[GUIDE] Drunken Savagery: Brewmaster Tanking in [6.2]

[Totaltotemic]

If blizzard sees that good brewmasters are unkillable gods as soon as they get their mitts on 4 piece on live servers (because they probably don't view the minor audience of ptr and some of the *quality* feedback as enough to do anything) we can probably expect some sort of nerf to guard and/or expel harm to a potentially crippling degree (crippling as in we'll need a bit more gear to be "safe).

I actually don't think Blizzard cares if good BrMs excel on the survival front. That's the way it was in ToT and SoO, but those tiers were dominated by Paladins and Warriors respectively because of broken mechanics (BoP/bubble solo tank cheese and Riposte being very overtuned) rather than actual tank balance.

They don't seem to panic and reach for the nerfbat until people start rerolling, and the FotM rerollers can't abuse BrM's 6.2 power the way they abused its 6.1 power because it requires a bit better understanding of the way the spec works and the extra cheesy loopholes have been closed. If everyone that rerolled BrM in 6.1 simply because it was OP goes back to playing whatever they played before (or rerolls Guardian as the case may be) then I think they'd consider the 6.2 changes a success. They only really seem to care if a tank is OP if it's in terms of DPS (which forces using them regardless of anything else because DPS checks are harder to bend than just getting better healers) or things that break mechanics and allow doing fights in unintended ways (someone probably flipped a table when Paragon had a BrM eat 9x Impale stacks).

I'd still caution against expecting anything though, whether it be nerfs or no change (or even buffs lol). After all, we never know if we're going to get angry ax murderer developers or asleep-at-the-keyboard developers when 6.2 hits. The only thing we can really expect and trust to happen is that they will definitely not nerf the set bonus to 2 or 3 seconds (they'd nerf it to 1 because that's so Blizzard) and they will definitely not nerf Guard by 33% (they'd nerf it by 50% or not at all) because this is World of Warcraft and we do number tuning with a dart board here.

[Deleted]

Blizzard is the sort of company that would use tactical nuclear warheads to open nuts with if they could get away with it. There is no such thing as a "small" adjustment.

Take Demonology, which this tier has been slightly too good at just about everything. Instead of tuning Demonology and either putting it in line with the two other specs, or giving it a clear niche, it is simply nerfed to the point of not being competitive. Likewise with Protection Paladins in Highmaul - once undisputed kings of tank DPS, now nerfed to the bottom of the pile.

It's like Blizzard has this bizarre, selective notion of balancing justice where if a spec has been too far out of line in terms of performance, it is immediately consigned to the dumpster for at least a tier, and some specs are simply left in said dumpster to rot for the rest of the expansion. Given that this is how things historically play out, I definitely understand the top guilds being wary of using BrM at all in HFC.

[Deleted]

Misume I know this is pre-emptive, but how soon after HFC launch do you expect you'll have (some) boss guides on summonstone? ^^


(PS. Hope you're okay!)

I'm not Misume and I don't think anyone really recognises me here unless they've been hanging around in the Prot Paladin thread, but I'll probably record every boss from my PoV and will upload videos if there is interest - I would also be happy to discuss things about certain bosses that aren't still progression for me. I'm 99% sure I'm playing Brewmaster, unless things change drastically. Hopefully I would be able to offer some insight / supplement any information that Misume can pass on!

On the topic of a compilation of tanking threads where class balance is discussed, I know that I for one would try and keep up to date with it, simply because I like to know what's what with all tank classes and even if I don't play all of them to the top level, understanding them can help when looking at new bosses or a new tier and finding what could work well or is strong.

[maddnesskhaz]

Apologies for the derailing asking about what's going on with the other tank classes, it just seems that this thread is a lot more active than the other tanking threads, and has a few posters with a reasonable level of experience with multiple classes. As Astur said above, it's good to get a sense of what each tank class can bring to the table, whether that it used for choosing the character that we play, or just to better be able to help the group progress by knowing what each class can do.

I do agree with the sentiments above that Blizzard has a truly bizarre notion of 'balance' whereby it means 'make the spec completely non-viable for a tier', and seems to be applied in the most arbitrary of fashions to whatever spec they happen to decide they dislike, while others stay untouched (Mages and Hunters i'm looking at you!).

[Deleted]

Misume I know this is pre-emptive, but how soon after HFC launch do you expect you'll have (some) boss guides on summonstone? ^^


(PS. Hope you're okay!)

Already written 10/13M. Once Heroic drops and I've had a runthrough + we've been able to share any tips or tricks, I'll have it all updated.

And I'm fine; my eardrum is apparently ruptured and I've lost my balance over the last few days so I've spent all day having it checked out.

[Totaltotemic]

It finally hit me tonight why it is that I have always thought that BrMs have value surpassing other tanks just because of mechanics. I've cheesed every end boss of a raid except Sha of Fear in a way that I only really could as a BrM.

Raden - Fatal Strike lol

Garrosh - Kited adds and Iron Stars because Roll and Dizzying Haze OP

Mar'gok - Transcendence lol, kiting transition adds

Blackhand - Not just facetanking Siegemakers (anyone can do that) but picking up 2nd and 3rd Siegemakers right away because triple Roll OP, Nimble Brew + Transing P1 Smashes, and Transing P3 Smashes

Literally the entire time I've been playing BrM I haven't seen a final boss that I couldn't abuse some part of the BrM kit to do something stupid with. I wonder what we'll do for Archimonde...

[Nnogga]

Transcendence out of the Twisting Nether Kappa

[Donatist]

Astur I remember you from Prot pallies and you are in a top guild using a BrM which makes me happy to see since I will be too, just hope they fix the obvious bugs that people have been talking about with provoke and our AM not working on certain mechanics we need to have it up for.

[Jellospally]

Blackhand - Not just facetanking Siegemakers (anyone can do that) but picking up 2nd and 3rd Siegemakers right away because triple Roll OP, Nimble Brew + Transing P1 Smashes, and Transing P3 Smashes

Picking up 1st, 2nd, 3rd sieges aren't that hard to pick up for any tank.

If done right. The siege should die when the 3rd marks hit the tank.

The third tank(reinforced) you can just walk to it. 0 movespeed is needed.

Second tank monk just transcends and walks and easily picks it up. DK just needs to deaths advance asap. Warrior leaps, pally speed of lights, druid displacers.

I've done it on other tanks besides monk its not that hard to pick all of them up and face tank on the wall.

But ya everything else monks sure could do those things amazingly well.

[Deleted]

Astur I remember you from Prot pallies and you are in a top guild using a BrM which makes me happy to see since I will be too, just hope they fix the obvious bugs that people have been talking about with provoke and our AM not working on certain mechanics we need to have it up for.

The only bug I've found that still hasn't been fixed is provoke on Socrethar - which is one fight where BrM should shine in one way or another. As far as I'm aware only Elusive Brew counts for abilities that require AM, which is probably a good idea and I like that kind of playstyle choice - much better than shuffle was on Ra-den.

[Deleted]

The only bug I've found that still hasn't been fixed is provoke on Socrethar - which is one fight where BrM should shine in one way or another. As far as I'm aware only Elusive Brew counts for abilities that require AM, which is probably a good idea and I like that kind of playstyle choice - much better than shuffle was on Ra-den.

Ehhhh it's less of that and more the fact that they can never decide if Guard is AM

[Deleted]

I don't remember guard counting as AM for anything this tier, I think they'll go to the model where it's only EB that counts for things like that which would make things a lot clearer

[Totaltotemic]

I don't remember guard counting as AM for anything this tier, I think they'll go to the model where it's only EB that counts for things like that which would make things a lot clearer

The only 3 AM-requiring abilities in the entire game so far that I know of (before HFC) were Fatal Strike from Raden, Parasite Injection on Paragons, and the shred thing on the 3rd boss in Skyreach. Guard has counted for all of them, and EB has counted for all of them. Shuffle counted for Fatal Strike but not the other two.

Kilrogg's Shred and Mannoroth's Glaive Thrust are the only new mechanics that use this interaction, and IIRC on Mannoroth Heoric testing nothing worked, on Killrogg Heroic and Mythic only EB worked, and I haven't heard yet if Mannoroth Mythic had anything work yet.

Having only EB count for these things is a little silly because it's RNG if you even have it (barring using a 1 minute CD) and when you use it, it's now the only "active mitigation" any tank has that can potentially do absolutely nothing (see Savage Defense change for this very reason).

[Deleted]

The only 3 AM-requiring abilities in the entire game so far that I know of (before HFC) were Fatal Strike from Raden, Parasite Injection on Paragons, and the shred thing on the 3rd boss in Skyreach. Guard has counted for all of them, and EB has counted for all of them. Shuffle counted for Fatal Strike but not the other two.

Kilrogg's Shred and Mannoroth's Glaive Thrust are the only new mechanics that use this interaction, and IIRC on Mannoroth Heoric testing nothing worked, on Killrogg Heroic and Mythic only EB worked, and I haven't heard yet if Mannoroth Mythic had anything work yet.

Having only EB count for these things is a little silly because it's RNG if you even have it (barring using a 1 minute CD) and when you use it, it's now the only "active mitigation" any tank has that can potentially do absolutely nothing (see Savage Defense change for this very reason).

Pulverize actually works on the boss from skyreach as you mentioned, so it might work on the bosses you mention.

But yeah, having an RNG only option isn't very good. Though, if it were only guard that worked, it wouldn't be too good I suppose? What if you don't want to guard there and save it for some other ability or something else.

[Shamanberry]

I do think they've decided pretty firmly about Guard as AM at this point. The spell book actually has an "Active Mitigation" flag in it for spells that will work when an ability indicates that something happens (or doesn't happen) to tanks with AM up - at least in HFC. Seems to be pretty consistent across classes, from what I've seen.

It's a tricky situation. Obviously using Shuffle is broken, but EB can screw you over with RNG, or with really bad timing if you're not planning pretty far in advance. Guard working as AM is tricky mostly because of the Glyph (use it on some fights, and it's pretty much up forever). If they could avoid that situation, though, using EB+Guard is basically the same as the situation for DKS (Both Death Strike and Rune Tap are marked as AM)

[Sonklol]

What 100 talent would BMs use in 6.2?

[Deleted]

I think Soul dance is even weaker than it is currently due to the reduced stagger, so it's going to be the same choice between chiex and the nerfed serenity. However, I believe someone in this thread argued, that once again the default choice is going to be Serenity despite the nerf, since with Chiex you won't have enough chi for all those guards you want to get out with 4p... please correct me if wrong ;-)

[Totaltotemic]

I think Soul dance is even weaker than it is currently due to the reduced stagger, so it's going to be the same choice between chiex and the nerfed serenity. However, I believe someone in this thread argued, that once again the default choice is going to be Serenity despite the nerf, since with Chiex you won't have enough chi for all those guards you want to get out with 4p... please correct me if wrong ;-)

Pretty much. Chi Explosion with the 4p is practically unusable, especially when you go Ascension instead of Power Strikes to milk the extra Expel Harms.

It's not just a general lack of chi (because the extra 2 every 30 seconds for the extra Guard is a lot), but that there's so much unpredictability with when you might be using your GCDs to use Expel that it's much harder to hit that 3x CE point without going over. People will still use it on farm when spamming Guard isn't necessary or perhaps some exceptionally weak boss, but I wouldn't count on using it for progression.

At this point it's less than Serenity is any good and more that Soul Dance is worthless and Chi Explosion provides no meaningful defensive benefit.

[Saiyendra]

Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but what is the formula for Resolve that is being used now?

[Totaltotemic]

Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but what is the formula for Resolve that is being used now?

http://www.wowhead.com/bluetracker?topic=13087818929 2nd post down