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

[Tradu]

I have a question if someone could please help me. I have a lvl 70 monk and I had been using windsong and elemental force due to what a majority of people said was best for low level brewmaster. It ended up where I was eventually last dps in every dungeon and I wasn't able to keep agro that great or kill things fast at all. So I did a little more research and found out a majority of pvp was using mark of thunderlord and frostwolf (I am a dual wield not 2 hander and this is my personal preference) Then I started falling down the dps chain once again, although when I first switched to these I was top for about 20 lvls.. now I'm around 3rd or 4th dps and having trouble killing things fast again and keeping agro as well. So now people are telling me to dual wield dancing steel until lvl 90 then go with blackrock.. but heals on me are fine and I actually want better dps not better absorb if that is possible.. I'm just REALLY confused at what weapon enchants I actually DO need right now as a lvl 70 and once I hit 90 what will I need then? Any help would be greatly appreciated please! Thank you!

I'd just go with Dancing Steel, Frostwolf or Thunderlord, and probably 2h because it's cheaper in terms of enchants and better in terms of Elusive Brew generation. That said, enchants are not going to be what makes you top DPS, your weapon(and the rest of your gear to some extent) and your ability to play(although at low levels certain specs are very strong even when played badly) are going to do that.

[Kaylisto]

I have a question if someone could please help me. I have a lvl 70 monk and I had been using windsong and elemental force due to what a majority of people said was best for low level brewmaster. It ended up where I was eventually last dps in every dungeon and I wasn't able to keep agro that great or kill things fast at all. So I did a little more research and found out a majority of pvp was using mark of thunderlord and frostwolf (I am a dual wield not 2 hander and this is my personal preference) Then I started falling down the dps chain once again, although when I first switched to these I was top for about 20 lvls.. now I'm around 3rd or 4th dps and having trouble killing things fast again and keeping agro as well. So now people are telling me to dual wield dancing steel until lvl 90 then go with blackrock.. but heals on me are fine and I actually want better dps not better absorb if that is possible.. I'm just REALLY confused at what weapon enchants I actually DO need right now as a lvl 70 and once I hit 90 what will I need then? Any help would be greatly appreciated please! Thank you!

Keep in mind that at lvl 70, you dont have access to the two talent tiers that are going to matter most for BrM dps, 90, 100. Other classes are going to have a better selection of talents to help their dps at lower tiers. You wont be able to truly push dps until at least 90.

For enchants i would go with whichever is cheapest for you. At lower levels the ilvl of your weapons is going to make a bigger impact and you should be upgrading often,unless your staying at 70? or have heirlooms, then go with either frostwolf or thunderlord.

[elmkitty]

Keep in mind that at lvl 70, you dont have access to the two talent tiers that are going to matter most for BrM dps, 90, 100. Other classes are going to have a better selection of talents to help their dps at lower tiers. You wont be able to truly push dps until at least 90.

For enchants i would go with whichever is cheapest for you. At lower levels the ilvl of your weapons is going to make a bigger impact and you should be upgrading often,unless your staying at 70? or have heirlooms, then go with either frostwolf or thunderlord.

So instead of dancing steel on both my 1 handers, I should have either both enchanted with frostwolf, or thunderlord, cause I did have one enchanted with thunderlord and one with frostwolf and I'm still not really able to pull that much dps. I understand you're saying I wont really till level 90 but I was always top DPS before I got into the lvl 60's, and everyone always tells me the tank is always supposed to be top for dps :|

Also, once I'm lvl 90, then what enchants do I use?

[Deleted]

Why is MotB + Soul cap godlike for Guardian but not so strong for BrM ?

[Deleted]

Why is MotB + Soul cap godlike for Guardian but not so strong for BrM ?

Because Guardian has Heart of the Wild.

[Hellkung]

Yup, which literally equates to cheat codes as far as DPS is concerned.

[Lysozyme]

MotB is still pretty ridiculously strong for BrM, just not as ridiculous as it is for Guardian. I think it only loses out to Soul Cap because the class trinket doesn't affect MotB.

[Deleted]

Why is MotB + Soul cap godlike for Guardian but not so strong for BrM ?

A (smaller, but still) problem with Soul Cap is that the only way to game it would be a) playing SDI-Soul Cap and holding Chi Brew for procs or b) holding KS and 4Chi for procs so that you don't get a proc with only one KS in it. Option b) is obviously a terrible idea and option a) means you're not using Motb. Both SC-SDI and Motb-SDI are nice combos to dish out some serious damage, but it's not like we can actually be blessed by RNGesus and wreck face just because we chose the right talent like druids. Tiger Strikes during a proc is obviously nice, but with that being one of our biggest procs/CDs that increases SC explosion damage, you can maybe see why it doesn't look as amazing for us.

[keqe]

I just got mythic SDI with coin but tbh even if I'd like to rank with it I really dislike the gameplay of it. Anzu+MotB is a fun and effective combo but sadly not that effective on single target fights.

[Hellkung]

I just got mythic SDI with coin but tbh even if I'd like to rank with it I really dislike the gameplay of it. Anzu+MotB is a fun and effective combo but sadly not that effective on single target fights.

It is. Got rank 1 on Zakuun with those trinkets with Mirror doing 9% of my damage. I did get 100% uptime on the boss.

[Lysozyme]

SDI (especially mythic) is still better, but yeah, ACP+MotB are certainly not far behind. Also ACP actually affects MotB, which SDI doesn't, so there is that! I reckon on e.g. iskar and possibly xhul and manno (have yet to see those two on mythic so idk what they're like), ACP+MotB might even win out on total damage compared to SDI, for the aoeing.

[Kaylisto]

So instead of dancing steel on both my 1 handers, I should have either both enchanted with frostwolf, or thunderlord, cause I did have one enchanted with thunderlord and one with frostwolf and I'm still not really able to pull that much dps. I understand you're saying I wont really till level 90 but I was always top DPS before I got into the lvl 60's, and everyone always tells me the tank is always supposed to be top for dps :|

Also, once I'm lvl 90, then what enchants do I use?

The days of tanks supposed to be top dps are gone. That was with vengence which is no longer a thing. BrM does well with keg smash and Chiex for aoe and cleave dmg, but on a single target fight, meh.You can push dps at lvl 100, but you certainly still wont be top dps and pushing dps is at the cost of your survivability.

At lvl 90 and forward, you'd want Thunderlord on both. Ideally you'd be using a 2H weap for better EB generation though and just Thunderlord on that.

[Tradu]

The days of tanks supposed to be top dps are gone. That was with vengence which is no longer a thing. BrM does well with keg smash and Chiex for aoe and cleave dmg, but on a single target fight, meh.You can push dps at lvl 100, but you certainly still wont be top dps and pushing dps is at the cost of your survivability.

At lvl 90 and forward, you'd want Thunderlord on both. Ideally you'd be using a 2H weap for better EB generation though and just Thunderlord on that.

At low levels, tanks do still destroy the DPS meters, usually because they get strong AoEs before anybody else, but once the DPS get a few more abilities, they catch up and surpass tanks.

[Lysozyme]

You can push dps at lvl 100, but you certainly still wont be top dps

Compared to people of similar gear and skill, or with better than you, this is true. However a very skilled tank can easily outdps relatively incompetent DPS players, or those who are significantly worse geared. The days of tanks being top DPS may be over, but the days of tank DPS being highly relevant are not.

Long live dps whoring

[elmkitty]

okay thank all of you for your suggestions I will do thunderlord on my weapons then

[Totaltotemic]

You'll still commonly see Paladins and DKs wrecking DPS meters due to a few overtuned cleave mechanics, but as BrM no you won't top meters ever once you hit 100. BrM's AoE abilities have been systematically nerfed until BrM DPS is quite a lot lower than other tanks in AoE situations, which is basically what all 5 mans are all of the time. That's not even mentioning that the simple fact of not having Chi Explosion means you're doing like 20% less DPS than what the spec is balanced around.

[Saiyoran]

You'll still commonly see Paladins and DKs wrecking DPS meters due to a few overtuned cleave mechanics, but as BrM no you won't top meters ever once you hit 100. BrM's AoE abilities have been systematically nerfed until BrM DPS is quite a lot lower than other tanks in AoE situations, which is basically what all 5 mans are all of the time. That's not even mentioning that the simple fact of not having Chi Explosion means you're doing like 20% less DPS than what the spec is balanced around.

If you're talking 5-mans, brewmaster is absolutely the highest DPS AoE tank. Chi Torpedo is beyond broken for dungeons because of the sheer burst it does. Victory Roll RNG can also provide a nice boost. In raids, we're really only good at bursty AoE ala Xhul imps or Manno Imps (though we do a fair amount if we want to cheese things like Iskar transitions). People don't realize that Chi Torpedo is ridiculous for short-lived adds.

If you're talking sustained DPS then sure, we aren't very good.

EDIT: This is all @100 btw, haven't leveled a toon in a while.

[Just Another Monk]

You'll still commonly see Paladins and DKs wrecking DPS meters due to a few overtuned cleave mechanics, but as BrM no you won't top meters ever once you hit 100. BrM's AoE abilities have been systematically nerfed until BrM DPS is quite a lot lower than other tanks in AoE situations, which is basically what all 5 mans are all of the time. That's not even mentioning that the simple fact of not having Chi Explosion means you're doing like 20% less DPS than what the spec is balanced around.

QFT. The big 20% (IIRC) nerf to Keg Smash really hurt. I do more DPS on my Paladin tank who is roughly 7 ilvls lower than my BrM. Prepot + Seraphim + Ring + Holy Avenger + AS spam is too strong. Not to mention that class trinket blowing up every 12 seconds.

[Xequecal]

I'm honestly starting to think it's not really possible to competently co-tank with a Paladin as BrM because they will just pull aggro from you over and over and there's nothing you can really do about it. Taunting regularly for the threat buff will let you keep aggro but on a lot of bosses you simply can't do that because you'll make them taunt immune. I'm doing Mythic Tyrant now and it's an utter nightmare, I can't equip DPS trinkets to try to hold aggro because I'll die, and I can't use the taunt debuff for extra threat because I need to taunt every 16 sec and avoid taunt DR. It's beyond frustrating how literally every pull at some point I'll taunt and then libram proc, avenger's shield proc, holy wrath, avenger's shield proc and I lose aggro within 5 seconds.

[Evolved]

Unless he significantly out gears you, there's no reason for you to be losing threat on anything you're supposed to be tanking. This is especially true on Tyrant, since the tank swap involves you each holding the boss or the add. If you've got your target, and he's got his, he shouldn't be pulling threat on yours unless he's taunting his and immediately going back to yours and going HAM, while you're just not pressing any buttons. Worst case scenario, he glyph's shield if he's just pulling it with shield bounces, but that shouldn't even be an issue on Tyrant.

If you're having problems with threat on Tyrant, Xhul is going to be a nightmare for you, since ideally you've got Void add while he's got Fel. (assuming you haven't done it yet?)