Brewmasters design and fantasy should be more convergent

[Aracs]

As everyone might noticed in Legion Blizzard decided to completely revamp Brewmaster specialization. They wrote: "Our new design approach is to get more gameplay depth out of their strong, thematic abilities". But as you can see now from datamined abilities new design is very far from initial lore and fantasy of the Brewmasters. For me brewmaster is primary associated with Chen Stromstout who likes to drink a lot and travel across the world to find new ingredients for brews. Moreover I see that now other Blizzard team (check Chen Stormstout hero in HotS) created a perfect example of how the Brewmaster should look like (I bet that original creator of pandarens and Chen himself, Samwise Didier, put his hands onto design). I don't really know why blizzard didn't used this expirience, while taking a lot ideas from their other game (Diablo 3) in Legion.

I've tried to transfer this ideas into the WoW to make a fresh view on tanking, using absorption as main mitigation tool (leaving tanking via avoidance to the DH). This ideas requires players to find balance between dealing damage and mitigating incoming damage, which should provide some more depths into the gameplay.

Resources and Mechanics

• Brew (Primary Resource)
  • Replaces Energy
  • Maximum amount 100
  • Fuels up most of your abilities can be generated through "Bottomless Mug" ability
• Brew Shield (Secondary resource)
  • Absorbs damage, this you primary mitigation mechanic
  • Base maximum amount is equal to 30% of your Maximum Health
  • Can be generated through "Bottomless Mug" and other abilities and mechanics
• Stagger
  • Causes 30% of incoming damage to be taken over 10 seconds (half effectiveness against magic damage)
  • You should mainly mitigate Stagger dot by Brew Shield

Defensive

• Bottomless Mug (Counts as active mitigation)
  • Channelled, 5 sec duration, 5 sec cooldown
  • Fully regenerates your Brew and Brew Shields over 5 seconds. While channelling this ability you still can dodge and parry an attacks.
  • Haste increases speed of Brew generation, but has no effect on Brew Shield generation
• Mastery: Bold Flavour
  • Increases maximum amount and generation of Brew Shield 60% from all sources (with Mastery from typical gear).
  • Also increases your attack power by 20% (with Mastery from typical gear).
• Fortifying Brew
  • Instant, 3 min cooldown
  • Increases your maximum health by 50% for 15 sec. While active you also generates Brew and Brew Shields at normal rate.
  • Generation rate the same as "Bottomless Mug"
  • You still can use "Bottomless Mug" for additional resources.
• Ironskin Brew
  • Instant, 2 charges, 20 sec recharge
  • Increases your stagger amount by 50% for 6 seconds
  • Your primary short cooldown

Offensive

• Keg Smash
  • Instant, 40 Brew, up to 30 yds range, 4 sec cooldown
  • Smash a keg of brew on the target, dealing HEAVY damage to all enemies within 8 yds and debuffs targets for 15 seconds increasing your chance to dodge their attacks by 10%.
  • Cooldown can be decreased by haste
  • Debuff works against bosses
  • If you have no target or target is not in melee range, targeting circle appears allowing you to throw keg to the ground up to 30 yds away
• Breath of Fire
  • Instant, 30 Brew, no cooldown
  • Targets in front of the caster take MODERATE Fire damage instantly. If affected by Keg Smash, they will also burn for MODERATE Fire damage over 8 sec.
  • Burning dot can stack like mage's Ignite
• Blackout Kick
  • Instant, 10 Brew, no cooldown
  • Strikes the target dealing LIGHT physical damage. If affected by Keg Smash also applies stack of Bloat for 8 seconds increasing damage of the next Blackout Kick against that target 50% per stack.
• Carbonation
  • Passive
  • Upon reaching 3 stacks of Bloat causes brew to gush out of the target spawning 3 bubbles of brew near the Brewmaster. Upon picking up Bubbles generates 10 Brew and 10% of Brew Shield.

Examples of talents

• Brew Explosion
  • Passive
  • Third stack of Bloat causes explosion around the target dealing moderate damage to all enemies around. With a chance of spawning additional bubbles for each enemy hit.
• Purifying Brew
  • Passive
  • Purifies all staggered damage, when your Ironskin Brew effect ends.
• Enough to Share
  • Instant, 2 min cooldown
  • For the next 10 seconds any generation of Brew Shields also places absorbing shield onto nearby allies within 15 yds for 20% of the effect.

[Rilas13]

I see what your after, and I am familiar with chen in Hots. That being said I don't like absorbs for wow. Thematically I get it to a point, and I am not saying the new design the devs made is ideal. But I think its better then guard, which is pretty much what you created for a primary mitigation mechanic.
I think absorbs need to take a back seat if not go away altogether baring a few niche points maybe. I have mained a Priest for 2-3 xpacs and I just don't like how the premise of Absorbs work in the game.

As a tank I don't like the feel of them. You keep this bubble up and you just forget about mitigation for awhile. Until it inevitably goes away and you freak out cause you can't take a hit any better then Murky. You then proceed to do all you can until you get another bubble ready. Repeat.

Keeping mitigation as a steady thing to focus on is much more appealing. I like the idea drinking a brew and reducing damage you take as a BrM, and stagger is a unique take on shield block that has the potential to be powerful. But preemptively absorbing lots of damage is less intuitive. This tends to leave us spending most of our time trying to do high damage and that can certainly be fun, it shouldn't be a tanks primary focus.

[Khorm]

Agree with the above about absorbs. BrM really took a dive in WoD where it took Guard from an ability to be used for a big attack to our prime AM. This was solely because they completely screwed the spec at the start of WoD, where it was the weakest any tank spec had ever been in the game, and didn't want to do any to complicated maths so just buffed the shit through stagger and guard.

[Aracs]

I see what your after, and I am familiar with chen in Hots. That being said I don't like absorbs for wow. Thematically I get it to a point, and I am not saying the new design the devs made is ideal. But I think its better then guard, which is pretty much what you created for a primary mitigation mechanic.
I think absorbs need to take a back seat if not go away altogether baring a few niche points maybe. I have mained a Priest for 2-3 xpacs and I just don't like how the premise of Absorbs work in the game.

As a tank I don't like the feel of them. You keep this bubble up and you just forget about mitigation for awhile. Until it inevitably goes away and you freak out cause you can't take a hit any better then Murky. You then proceed to do all you can until you get another bubble ready. Repeat.

Keeping mitigation as a steady thing to focus on is much more appealing. I like the idea drinking a brew and reducing damage you take as a BrM, and stagger is a unique take on shield block that has the potential to be powerful. But preemptively absorbing lots of damage is less intuitive. This tends to leave us spending most of our time trying to do high damage and that can certainly be fun, it shouldn't be a tanks primary focus.

I agree that the way Guard now works is pretty broken. But my suggestion is to keep uniqueness of brewmaster gameplay and fix that. In my design you always need to preserve balance between mitigation and damage (you cannot attack, while you channeling your Shield). Also Total Shield amount is not so big with mastery from typical gear it is only 48% of your maximum health (not 300% of your health like Guard can be now) and because you cannot directly remove stagger (well if you didn't pickup talent, but even with talent you have a big CD on that), most of your shield will go to absorb stagger ticks.
One can calculate damage: Maximum amount of staggered damage is 100% of your max health, so it means 10% of your HP per tick. You can channel "Bottomless mug" 2 times during that time which will give you total 96% of your health as shields. So nothing really weird because your shield just mitigates stagger damage.
And you always need to make desicions:
1) Maximum DPS rotation: Keg Smash->BoF->BoF->Drink and repeat
2) Maximum safety but zero dps: Just continuously drink
3) High safety and moderate dps: Keg Smash (each CD)->3xBlackout Kick->pickup bubbles-> Drink when needed and repeat
4) Balanced rotation: Keg Smash (each CD)-> BoF->3xBlackout Kick->pickup bubbles-> Drink when needed and repeat

Whereas the current Legion design even don't allow you to mitigate damage after a huge hit (no strong heals or absorbs, which every other tank has). And rotation seems pretty straightforward. It does not requiring you to make a decisions. I even cannot say why they keeps energy for Brewmasters, because it can perfectly work with just CDs on Keg Smash and Tiger Palm (like Prot Paladin). And I totally disagree that Brewmasters should be avoidance tanks, right now even DH tanks design (even in unfinished form) looks more solid for avoidance tank.

Agree with the above about absorbs. BrM really took a dive in WoD where it took Guard from an ability to be used for a big attack to our prime AM. This was solely because they completely screwed the spec at the start of WoD, where it was the weakest any tank spec had ever been in the game, and didn't want to do any to complicated maths so just buffed the shit through stagger and guard.

Yes I remember that time, that was really a design fail. But if you check current Legion design and calculate some numbers it will be even more miserable than at the start of WoD.

[DisposableHero]

Yes I remember that time, that was really a design fail. But if you check current Legion design and calculate some numbers it will be even more miserable than at the start of WoD.

A design fail that came about from trying to emphasize the elusiveness part of the brewmaster kit and pretending RNG pass/fail mechanics (read here dodge and parry) aren't shit for tanking and more shit for active mitigation. Guess what! That is actual exactly what they have stated they are doing with this revamp.

[Aracs]

A design fail that came about from trying to emphasize the elusiveness part of the brewmaster kit and pretending RNG pass/fail mechanics (read here dodge and parry) aren't shit for tanking and more shit for active mitigation. Guess what! That is actual exactly what they have stated they are doing with this revamp.

About fails in design, check the way DH suppose to tank now. And compare with Legion Brewmasters. As for me DH much better avoidance tank right now.
Let me give you a simple example. What you will do if your healers just slept and you are now at 30% of health. Right now you can: Spam expel harm, Press Guard, eat spheres nearby. What you can do in that situation in Legion? You can pray for dodge while healers will cast their spells or you can pray that sphere will spawn and you can eat it. Really too much RNG for high level tanking, like mythic raids. And all other tanks still has OH SHIT buttons, all except of Brewmasters.

[Tinykong]

The real problem with the Brewmaster is that the "fantasy" of the class doesn't work against an NPC.

Drinking brews, the enemy never sure what you're going to do next. The boss doesn't care, they autoattack on a timer and use abilities on cooldowns.

[Aracs]

The real problem with the Brewmaster is that the "fantasy" of the class doesn't work against an NPC.

Drinking brews, the enemy never sure what you're going to do next. The boss doesn't care, they autoattack on a timer and use abilities on cooldowns.

Try to drink with a boss, maybe there is the thing he waited for 10000 years

[Rilas13]

I missed that the absorb was channeled, my bad.

I have sadly spent more time on this reply then I care to admit but I will save the wall of text cause it was a bit silly. Long story short spending half of our game play using a channeled spell wouldn't be fun. Having an infinite absorb is broken. And without purify, stagger would be useless and we would be very bad at mitigation.

I decided skipping to the point of this post is an easier thing to confront. These ideas are because you don't like how the new design works, and you aren't impressed with the new fantasy direction correct? We will be just as viable as any other tank. Tank Pattern Comparison They are all much more normalized then ever before, we won't be bad comparatively.

I'll grant you it says he absorbs damage but in the game he didn't actually absorb he had hit mitigation built in. Other then that he is an avoidance hero. And stagger fits the void better then an absorb for this game.Original Brewmaster in the Warcraft universe

Its unfortunate that you don't like the new direction but that doesn't mean its bad or that it isn't relevant to the fantasy of what a BrM is.

[Saverem]

Look, I like alcohol as much as the next guy, but an entire spec that depends on that stuff as a tanking mechanic seems a bit too much. I'm not an alcoholic and I don't really want to play a spec that has to be in order to function.

What's next? A Rogue spec that requires taking drags from a cigarette to cast smoke bomb? How about a Warrior ability that lets them snort bath salts so they can "Enrage"?

The whole thing just seems odd, especially for a game targeted at teenagers.

EDIT: I know Blizz is taking inspiration from Jackie Chan's 'Drunken Master' as the premise behind the BrM, but they must realize that the drunk fighting technique in real life was just a technique. They didn't actually get drunk, as any 16 year old could tell you drinking will dull your senses and reflexes which is the OPPOSITE of what you need for fighting. The drunken fighting technique involved bobbing and weaving sporadically while remaining in motion so the opponent could not read your attacks. It's a cool technique, but no actually drinking was involved with the real thing.

[Aracs]

Look, I like alcohol as much as the next guy, but an entire spec that depends on that stuff as a tanking mechanic seems a bit too much. I'm not an alcoholic and I don't really want to play a spec that has to be in order to function.

What's next? A Rogue spec that requires taking drags from a cigarette to cast smoke bomb? How about a Warrior ability that lets them snort bath salts so they can "Enrage"?

The whole thing just seems odd, especially for a game targeted at teenagers.

EDIT: I know Blizz is taking inspiration from Jackie Chan's 'Drunken Master' as the premise behind the BrM, but they must realize that the drunk fighting technique in real life was just a technique. They didn't actually get drunk, as any 16 year old could tell you drinking will dull your senses and reflexes which is the OPPOSITE of what you need for fighting. The drunken fighting technique involved bobbing and weaving sporadically while remaining in motion so the opponent could not read your attacks. It's a cool technique, but no actually drinking was involved with the real thing.

This is basically how other blizzard team see Brewmasters. I just taken Chen Stormstout mechanics from HotS and tried to move it into WoW. I'm not professional game designer. Play Chen in HotS and you will see that this is pretty damn good mechanic which requires a solid planning of your actions and feels like you are really Master of Brews.

- - - Updated - - -

Its unfortunate that you don't like the new direction but that doesn't mean its bad or that it isn't relevant to the fantasy of what a BrM is.

I agree that blizzard tries to normalize tanks, but exactly in Brewmasters case they go into the wrong direction.

In the link which you provided author also pointed one of the main problems in current Legion Brewmasters:

Monks also have a clear primary mitigation (Ironskin Brew) and secondary mitigation (Purifying Brew), though they have the same cost. However, the secondary mitigation is nearly useless without the primary.

It basically means you shouldn't use Purifying Brew without popping up Ironskin Brew before. So it also means also that you should use Ironskin Brew if you have 2 or more stacks of it to mitigate damage, but this will lead to a 40 seconds base cooldown on our primary mitigation mechanic, which can be lowered by usage of energy spenders, but still we have much less average uptime on our mitigation than other tanks.

Lets do some easy math:
take 2 min window = 120 seconds
Base energy regen 10 en/sec which means 120*10+100=1300 energy available through that time
Also within 120 seconds we generates 120/20=6 stacks of brews normally and initially we have 3 stacks at the beginning
Now If we using our Keg Smash each CD we can use it 120/8=15 times which means 4*15/20=3 additional stack of Brews for 15*40=600 energy
Remaining 1300-600 = 700 energy we will spend in Tiger Palm which cost 25 energy and provide -1 sec cd on brews. It can generate additionally 700/25/20=1.4 stacks of Brews
So combined we have 6+3+3+1.4=13.4 stacks which we can use through the 2 minutes remember that we need to use 2 stacks to really mitigate damage.
This means that we can use our mitigation each 120/6.7 = 17.9 seconds on average.
For example Warriors can use Shield Block every 12 seconds and we can use our mitigation every ~18 seconds which means our ability to actively mitigate damage will be 33% lower than warrior one.

Now if we compare other parts of active mitigation:
1) Warrior - Ignore Pain
2) Druids - Frenzied regeneration
3) Paladins - Light of the Protector
4) Death Knight - Death Strike
5) Demon Hunter - Soul Cleave

They are all Active abilities which you can pop up after receiving large damage burst to help you survive and what Brewmasters should use?
Yeah thats right! Brewmasters should search for "Gift of the Ox" shpere nearby (which spawns by RNG).
Don't you think that there is too much RNG happening for such squishy tank like Brewmaster?

[Saverem]

This is basically how other blizzard team see Brewmasters. I just taken Chen Stormstout mechanics from HotS and tried to move it into WoW. I'm not professional game designer. Play Chen in HotS and you will see that this is pretty damn good mechanic which requires a solid planning of your actions and feels like you are really Master of Brews.

I'll take your word for it as I have absolutely no interest in ever playing that game.

- - - Updated - - -

Now if we compare other parts of active mitigation:
1) Warrior - Ignore Pain
2) Druids - Frenzied regeneration
3) Paladins - Light of the Protector
4) Death Knight - Death Strike
5) Demon Hunter - Soul Cleave

They are all Active abilities which you can pop up after receiving large damage burst to help you survive and what Brewmasters should use?
Yeah thats right! Brewmasters should search for "Gift of the Ox" shpere nearby (which spawns by RNG).
Don't you think that there is too much RNG happening for such squishy tank like Brewmaster?

I think Zen Meditation could fit this role perfectly with a minor tweak.

[Rilas13]

@Aracs, I'll assume your math is spot on, I couldn't find a number for energy regain but with haste it looks to be at least nearly double what you stated, and I recall a blue post about making sure we don't have downtime so I think 10en/sec is a very very conservative estimate. But lets plow on.
Have you seen our level 45 talent tier? Because this is also a crucial thing to consider with these numbers.
Light Brewing reduces the recharge time by 5 sec, and adds a charge. With our time cut by abilities it sounds pretty comparable.
Black Ox Brew refills energy and brew charges on a 1 min cd. Or effectively doubles your charges in a minute.
Secret Ingredients looks pretty underwhelming right now but it gives a chance to reset the CD on Keg Smash with TP use. So lots of KS uses=shorter brew cd.

I whole wholeheartedly agree that Gift of the Ox is a little sad compared to all the other options. The only thing on that list that isn't a clickable ability and I am all for that changing. But that doesn't mean it doesn't count. It is a heal, an effective one.

With that said I also want to clarify that the numbers presented are Alpha and will be adjusted as needed for all tanks to be viable. We haven't even seen the Tank patch in Alpha yet.

[The Madgod]

This is basically how other blizzard team see Brewmasters. I just taken Chen Stormstout mechanics from HotS and tried to move it into WoW. I'm not professional game designer. Play Chen in HotS and you will see that this is pretty damn good mechanic which requires a solid planning of your actions and feels like you are really Master of Brews.

The trouble is, the two games are not purely analogous. In Heroes, absorbs aren't as powerful because players can switch to other heroes who aren't as defended. Or alternatively, they can hard-focus them, CC them, and then burst them down despite the shield. WoW's time to kill a player is much higher, and so a shield has far greater value. Furthermore, Chen's active trait has the significant drawback that even though he does get shield, he can't dodge and he can't do any other action. The strategy around his trait is that he needs to use it to maximize the benefit of the shield, while not screwing himself over by granting the enemy team nigh free reign to determine and abuse his positioning. World of Warcraft doesn't have the same concept of positioning as Heroes does. Where you are and whether you are moving are, relatively, far less significant in importance. You can stay put in a single place for an entire boss fight, only moving to avoid fire on the ground or to move a boss / pick up adds. if you stay still in Heroes, only moving for AoE or engage a specific enemy, you're considered an easy target. Absorbs in Heroes and absorbs in WoW aren't really comparable, I think.

Furthermore, personally I don't find that to be the core of his kit. It's the thing that makes him tanky and gives him resources, but he's really more about flying around the battlefield, trying to body-block and mess with people, as well as being able to easily harass people in the back-line. Brewplay is an important part of Chen, of course, but it isn't the core of Chen, I think.

Never mind that I think the feel of using the ability in WoW and using the ability in Heroes would be drastically different. Heroes feels more fast-paced, while WoW feels more about preparation. In Heroes, you pop that ability as an immediate counter to an enemy play. It feels good to use it in a well-timed manner. In WoW, you'd pop that ability right before a big boss hit and shrug it off. The only difference between it and Guard is that with Guard, you can still do other stuff. Yes, the opportunity to use it as a reactive ability is there, but it's nowhere near as significant.

Back in Mists beta, Shuffle worked in a similar way. And they changed it. I think they changed it for precisely this reason. Ultimately, sitting around doing nothing does not feel good, and by making this a significant aspect of the Brewmaster kit, that's kinda what you're proposing, something that a lot of Brewmasters have had concerns with in regards to the Legion content.

[Aracs]

With that said I also want to clarify that the numbers presented are Alpha and will be adjusted as needed for all tanks to be viable. We haven't even seen the Tank patch in Alpha yet.

Well lets see how the thing will go when they add Brewmaster spec to the alpha testing. I really just want to be sure that situation with WoD launch will not happen again.

The trouble is, the two games are not purely analogous. In Heroes, absorbs aren't as powerful because players can switch to other heroes who aren't as defended. Or alternatively, they can hard-focus them, CC them, and then burst them down despite the shield. WoW's time to kill a player is much higher, and so a shield has far greater value. Furthermore, Chen's active trait has the significant drawback that even though he does get shield, he can't dodge and he can't do any other action. The strategy around his trait is that he needs to use it to maximize the benefit of the shield, while not screwing himself over by granting the enemy team nigh free reign to determine and abuse his positioning. World of Warcraft doesn't have the same concept of positioning as Heroes does. Where you are and whether you are moving are, relatively, far less significant in importance. You can stay put in a single place for an entire boss fight, only moving to avoid fire on the ground or to move a boss / pick up adds. if you stay still in Heroes, only moving for AoE or engage a specific enemy, you're considered an easy target. Absorbs in Heroes and absorbs in WoW aren't really comparable, I think.

Absorbs is much more valuable in HotS than in WoW, because they preventing burst on you, thats why in every pro HotS game there is Tassadar either picked or banned. And every healer which can pickup absorbs in talents just do that. And Chen used to be a top tier tank until they removed stun talent from his Q. Now he has no hard control at all, thats why he can be picked up only in very specific matchups (he is main counter to Zagara).
But you are generally right. Also they decided to pickup a lot of things from D3 (new Legendaries as example). So I think take some good stuff from other games is not really problematic if you can fit them well.

P.S. There is actually another problem with Legion Brewmasters: our new Mastery. It is an example of really bad mastery design with a lot of caps and efficiency falling into the hell very fast.

[Anachon]

Sorry for interrupting the discussion about how practicable Aracs suggestion or the HotS model would be but i have to ask something. Since i'm not twinking as active as in previous expansions anymore, is there any kind of playstyle in WoW at the moment which is similar to Aracs post?
This has been posted thousands of times i assume but the thought of playing like Jackie Chan Drunken Master sounds awesome to me, having to drink during combat to stay drunk (and thereby refilling your primary ressource) so you can tank effectivly.

I know this would possibly create a huge skillcap for new players but the idea sounds so cool to me. Kinda similar to the planning and foresight of the current and previous mistweaver interpretations where you have to think ~15+ seconds in advance to heal effectivly.

[Aracs]

Sorry for interrupting the discussion about how practicable Aracs suggestion or the HotS model would be but i have to ask something. Since i'm not twinking as active as in previous expansions anymore, is there any kind of playstyle in WoW at the moment which is similar to Aracs post?
This has been posted thousands of times i assume but the thought of playing like Jackie Chan Drunken Master sounds awesome to me, having to drink during combat to stay drunk (and thereby refilling your primary ressource) so you can tank effectivly.

I know this would possibly create a huge skillcap for new players but the idea sounds so cool to me. Kinda similar to the planning and foresight of the current and previous mistweaver interpretations where you have to think ~15+ seconds in advance to heal effectivly.

For healers as you pointed current mistweaver and discipline priest (of course) are the closest one, but because they want healers to be more reactive than proactive, they also completely scrapped that idea of proactive healing by hots and chi pulling or shields. The only spec which retains pure proactive healing scheme will be Restoration Druids.

For tanks there is no such specs and because they redesigning discpriests and MW monks I think there will be no problems to make proactive tank.

[The Madgod]

Well lets see how the thing will go when they add Brewmaster spec to the alpha testing. I really just want to be sure that situation with WoD launch will not happen again.


Absorbs is much more valuable in HotS than in WoW, because they preventing burst on you, thats why in every pro HotS game there is Tassadar either picked or banned. And every healer which can pickup absorbs in talents just do that. And Chen used to be a top tier tank until they removed stun talent from his Q. Now he has no hard control at all, thats why he can be picked up only in very specific matchups (he is main counter to Zagara).

Not really. Ive seen Uther be more active in competitive play than Tassadar and he doesn't use absorbs too much.

http://www.gosugamers.net/heroesofth...nt-tournaments

49% pick-rate (with a 71% 'contention' rate) in tournaments... compared to a 10% before the buff. Compare that to Uther, who in competitive play had a 100% pick or ban rate in every theater in the world except Europe, where he had a 99% pick or ban rate (sourced from Blizzcon, State of the Game panel). Tassadar seems far less significant than what you claim.

I mean absolutely no offense when saying this, but usually when trying to counter evidence, you should probably point more towards why the logic someone used is wrong, rather than just saying "no, you're not right on this one." It makes something like this, a thread about alternate design, far easier to actually create something that could be really cool and fun, and not just something where people are just saying "No, you're not right, I'm right"... which honestly after trying to deal with the Lore forums, I've had more than enough of in my lifetime. I already talked about how absorbs prevent burst on you, but that there's aspects of play which make such much less detrimental. Again, time to kill is far slower in WoW, which makes those absorbs far more powerful, among other things I've pointed out.

But you are generally right. Also they decided to pickup a lot of things from D3 (new Legendaries as example). So I think take some good stuff from other games is not really problematic if you can fit them well.

I mean, I'm actually a game designer. The bold here is the core issue I'm seeing here. Certain things, like the treasure demons and the new legendaries and the greater rift style challenge modes offer a lot of replayability, that's their core design intent. In an MMO, such things are amazingly good design choices, so the mix of popular Diablo 3 features into WoW makes a lot of sense.

But this is more combat mechanics, and combat mechanics need to differ significantly depending on a lot of factors, including time to kill, capacity and importance of movement, whether combat is PvP and/or PvE, and a whole lot more. It's why an absorb, the same concept, has different significance in different games. An absorb in Sonic and an absorb in WoW have significantly different gameplay importance, and when you lose that absorb, have different effects on the player's mental state (Sonic being much more "OH GOD NO, DANGIT WHY" than in WoW, where it feels relatively less significant).

Discipline priests are getting less focus on absorbs because Blizzard has gone on record to admit that absorbs in WoW are just way too strong to balance well. Which is why I don't think Chen's trait is a good fit for the game. Never mind that I think it'd just be boring to play. Again, I fell in love with Brewmasters because of their cool concept of being THE active mitigation tank and their super active playstyle. It completely destroyed the feeling of rogues, where I felt that with energy as a resource, you were just sitting around waiting. Having channeled abilities as a tank in WoW doesn't really jive with me.

P.S. There is actually another problem with Legion Brewmasters: our new Mastery. It is an example of really bad mastery design with a lot of caps and efficiency falling into the hell very fast.

Is it? What constitutes bad design? The caps? That's been a thing for a long time, not really considered a bad thing necessarily. Efficiency drop-offs? That's been true of almost every stat. In fact, the opposite is bad design, as evidenced by our old mastery. Something else?

The new one serves as a means of making dodge somewhat more "reliable" and to me, that's not a bad thing. It becomes an alright way of reducing damage taken over the long term. The difference being that if nothing changes, we're going to be more about haste than about mastery in the coming expansion. I don't think it's the greatest mastery, but to call it a serious problem and really bad design strikes me as a stretch.

[Aracs]

Thank for reply. Good to know that you actually a real game designer, because then you are expert in this things.

About Tassadar, I just noticed in twitch translations that last tournaments: he, tyrande and uther are the most contested healers exactly after buff of his shields and ultimates. About Uther: his bubble is just the most OP shielding, so he will remain the most contested hero, until they nerf it.

About Design issues, I've pointed some issues with current legion design of brewmasters in previous posts. And about mastery there is graph of mastery effect. I cant post images yet, but there is a huge problem that new mastery after ~15% it will have 2 times lower efficiency than New Bear Mastery. Also the more Base Avoidance we will have, the less efficient our mastery will be. Which is a bad design, in my opinion.

Discipline priests are getting less focus on absorbs because Blizzard has gone on record to admit that absorbs in WoW are just way too strong to balance well. Which is why I don't think Chen's trait is a good fit for the game. Never mind that I think it'd just be boring to play. Again, I fell in love with Brewmasters because of their cool concept of being THE active mitigation tank and their super active playstyle. It completely destroyed the feeling of rogues, where I felt that with energy as a resource, you were just sitting around waiting. Having channeled abilities as a tank in WoW doesn't really jive with me.

Well I can say what was the main problem with disc priests since WotLK. Presence of Disc Priest in raid just diminishes effect of all other healers. If Disc Priest was good enough, it can easily do more healing all other healers without any chances for them. This fact was always very depressive for other healers. Now I think Druids will take that place . And I never saw that blizzard said that absorbs too powerful, if you can send me some link, it will be very good. Actually they kept some absorption capabilities for Disc Priests for PvP purposes I think. Also they preserve Guard for Brewmasters as PvP talent, so I think there is no big problems with absorptions in PvP. In raid there is a problem with balance of deadly abilities which can be avoided by Absorbs. But it corresponds to the raid-wide AOE damage, because every tank can now survive deadly abilities easily by using CDs.
So I don't think that for tanks absorbs is a problem, if of course they are not just as big as currents guard which can be 300% of your HP, giving you x4 HP pool, thats why in my design maximum shields also connected to brewmaster HP. Actually for tanks Absorbs is Just an Extra HP thing not more.
And I give another Example. New Bear cant avoid attacks but his mastery gives him huge chunk of health and healing, which is essentially works the same as absorption mechanic which I've presented. So Bear cant dodge, but he has a constant HP and +healing buff, and also huge amount of armour. Brewmasters in my design will have the same buff for HP through shields and Shields regen instead of +healing. But they dont have huge amount of armour and using stagger+some avoidance instead

[The Madgod]

Thank for reply. Good to know that you actually a real game designer, because then you are expert in this things.

About Tassadar, I just noticed in twitch translations that last tournaments: he, tyrande and uther are the most contested healers exactly after buff of his shields and ultimates. About Uther: his bubble is just the most OP shielding, so he will remain the most contested hero, until they nerf it.

Yes, but the thing with Uther is that he provides invulnerability, not really shield / absorbs. And before his buff, Tassadar was only picked 10% of the time. This indicates that absorbs aren't the reason for his increased popularity, it's that he was made more viable and does have a lot of utility as a support. And Tyrande doesn't have any absorbs but she's being contested a lot too. She's contested because she brings a crazy amount of utility and CC for a team.

There's also Artanis, whose whole defensive trait is a shield mechanic, but he's considered underpowered right now.

All of this leads at least me to believe that shields are a cool, useful tool, but aren't necessarily at a point where they eclipse other forms of support / self preservation, unlike in WoW where it's been stated they create a balance problem.

About Design issues, I've pointed some issues with current legion design of brewmasters in previous posts. And about mastery there is graph of mastery effect. I cant post images yet, but there is a huge problem that new mastery after ~15% it will have 2 times lower efficiency than New Bear Mastery. Also the more Base Avoidance we will have, the less efficient our mastery will be. Which is a bad design, in my opinion.

Diminishing returns have been a thing with stats for a very long time in WoW, I don't think that's a big deal. And realistically all that means is we don't get more mastery after 15%. Why is that a bad thing, per se? We already do something similar with mastery in that you get enough mastery to survive then get more crit. It's just now it's no longer about your personal threshold and is more about the math, provided numbers don't change.

Well I can say what was the main problem with disc priests since WotLK. Presence of Disc Priest in raid just diminishes effect of all other healers. If Disc Priest was good enough, it can easily do more healing all other healers without any chances for them. This fact was always very depressive for other healers. Now I think Druids will take that place . And I never saw that blizzard said that absorbs too powerful, if you can send me some link, it will be very good. Actually they kept some absorption capabilities for Disc Priests for PvP purposes I think. Also they preserve Guard for Brewmasters as PvP talent, so I think there is no big problems with absorptions in PvP. In raid there is a problem with balance of deadly abilities which can be avoided by Absorbs. But it corresponds to the raid-wide AOE damage, because every tank can now survive deadly abilities easily by using CDs.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/199...iest-11-9-2015

They talked a bit about it at the WoW systems panel at Blizzcon this year as well, I believe. But it's right there in text. It's way too effective a mechanic for PvE. And technically even right now, combine a Brewmaster and a Discipline priest in PvP against your average matches, and it's pretty hard to kill him.

So I don't think that for tanks absorbs is a problem, if of course they are not just as big as currents guard which can be 300% of your HP, giving you x4 HP pool, thats why in my design maximum shields also connected to brewmaster HP. Actually for tanks Absorbs is Just an Extra HP thing not more.

And thus, it provides effective health, which is the most important thing a tank needs to have to deal with the one thing which can actually endanger them: spike damage. Absorbs are insanely powerful in this regard, precisely because they are effectively temporary bonus HP. As a tank or as a healer, the capacity to prevent damage on a regular basis via absorbs is insanely powerful. There really isn't much of a difference between the two. I mean, that's precisely the reason that Guard was considered a problem by the class team for PvE, because it was just a stupidly powerful ability, as it more or less became our primary means of dealing with damage, the same concept that you're proposing here. You were OP with it active, and then rather iffy when it wasn't on you.

In fact, because of how this concept is balanced around using your absorb generator for resources as well as primary defense, as long as you're given time to get threat, you could likely just sit there and spam your shield and take minimal to no damage, only pausing to pop cooldowns or move. Just flood your character with mastery and maintain ISB while using Keg Smash on cooldown. It's basically either going to result in a completely worthless tank because the absorbs aren't that strong, or a completely overpowered tank because the absorbs actually mitigate a crapton of damage for you.

And I give another Example. New Bear cant avoid attacks but his mastery gives him huge chunk of health and healing, which is essentially works the same as absorption mechanic which I've presented. So Bear cant dodge, but he has a constant HP and +healing buff, and also huge amount of armour. Brewmasters in my design will have the same buff for HP through shields and Shields regen instead of +healing. But they dont have huge amount of armour and using stagger+some avoidance instead

The difference though is that an absorb is an HP buff that you don't need to heal through. It's a fire-and-forget mechanic, whereas healing actually requires active monitoring and play.