That said I sort-of understand where you're coming from. It's OP when it's good and the rest of the time, you may as well not even have a statue, or you're just tossing it out because "Well, why not".

Perhaps a better design would be something more universally-appealing. But what could that be?

[Totaltotemic]

Perhaps a better design would be something more universally-appealing. But what could that be?

I think 8 years of totems taught us that there is no such thing as a permanently-down stick that can be exciting or interesting.

[Lovestar]

I think 8 years of totems taught us that there is no such thing as a permanently-down stick that can be exciting or interesting.

Actually...

Maybe that's part of the solution. Ox Statue can be iconic without being permanently-out. Look at how Shaman totems improved in design with the MoP changes to make most of them minor CDs.

Something that makes people see the glowing spinning cow and acknowledge something significant is happening, rather than it being a mysterious and ignoreable background object.

[Rockets]

Something that makes people see the glowing spinning cow and acknowledge something significant is happening, rather than it being a mysterious and ignoreable background object.

I dunno, even with it being always out, if the threat pulse is big enough it means you can tell your healers to stand near / run to it if they get healing aggro from adds. Same kind of idea as the MW statue: stand near it if you're in trouble. It gives people something to hang out near. I realize the guards worked that way too, but having the add run to the tank is a lot more obvious of an effect than "damn tank still hasn't taunted this mob off me. what's this yellow bubble thing on me? do paladins do that now?"

Garrosh adds, for example; yeah you can throw barrels and pick things up, but the long travel time can make aiming tricky with people running around. With the statue constantly pulsing, you can just drop it down somewhere convenient and not have to worry about timing.

[Lovestar]

If it lasted like 10 seconds with a 30s CD though, it could still serve a similar purpose but seem more significant (and pulse more threat).

Sort of like, I guess, the no-damage equivalent of DND, which sort of fits the Brewmaster's 'nonaggressive' Threat style (referring to Barrels also being high threat / no damage).

YMMV but I find that decision-motivated situational tools are more satisfying to use than fire/forgets. Chaining Consecration feels a lot less punchy and rewarding than dropping DND at the right moment, for example.

There's nothing wrong with either design, it's just a personal thing.

[Ergar]

Looks pretty interesting. Sad about avert harm going, since it was an amazing ability in high aoe damage phases/abilities. Clash was always kinda meh, but im sad to see it going, since i kinda liked using it.

[Grubjuice]

i will miss Roll(backwards)-->Clash

[Lovestar]

i will miss Roll(backwards)-->Clash

We all will.

[Ampere]

Clash was great when it worked, especially in CMs. I'll miss that for sure.

Aside from it being buggy, maybe they weren't happy with Brewmasters having two (with talents) AoE stuns.

Oh well, who knows.

[Deleted]

Clash was great when it worked, especially in CMs. I'll miss that for sure.

Aside from it being buggy, maybe they weren't happy with Brewmasters having two (with talents) AoE stuns.

Oh well, who knows.

It's possible, though it may just be that they felt they needed to remove some abilities for ability bloat, and couldn't think of anything else in the BrM kit. While I'm very unhappy about losing Clash, I can't really think of other abilities I'd be fine with losing. Perhaps the statue isn't as useful anymore with the removal of the shielding, but then we'd lose our aoe taunt.

I still think replacing Charging Ox Wave with Clash for Brewmasters would be an acceptable solution, especially if having two aoe stuns was the problem. Charging Ox Wave is hardly used anyway. They could reduce the minimum range on Clash, and make the stun go off even if the charge portion fails to make it more reliable. Another option would be to remove the stun entirely or make it only stun the charge target instead of aoe.

Some mobs are immune to both Clash and Death Grip, so those situations count for at least some of the bugs people are experiencing with the ability, though there are some genuine ones too.