Are Brewmasters Really This Underplayed?

[Dristereau]

From what I've seen they're pretty poor right now. Our Guild BrM is really unhappy with the changes, and is now actually considering dropping BrM and maining WW. I had a look at the mechanics on my own, and it looked like it had the potential to work. But I think that right now it's abilities are so weak and the amount of effort required to survive for them is way higher than other classes and without changes many will just not play them when something like a Warrior with Ignore Pain is just so strong.

Unless they get some major buffs to most of their abilities or a bit of a rework I think they will stay a rare sight.

[Deleted]

From what I've seen they're pretty poor right now. Our Guild BrM is really unhappy with the changes, and is now actually considering dropping BrM and maining WW. I had a look at the mechanics on my own, and it looked like it had the potential to work. But I think that right now it's abilities are so weak and the amount of effort required to survive for them is way higher than other classes and without changes many will just not play them when something like a Warrior with Ignore Pain is just so strong.

Unless they get some major buffs to most of their abilities or a bit of a rework I think they will stay a rare sight.

I do agree that there is definitely more work involved to play a BrM successfully in raids versus other tank classes, but I love the class right now, I'd like a little more damage in raids and maybe a little tweak to PB to 75-100% but overall i'm happy right now.

That is coming from a tank that has tanked M+9 (albeit missed timer by 4 seconds) and at present is 2/7 EN M

[Caldwhyn]

Stagger drops 2 seconds after combat ends...

Wasn't that hotfixed in literally a week ago?

[Deleted]

There is absolutely NO fantasy overlap between Monks and Demon Hunters...

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Stagger drops 2 seconds after combat ends...

I think he meant mechanic overlap rather than fantasy particularly our old chi tornado and to a lesser extend healing orbs - soul fragments. To be fair the stagger duration was hotfixed recently so he probably didn't use his BRM since then.

Btw you mentioned BRM as fun, do you mind elaborating on that? Because my experience has been dull as hell, leveling-wise and general tanking.

Leveling as a BRM sucked because you need OD to survive larger packs unlike the other tanks who's got a decent baseline self-sustainability - which meant either gimping yourself by picking up Gifted Student early on to get to OD or acquire 3875 AP which would take quite some time during leveling. In other words - bad design.

In terms of general tanking there are some factors that irks me and kinda ruins the tanking experience making it not fun.

Gift of the Ox. Our only means of self-sustainability tied to OD and can be frustrating to utilize outside corner humping. By frustrating I refer to banking them and getting too close to them upon movement and the other issue is how expel harm is on GCD which is utterly stupid when its best used as a reactive ability for emergency situations.

Scaling. Our damage intake is almost always the same isn't it? Unlike the other tanks with mastery or abilities scaling/interacting with their abilities, BRM's scaling is a bit convoluted and "round-about" through haste as it provides us with faster KS=more brews=more PB usage=more damage mitigation but the initial damage intake is the same.

Others factors include the effort/reward ratio, golden traits (which i complained about in an earlier post) and having limited means of saving yourself below 35% etc.
I'm still sticking around as BRM in hopes that either my own tune somehow changes or 7.1 provides something interesting. However at this rate I'll probably just lose interest in the game as switching main doesn't do it for me.

[Baerong]

I don't mind if the underperform, (as long as the gap is reasonable), and I don't mind if you have to put more effort into it to see the same results as other tanks, but for me the managed to somehow remove the fun factor completely. There is not a single button to press that gives me the OOOMPH! feeling. I did it and rerolled to DH last week, and I'm having so much more fun and diverse button's to press.
I do really miss the look with that awesome artifact, the thing I think they totally nailed.

[AetherMcLoud]

Btw you mentioned BRM as fun, do you mind elaborating on that? Because my experience has been dull as hell, leveling-wise and general tanking.

Leveling as a BRM sucked because you need OB to survive larger packs unlike the other tanks who's got a decent baseline self-sustainability - which meant either gimping yourself by picking up Gifted Student early on to get to OB or acquire 3875 AP which would take quite some time during leveling. In other words - bad design.

I can't speak for leveling from 1 since I boosted this toon to 100, but 100-110 leveling was fun on brewmaster too. What I mean about the tank spec being the most fun out of all tank specs though needs some background I guess:

I've played all tanking classes in the game, switching between them and having all of them on max level in the expensions. Wrath DK was by far my favorite tank at the time since they were the only ones to have the "manage your resources to maximize your mitigation" minigame that all tanks got over time.

I'm a tank player by heart. I've mained tank chars in every single MMO I've played over the years. And I was extremely disappointed by the new Prot war/pala tank gameplay which is basically "press whatever's available". There doesn't seem to be any finesse in those specs anymore. DK still has some of that but it's slow as fuck and I've always enjoyed mobile classes.

Now I can only compare the 110 monk tank gameplay to my other tank classes at 100 but besides the artifact there's not that many gameplay changes there. And the monk is the only tank where I always feel I could have done something better, mitigated some more damage, rolled out of melee range, teleported to mitigate, whatever. I don't get this feeling of having options on the other tanks anymore, with their more-or-less fixed rotations (warrior degraded to spam devastate and hit shield slam procs, by far the most boring tank spec now). That's why BRM is so fun to me, it plays closest to the really complex mechanics DK tanks had in wrath, which I enjoyed immensively.

I guess that style of tanking is not for everyone, and DPSers just trying to get fast queues will probably enjoy war or pala tanking more since it's easier and almost auto-pilot. But for someone like me that really wants to game tanking, BRM is the most fun right now since it has the most complex mitigation system, leading to more options in moment-to-moment gameplay. Also lots of freedom in speccing talents, which I like too.

[Auxora]

I don't think I've run with a single BM monk in Legion so far. I've had plenty of all of the other tank specs in runs (although surprisingly few Blood DKs nowadays). Lots of warriors, bears, DHs and to a lesser degree prot paladins tanking, has been what I've seen in mythic and mythic+ runs.

[Humbao]

Monks do need some work, but honestly they are the most fun and involved tanks to play. I am currently maining a WW monk this xpac and have waffled on swapping here and there. I started 110 race as DH, but when I saw your 100 rotation was the same at 110 so I swapped to my first choice WW. I offspecced MW last xpac and loved it, but this xpac I wanted to tank (wife is a healer). Man I am so glad I tried it, so fun (especially once I picked up RJW) then it all made sense. However it must be noted that until you get Obstinate Determination (OD) in your artifact, it doesn't seem that great. Per the forums once I read this I started to raid AP into my wep to get OD, it just made it all the more fun. To be honest WW is great and enjoy it, but the thing that really keeps me coming back to Monk is BrM.

First week of EN normal our main tank (DK) couldn't show up and we needed a tank, so BAM stepped in excited. We cleared up to Ursoc (Tanked N, Dragons, Ilg, and Spider). Asked my wife how I was to heal and said only dicey part was Ilg on those tenticals (mine was killed 2nd) and those guys pump out pain. I have tanked all heroics which I know are not hard, I normally focus my healer so I can monitor mana and stop for breaks - but I have yet to see a healer drop below 90% (this is Heroic and Mythic +2). Some healers are geared and some are fresh 110, but all seem to relax and dps while I roll through the dungeon. From 110 ilvl 810 through 853 (dps spec gear) I have yet to feel pressured. Again I dont want to be the guy Blizzard sees having fun and forget the spec (there is a gap between our main warrior) but I feel once you get a hold of brews its up to you to decide how squishy we are.

As a side note, I work best with (in order) Druids, Paladins, Sham / Priest H / Priest D (havent seen a MW yet ). I have 110 of War, Druid, DH, and DK and all with okay gear most can do heroics - but feel so boring to play, like I could plug in my Nintendo controller and be fine.

[Deleted]

I can't speak for leveling from 1 since I boosted this toon to 100, but 100-110 leveling was fun on brewmaster too. What I mean about the tank spec being the most fun out of all tank specs though needs some background I guess:

Now I can only compare the 110 monk tank gameplay to my other tank classes at 100 but besides the artifact there's not that many gameplay changes there. And the monk is the only tank where I always feel I could have done something better, mitigated some more damage, rolled out of melee range, teleported to mitigate, whatever. I don't get this feeling of having options on the other tanks anymore, with their more-or-less fixed rotations (warrior degraded to spam devastate and hit shield slam procs, by far the most boring tank spec now). That's why BRM is so fun to me, it plays closest to the really complex mechanics DK tanks had in wrath, which I enjoyed immensively.

I guess that style of tanking is not for everyone, and DPSers just trying to get fast queues will probably enjoy war or pala tanking more since it's easier and almost auto-pilot. But for someone like me that really wants to game tanking, BRM is the most fun right now since it has the most complex mitigation system, leading to more options in moment-to-moment gameplay. Also lots of freedom in speccing talents, which I like too.

Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it. My main during wrath was actually prot warrior and personally my most enjoyable tanking experience despite the obvious lacking in the AoE threat area. I guess I just took it as a challenge back then - having to use heroic throw while charging and using thunder clap at the right time and even occasionally stance dance to utilize berserker rage (for more rage) and mocking blow.
I guess what I really liked was how many abilities we had back then to deal with different situations and you always had something "to do", never felt like I had a dull moment.

Upon seeing how slow the prot warrior became after wrath>cata (I resumed in mop) I switched to BRM which was the 2nd most enjoyable tanking experience despite having -20% dmg modifier due to blizz being incapable of balance. It was faster paced and had some slight challenge of managing energy, chi and shuffle. WoD was uninteresting, no explanation needed here. Current version has solid mechanics but I feel like theres a lot of tweaking missing that will deliver the whoa-effect, and thats on top of the obvious odd traits design & OD. Actually, there's a lot of really fun abilities in the honor talents that would make the BRM more interesting. PB having a minimum x% purified would help out too.

[AetherMcLoud]

Something that just occured to me, that is really strange, is our scaling with equipment.

The more health we get, the less healing we do, since gift of the ox spawns an orb when you've taken 100% of your health in damage (before stagger). I don't think its base health before equipment for that formula, right?

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I don't understand the "most tanky tank" thing. I guess that's subjective, but BrM doesn't feel "tanky" to me at all. Especially when there's no healer around, you can't do a thing about damage. My Monk is my only tank character that I don't do WQ's with as it's tank spec because it feels pointless to do so.

I come from vanilla and other games tanking, so I see my first responsibility as tank (besides holding aggro of course) as making the healer's life as easy as possible. Healers and tanks form a symbiosis, all that healing is no use without a tank to hold aggro, and all that tanking is useless if at the end you run out of health through attrition.

Which makes brewmaster the most tanky for me since I have the most control over my damage intake. Sure other tanks like Pala, DH and DK can selfheal much more, but not taking damage in the first place is always better than taking it and healing it back up, since healer can't know from moment to moment which spike you're gonna heal back up yourself and which needs healing since you have no selfheal available at the moment. We're also the only tank that gets guaranteed dodges.

And brewmasters DO have selfhealing, but only when it's really needed, not rotational. And sure Warriors mitigate a shitton of damage too, but oh god are they now boring to play. Spam devastate and hope for shieldslam procs, dump all rage into ignore pain, keep shield block on cd, yawn. Monk feels much more involved and in control since IMHO brews are much more self-managable than rage for ignore pain.

Every healer I've run mythics with said that I was the smoothest tanking class to heal, since - and this is important, because of stagger - my damage intake was predictable, something healers usually like since it makes healing less stressful.

P.S. Also, for world quests and solo content, brewmaster is as great if not better than other tanks, since you're basically invulnerable at 35% health against single (or at least few) targets because of the artifact trait giving you literally unlimited healing. Though sure for most world quests WW is enough since touch of karma is such an amazingly useful cooldown. Other classes usually go tank spec for WQ since they lack staying power in damage spec, something monks don't share really.

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Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it. My main during wrath was actually prot warrior and personally my most enjoyable tanking experience despite the obvious lacking in the AoE threat area. I guess I just took it as a challenge back then - having to use heroic throw while charging and using thunder clap at the right time and even occasionally stance dance to utilize berserker rage (for more rage) and mocking blow.
I guess what I really liked was how many abilities we had back then to deal with different situations and you always had something "to do", never felt like I had a dull moment.

Yeah IMHO warriors lost a lot of their identity and fun gameplay when they took stance dancing away. When you saw a warrior stance dancing well, you knew that guy was good. Nowadays especially warrior I feel is extremely unrewarding to play (like ret palas). But I also thought seal twisting on palas was more fun than just hitting whatever ability happens to be off cooldown from the 3 or 4 you use.

Upon seeing how slow the prot warrior became after wrath>cata (I resumed in mop) I switched to BRM which was the 2nd most enjoyable tanking experience despite having -20% dmg modifier due to blizz being incapable of balance. It was faster paced and had some slight challenge of managing energy, chi and shuffle. WoD was uninteresting, no explanation needed here. Current version has solid mechanics but I feel like theres a lot of tweaking missing that will deliver the whoa-effect, and thats on top of the obvious odd traits design & OD. Actually, there's a lot of really fun abilities in the honor talents that would make the BRM more interesting. PB having a minimum x% purified would help out too.

Yeah Brewmaster is definitely lacking in WHOA power. There's nothing really flashy you do or that makes people notice. Healers notice a well played brewmaster though I think. Other than that though other classes are more flashy sure. I do very much enjoy the BLOP sound of chugging a brew, a very well designed sound bite that doesn't get annoying. And hitting people in the face with a keg of beer chained to a huge stick will never get old IMHO.

I very much enjoy Jackie Chan style action, and IMHO brewmaster fits that fantasy really well.

[AetherMcLoud]

Sure, or we could just be a Bear/War and basically just not take the damage period and/or have a lot of tools to deal with situations.

Though I suppose that might not be BrM being "bad" so much as Bear/War being a bit too good.

Unlike bear and war, brewmaster tanking "rotation" isn't mindnumbingly boring though.

[Fulminous]

BrM is my favorite tank in legion despite it being the least represented. It reminds me of Blood DK back in cata, while the other tanks focused on a DPS rotation to hold threat plus the occasional tank CD, blood DK was basically the pioneer in Active mitigation in that the focus of the spec was to manage resources and time death strikes to get the most overall damage reduction possible.

For most of the expansion, although the most fun, Blood DK lagged behind because it's tanking was mostly reactive and there were hits in Heroic that could just one-hit you. Luckily in Dragon soul armor provided by blood presence was buffed to 55% from 30% to up baseline mitigation and made those spike damage moments (hello Heroic Hagara) more manageable.

I feel that all BrM really needs to be competitive is a buff to the amount of stagger removed by PB, getting to red stagger and then purifying and still being in yellow and feels unrewarding. Minimum 65% with 70%+ being preferable.

[classic username]

Realy enjoyed the MoP & WoD BrM but this Version ? It can go rot in a fucking Corner somewhere on this Planet. How did anyone at Blizzard think it was a good Idea to remove like... 90% of its Spells ????. Yeah its the "hardest" Tank to play correctly but its so incredibly boring and no fun at all.

[Deleted]

Realy enjoyed the MoP & WoD BrM but this Version ? It can go rot in a fucking Corner somewhere on this Planet. How did anyone at Blizzard think it was a good Idea to remove like... 90% of its Spells ????. Yeah its the "hardest" Tank to play correctly but its so incredibly boring and no fun at all.

Constructive my man, very constructive yes we need some tweaks, I love the class right now and its simply changes like increasing PB removal of stagger which doesn't change the class that much. Overall i'm happy with the design.

[DisposableHero]

Constructive my man, very constructive yes we need some tweaks, I love the class right now and its simply changes like increasing PB removal of stagger which doesn't change the class that much. Overall i'm happy with the design.

I think Brewmaster is unplayably awful right now which is why I switched away from it, but I agree that they could do some very small things to make Brewmaster a LOT more enjoyable than it is now:

1) Reduce the base cooldown of Keg Smash to 6 seconds and have the cooldown of breath of fire scale with haste. Right now you have a rotation with an 8 second base cooldown, a 3 second base cooldown, a 6 second base cooldown, and a 15 second cooldown with no haste scaling and the rotation is rife with cooldown collisions. This is doubly true using Blackout Combo and this simple fix would make things flow a lot better, and also bring up BrM AoE output slightly which is needed.

2) Put purifying brew back to a full purify or have it reduce stagger to light or clear a light stagger. Very frustrating to hit purify and still be in heavy stagger, doesn't feel like it has done anything.

3) Make a spell that interacts positively with mastery on a mediumish cooldown. E.g. prevents elusive brawler from resetting when you dodge for 6 seconds on a 60 second CD or a 2 minute CD recharged with brews.

[meob]

The salt here is funny. Brew is complex and requires you to not skrew up or it will punish you 10+ seconds later.

You don't die because Brew doesn't offer the mitigation, you die because yuo dun goofed a bit before. Be honest and run /combatlog so you know why you are bad.

[Iry]

Purifying Brew could really use a boost. Brewmasters have to work twice as hard for the same outcome as Druid or Warrior, and on top of that you get two Brewmasters who are bad for every good player like Aether.

[Bearygood]

Brewmasters used to be fun and strong

Now brewmasters are horrible to play and even if you do play it well they still are terrible

[Xequecal]

The spec takes more damage than other tanks, no matter how you play it. That's just a simple numeric fact, has nothing to do with "bad" or "salt".

It's not even that it's "complex", either. It simply takes more button presses to get a worse result than other tanks.

BrM is absolutely better than shit-tier DK and DH. It's on-par with Paladin and as far as Druid goes, I'm really wondering how much the Druid parses in EN are based on the fact that the raid almost perfectly caters to their ability set. Literally every fight has a ticking dot that's near-constantly in effect, which means adaptive fur is always up and gives them 15% DR for free.

Warrior of course is still overpowered as fuck even after the nerfs, that's what happens when you give a tank class a >40% DR cooldown with basically no resource cost and 75% uptime.

[Deleted]

One thing to note as well, Monk is not as popular class because it's so Asian. People who like Asian themes usually play Asian MMOs.