Brewmasters nerfs

[Ulfhedinn]

In 6.0 many monks including myself said BrM was getting a nerf at some point. There was no way we could be the way we where and scale the way we did. Most figured we would be a bit OP in 6.1 and nerfed for 6.2. Some of us have said this is coming for months.

We knew it was coming so the only thing we can do now is hope it doesn't hurt to much.

[dcc626]

In 6.0 many monks including myself said BrM was getting a nerf at some point. There was no way we could be the way we where and scale the way we did. Most figured we would be a bit OP in 6.1 and nerfed for 6.2. Some of us have said this is coming for months.

We knew it was coming so the only thing we can do now is hope it doesn't hurt to much.

was never a doubt we would be nerfed, the outcry was both about how they did it and the severity with the initial ptr notes.

things are ok now, and im guessing far from a finished product.

[Cakebeast]

That's exactly what I'm saying. If available HPS > damage taken by raid, then reducing overall damage taken is not important so long as that holds true. If you never die to lack of healing and no one else ever dies to lack of healing, then reducing the amount of healing required does nothing to help the raid. Comparing it to saying that more DPS doesn't help misses a fundamental fact of raiding which is that more DPS is always useful because it ends the fight faster (barring oddly long RPs like Galakras that force certain time limits on fights).

I am and have been talking strictly in a progression mindset. As a tank, you should try to mitigate as much damage as possible, even to extremes, until your healers know the fights and where they can spare heals. We may just be on different ends of the spectrum on this.

[keqe]

I am and have been talking strictly in a progression mindset. As a tank, you should try to mitigate as much damage as possible, even to extremes, until your healers know the fights and where they can spare heals. We may just be on different ends of the spectrum on this.

While that sounds good, it is outdated mindset. Taking the least amount of damage is rarely the most beneficial thing you can do to the raid nowdays.

[Cakebeast]

Even with non-existent enrage timers?

[Deleted]

I am and have been talking strictly in a progression mindset. As a tank, you should try to mitigate as much damage as possible, even to extremes, until your healers know the fights and where they can spare heals. We may just be on different ends of the spectrum on this.

I think we're all speaking about the same thing. Minimizing the damage taken is just one brick in the wall. Maximizing your damage output is also another brick of the same wall. It’s all about finding balance in your tanking. The more you purify the less damage you do, vice versa.

I agree with Totaltotemic that most of the times purifying light or moderate stagger is just waste of chi, of course it depends a bit of the situation, but in general it’s a waste. You have all this passive/active healing going on like Beacon of light, Hot's, random absorbs, maybe even AoE healing. Usually this is enough to keep you at high health when you are just taking melee swings. If you would use purify on every global possible because you are trying to minimize the damage intake you would let all this "passive" healing go to waste. The results would be less damage taken and more overhealing, while it could have been more healing, more damage taken and more damage done. Your health pool is staying around the same in both scenarios the only difference is that you do more damage on the later scenario.

The result is the same if you press guard when you are taking low damage. Shit just goes overhealing. Then again that chi could have been spent for damage. Damage is always relevant since you can't kill the boss "too fast".

Of course there are always exceptions. For example if you’re tanking siegemakers on Blackhand. First and second siegemaker needs to die so you should maximize your damage to them, but the third one and every siegemaker after it doesn't need to die, so the damage you do to them is completely irrelevant, in those scenarios its "ok" to just spend all your chi to purify and guard. Of course even on this scenario you could try to maximize damage on blackhand when he comes in the your range for a few seconds

Personally I don’t even think about minimizing overall damage taken all that much. Your two primary objectives as tank are to not to die and smooth out damage spikes, so healers don’t have to spam heal you. Usually smoothing the damage and banking cd’s for some upcoming scenario can result higher overall damage taken, especially if you’re saving something for emergency uses only, like I’m usually doing, but it doesn’t matter since I’m not causing extra nuisance to healers or dying. When these two objectives are in check I just focus on damage.

Even with non-existent enrage timers?

Faster kill time = Less deadly abilities = Less overall damage taken = Less mana consumed = Profit

Guess what even half decent healers do when they don’t have anything to heal?
*badum tshhh* Do damage.
Guess what half decent tanks do when they don’t take noticeable damage?
Yup, you got it

[Deleted]

Personal experience, i don't always have a holy pala healing me anyway, but even when i do i feel like i have to purify more often than what you are saying, i agree that sometimes there's no need to do so, but on the last 2 figths i feel like the less healers have to focus on me the better it is for the raid, so i kind of agree taking as little damage and try to be as much self sufficient as possible, and to be honest the damage difference between such playstyle and the one you're talking about is such a small difference that imo it's not worth sacrificing the survavibility for a bit of damage

[Deleted]

Personal experience, i don't always have a holy pala healing me anyway, but even when i do i feel like i have to purify more often than what you are saying, i agree that sometimes there's no need to do so, but on the last 2 figths i feel like the less healers have to focus on me the better it is for the raid, so i kind of agree taking as little damage and try to be as much self sufficient as possible, and to be honest the damage difference between such playstyle and the one you're talking about is such a small difference that imo it's not worth sacrificing the survavibility for a bit of damage

The damage difference between the two might not be that significant, but loads of small streams can become a river. I think its equally important that healers and tanks, as well as damage dealers maximize their damage. Even if it isn't the primary objective of tanks and healers.

By maximizing your damage as tank, I don't mean that go "full retard" with the dps all the time. Everything depends about the situation you're in. Every fight can be chopped up to smaller sections. Things to consider in each section are: Damage taken by raid, your own damage taken, movement, healers ability to heal.

What I do in Blackhand for example:
P1: At the start when my procs are up I use Guard to get that nice over 1 million absorb. This is mainly so that our healers can focus full time on dps before first demolition. During demolitions I try to minimize my damage intake, since healers can only cast during aspect of the fox and there is whole raid taking heavy damage. I don't purify myself after shattering smash, since I got little bit of absorb left and my healers are topping up the raid, which means I also get healed from beacon and other "passive heals".

P2: I try to maximize my damage to the first and second siegemaker and collect as many slag bombs as I can. This is actually really helpful since it also indirectly increases our raid damage to the blackhand itself. Third siegemaker and every siegemaker after that are ignored. So there is no reason to damage them. At that point I just use purify as much as I can and hit blackhand when he is in my range.

P3: I'll try to get as much dps as I can him at the start of P3, since there is not much going on when the phase starts. Raid damage grows the longer the phase lasts and I react accordingly. At the end I just try to minimize my damage intake, the exception being touch of death.

Of course this was very generalized, but this is more or less what I do. Of course it might depend a bit about your healers. Usually its pretty easy to see from warcraftlogs if you are nuisance to the healers, or not. You can look up to your healing taken and see which spells have actually healed you. The less direct healing spells there are on the list the better. Usually around 70-80% of the healing that my paladin does to me is from Beacon of the light only. Which in short means, that he isn't casting heals on me. I'm just gaining benefit from the fact the he is healing something/someone on the raid. Of course there are times when there is nothing to heal and my paladin is off to epic journey to be the best denounce shockadin out there.

By not purifying light on moderate stagger on most of the bosses I don't really feel like I'm sacrificing survivability. I'm doing that because I try to maximize effect of that passive healing on me. It just happens to be that if you don't use your chi to purify then the only way to use them is for damage.