[BREWMASTER] 7.X Discussion Thread

[Xequecal]

I honestly do not get the logic of taking High Tolerance in basically any situation unless you're trying to cheese a mechanic and 80% still gets you one shot while 90% won't. Blackout Combo allows you to shove more damage into your stagger than HT's 10% and the KS bonus gives you more brews than HT's haste. Elusive Dance also just straight up removes more damage, even if you assume that HT is worth 10% more brews due to the haste bonus. 0.65 * 0.8 > 0.5 * 0.9 * 1.1.

[Deleted]

High Tolerance reduce the direct damage taken by 40% while ISB is up, so yes, it can save you from death.

[Hobbs]

It seems that most people have noted that BoC is the best talent overall. But BoC is only better than the other 2 talents if you play it properly. I notice that when I play with BoC at my current gear of 15-20% haste, I mess it up...a lot. If you're really good with the rotation and can play BoC without delaying KS, capping energy, significantly delaying BoF debuff, while nailing all the fight mechanics, then you should totally go BoC over HT. Until I can get to that 30% haste mark where BoC becomes a bit easier, I'll stick with HT for serious stuff I'm doing.

ED might be better for overall less damage taken than HT but HT smooths your damage intake so much more effectively than ED. It gives you 10% less up front damage taken just from picking the talent and it gives you a significant amount of more brews to work with. I might would go ED over HT if damage in take was not bursty at all just to reduce the healing I need, but for almost all other situations I'm sticking with HT over ED.

I think the existence of this discussion though, shows that blizzard did a really good job after they reworked this talent tier. It's nice to have good arguments for all 3 options. I wish all talent rows were this way.

[Deleted]

It gives you 10% less up front damage taken just from picking

This is not correct. It's way, way, way more.
While ISB Up it's 40% less direct dmg, without ISB it's ~22%.

[Hobbs]

This is not correct. It's way, way, way more.
While ISB Up it's 40% less direct dmg, without ISB it's ~22%.

Yes you're right. Sorry I should have been more specific and just said 10% additional flat stagger.

[Juliansfist]

High tolerance exists if you feel you are taking too much upfront damage but not entirely concerned about overall damage taken.

Elusive dance exists for those comfortable with their incoming damage but want to reduce their overall damage in take (little more to it with the damage reduction bonus when purifying though).

Blackout Combo exists for those wanting something between the two and a deeper ability use priority.

[Xahz]

It seems that most people have noted that BoC is the best talent overall. But BoC is only better than the other 2 talents if you play it properly.

I'm so sick of people saying this. It's the best talent according to what? Your gut? I haven't seen any numbers or testing that would suggest that BoC is the highest performing talent, even with perfect play. Everyone seems to be saying this because it's an active talent and it feels like it should ultimately be the strongest option if you can utilize it correctly, but that is fallacious reasoning. Blizzard rarely adheres to this kind of philosophy and I can think of dozens of examples since MoP where the passive, do-nothing talent in a given tier was by far the superior option.

[Cheep]

I've been running High Tolerance after I switched from Blackout Combo to smooth damage more with obstinate determination in mythics. I have no idea how you're supposed to deal with magic damage with the other two 100 talents, it seems that magic damage is the bane of my existence even running everything I can to counter it (and is the only thing I'm scared of in mythic+ besides warg kiting in HoV).

Is this the problem with mastery? Should I drop some mastery from 25% (12% base dodge) to get more versatility? What crit rates are you guys running? I feel like I get OCD and I have to have around 29% crit or else my orbs won't crit. I still feel like I'm undervaluing versatility, and I think that's the stat that's going to make me scale exponentially.

[Hobbs]

I'm so sick of people saying this. It's the best talent according to what? Your gut? I haven't seen any numbers or testing that would suggest that BoC is the highest performing talent, even with perfect play. Everyone seems to be saying this because it's an active talent and it feels like it should ultimately be the strongest option if you can utilize it correctly, but that is fallacious reasoning. Blizzard rarely adheres to this kind of philosophy and I can think of dozens of examples since MoP where the passive, do-nothing talent in a given tier was by far the superior option.

No not my gut. It gives the most brews by a significant margin. It provides a much higher uptime on a 6% DR (or more with relics). These alone make it comparable to the other 2. Plus it's flexible. You need more single target damage for a time? It does it. You need to freeze stagger for an oh crap moment? It does it. The BoF uptime really shouldn't be overlooked though. And it gives you 100% ISB uptime with plenty of room for purifies.

I'll grant that it's not as simple as BoC 6.2% DR < HT 7.4% DR. But to be frank, choices in tanking are often not that clear. Now I believe I saw some math over at brewing mastery that pointed out that with consistent red stagger HT surpasses BoC in brew generation. But that environment may or may not be that realistic. And that is just one aspect of the talents, albeit probably the most important one.

[Deleted]

No not my gut. It gives the most brews by a significant margin. It provides a much higher uptime on a 6% DR (or more with relics). These alone make it comparable to the other 2. Plus it's flexible. You need more single target damage for a time? It does it. You need to freeze stagger for an oh crap moment? It does it. The BoF uptime really shouldn't be overlooked though. And it gives you 100% ISB uptime with plenty of room for purifies.

I'll grant that it's not as simple as BoC 6.2% DR < HT 7.4% DR. But to be frank, choices in tanking are often not that clear. Now I believe I saw some math over at brewing mastery that pointed out that with consistent red stagger HT surpasses BoC in brew generation. But that environment may or may not be that realistic. And that is just one aspect of the talents, albeit probably the most important one.

BoC is crap in term of damage taken/smoothness. Deal with it.

The BoF-Uptime is only "good" as long as you not have the (BiS!) legendary chest. Also, the difference between 100% uptime and ~50% uptime is that small, that there is no really difference in damage taken.

100% ISB during dungeons is not necessary (because you simply can not die if you play well...thanks OD!) nor is it during raids.

Pausing stagger is a trap and can kill you really, really, really quick in a eviroment that you not overgear by far (mythics currently are overgeared) because without PB it'll tick much harder then before.

Red Stagger is not realistic? Sorry for crushing your dreams, but during hc/mythic raids it is.

[Xahz]

It gives the most brews by a significant margin.

No, it doesn't. Assuming you're bouncing between yellow and red stagger, the amount of brews they give on average is almost identical.

It provides a much higher uptime on a 6% DR (or more with relics).

40% higher uptime; with the base 6% from Hot Blooded, that's an average 2.4% damage reduction. For comparison, HT reduces direct damage taken by 40% with ISB. I don't see how there's any argument to be made that BoC is better damage reduction/smoothing due to BoF uptime. Even with relics it still pales in comparison, and the lowered cooldown on BoF is rendered completely obsolete if you get the chest legendary.

Plus it's flexible. You need more single target damage for a time? It does it. You need to freeze stagger for an oh crap moment? It does it.

I'll grant that it's not as simple as BoC 6.2% DR < HT 7.4% DR. But to be frank, choices in tanking are often not that clear. Now I believe I saw some math over at brewing mastery that pointed out that with consistent red stagger HT surpasses BoC in brew generation. But that environment may or may not be that realistic. And that is just one aspect of the talents, albeit probably the most important one.

Yes, I understand what the talent does; it is very flexible and amounts to a nice damage increase - but what I'm not hearing is any compelling argument backing up the statement that it's the best talent in the tier. Once again, the "with perfect play" qualifier everyone tacks on to that statement seems to be based on a misguided notion that the active talent with high room for error must be the best if utilized optimally. History has proven that that isn't always the case, even if it should be. I checked the blog you referenced, and it seems that the author comes to the conclusion that "High Tolerance, a passive, seems to be fairly solidly outperforming Blackout Combo, a very active talent".

BoC may very well be the best talent in the tier, but until there is some data to back up that claim I'd rather not see people pretending as if it were an obvious fact.

[Deleted]

From https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...s-september-16

(Hotfix in testing; to be applied with next weekly maintenance) Most abilities used by Tank specializations have had their damage reduced by 10%. Abilities which are shared with other specializations remain unchanged for those other specializations.

Well, it seems that all tanks will recieve a Flat 10% dmg nerf...
I mean srsly Blizz, we are by far the least played tank, with the less raid-utiliy and (again) are far behind all other tanks damage wise.

But hey, i'm glad that OD seems to stay at least \o/

/sarcasm off

[Ray3andrei]

High tolerance will give more brew charges on average with low haste, while BoC will give more with high haste, the less haste you have, the stronger HT becomes, while BoC will become weaker, with high haste the opposite is true, BoC will scale really well with haste, while HT won't, that's how you should choose if you want to maximize brew charges.

From my experience BoC feels much spikier and if you're trying to do the most diffucult content right away (often undergeared) HT will almost always be the best choice imo, Elusive dance is kind of inbetween, it is still fairly spiky, but provides some damage smoothing with the dodge chance.

[arcuro]

good thing i am in a famillial guild for since woltk and maintank there so i dont have to worry about banching.
my onpopular opinion? i tank much batter with HT and LB than with BoC and BoB. and as long no one complains i will still tank my style.

imho, i dont think any of the discussed talent combinations are bad. if you REALY have to minmax, sure BoB and BoC could be batter, dont know, dont care

i will continue try to addept with BoB and play around with BoC, but i will also play my way and maybe, just maybe, a lot of BrM should go and try it out for themself if it is batter for him/her/it and the group to maybe choose a theoretical not optimal talent choice

[Xequecal]

No, it doesn't. Assuming you're bouncing between yellow and red stagger, the amount of brews they give on average is almost identical.



40% higher uptime; with the base 6% from Hot Blooded, that's an average 2.4% damage reduction. For comparison, HT reduces direct damage taken by 40% with ISB. I don't see how there's any argument to be made that BoC is better damage reduction/smoothing due to BoF uptime. Even with relics it still pales in comparison, and the lowered cooldown on BoF is rendered completely obsolete if you get the chest legendary.



Yes, I understand what the talent does; it is very flexible and amounts to a nice damage increase - but what I'm not hearing is any compelling argument backing up the statement that it's the best talent in the tier. Once again, the "with perfect play" qualifier everyone tacks on to that statement seems to be based on a misguided notion that the active talent with high room for error must be the best if utilized optimally. History has proven that that isn't always the case, even if it should be. I checked the blog you referenced, and it seems that the author comes to the conclusion that "High Tolerance, a passive, seems to be fairly solidly outperforming Blackout Combo, a very active talent".

BoC may very well be the best talent in the tier, but until there is some data to back up that claim I'd rather not see people pretending as if it were an obvious fact.

High Tolerance doesn't reduce damage, it only delays it and increases your EHP. Personally, I'm reasonably sure 15m EHP is enough, I don't need to take High Tolerance to get 30 million. It's just wasted. The stagger pause you get from Blackout Combo will shove more damage into your stagger than High Tolerance's extra 10% will. This isn't WotLK tanking where nothing matters but EHP and you get 90% overheal because healers have to chain spam so you don't get gibbed. Actually taking less damage is important.

With 33% haste, you will generate a brew approximately every 6 seconds, Keg Smash has a 6 second CD and Breath of Fire has a 9 second CD assuming you empower all of them. That means you need 3 Blackout Strikes every 7 seconds to empower all of them. With 33% haste you have a 2.25s CD on Blackout Strike, which means you can empower them all if you play perfectly. Good luck with that though, I'm sticking with ED because I can barely do this without energy capping if I just stare at the bar, in actual fights you have to do mechanics and you WILL fuck it up. Blackout Strike is melee range, if you have to do any movement you will lose them and thus lose BoC value as well.

Taking High Tolerance is just strictly wrong unless:
1. You're cheesing a mechanic.
2. The incoming damage is so high that you can literally go from 100% HP to dead in three seconds or less with ISB up.

Even in mythic raids, #2 doesn't happen. With perfect play, take BoC always. With imperfect play, take ED for mitigation and BoC for DPS. Never take HT.

[Deleted]

Even in mythic raids, #2 doesn't happen.

Especially during mythic progression the reduction of spikes is much more worth then little bit less DTPS by ED nor is it worth to have the risk of running out of brew charges and then getting crushed by 300-400k Stagger per 0.5 sec.

Off of that, 33% haste isn't even reachable with Nighthold mythic gear without losing most of your Mastery, which will result in way more direct taken AAs that'll negate the "bonus" from BoC.

[Xequecal]

Especially during mythic progression the reduction of spikes is much more worth then little bit less DTPS by ED nor is it worth to have the risk of running out of brew charges and then getting crushed by 300-400k Stagger per 0.5 sec.

Off of that, 33% haste isn't even reachable with Nighthold mythic gear without losing most of your Mastery, which will result in way more direct taken AAs that'll negate the "bonus" from BoC.

"Spike damage" is only a problem is if it can kill you extremely quickly. If it can't, it's not a threat. After a few seconds, any bonus from HT becomes meaningless as the higher stagger ticks have already dealt back to you the extra damage you staggered. As soon as you hit purify, HT becomes bad because ED gives you much bigger purifies and BoC gives you more of them. There's literally no way HT can be better than the other two talents unless you can literally 100-0 in a few seconds.

[Ampere]

What is the reasoning for the 30% haste number many people are recommending? Does it bring Keg Smash to a clean integer CD or something?

[Julmara]

is the dragonfirebrew trait realy just a much weaker breath of fire without dot i cant even imagine how bad it is there must be something special to it :/

[Hobbs]

I don't get the argument that BoC is bad for damage intake and smoothness, but then you say 100% ISB uptime is not important. Then you move on to make the point that HT outperforms with consistent high stagger. Well if you're constantly getting wrecked and have high stagger, then having 100% ISB uptime with room to purify is important.

HT and BoC both offer damage reduction through more brews. BOC also offers apparently 2.4% dr through BoF over the course of the fight, 4% with 2 relics. Maybe it's just me but that seems really good for just one portion of the talent. I also don't follow that freezing stagger is a trap. You either use it to push more into stagger and purify, less damage taken. Or you do it as a panic because you're about to die and want to give your healer 3 more seconds. I suppose if you're freezing stagger for no reason and not purifying it, then it's a trap. But who would play it like that?

BoC also is going to beat HT by a lot on brew generation on any fight where you're not consistently tanking with a significant amount of stagger since it's bonus isn't tied to incoming damage. Tank swaps, adds that don't hit hard, weird mechanics where the boss doesn't do tank damage, etc.

I also said "may or may not be realistic." I never said it just wasn't gonna happen. I'm sure there will be fights where HT outperforms BoC.

The brewing mastery blog was also specifically just calculating brew gen if I remember correctly, and as has already been discussed that'a assuming a particular set of criteria.

Anyway, this is a good discussion. Thanks for the input all. Also, apologies for the scattered and poorly formatted reply. Phone posting is tough.