The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Aminance]

how about Leer of the Ox major glyphs guys?

[Zonex]

Leer of the Ox is maybe useful on Raden if you dont have enough knockbacks, other than that, this tier, it's quite useless.

[Vasilisa]

Tortos hc went down Now, we probably will have some tries on iron quon on monday. Would you have any tips for brewmaster there?

[Deleted]

Tortos hc went down Now, we probably will have some tries on iron quon on monday. Would you have any tips for brewmaster there?

I find celerity quite usefull in this fight to quickly move out of the storm
Be sure you have Xuen ready for the phase when you fight Boss + adds. He does ridiculous amount of dmg in this phase.

Else its rather straight forward .. perhaps one thing .. If you are the current tank of a Quillen when he flies up you will have initial aggro of this quillen in the last phase. Perhaps something to keep in mind

Good luck

[Deleted]

Tortos hc went down Now, we probably will have some tries on iron quon on monday. Would you have any tips for brewmaster there?

If your co-tank has a damage spec, you should definitely solotank it if you have any paladin (needs to take clemency) in the raid. One blessing of protection ~10 seconds before the storm (after the last applictation of the bleed before the storm, to be exact) and one just a few seconds before all quilen and the boss become active at once. After that just use it whenever you feel like it (when its off cd). Use "/cancelaura blessing of protection" as a macro and be sure to spam it to avoid losing aggro when your paladin is about to cast it on you.

As for talents, i would suggest using Diffuse Magic and Tiger's Lust.
Since melees (including yourself) will take most of the unleashed flames, you'll want an additional anti-magic cooldown.
You can cast Tiger's Lust on any raid member, so you should just take it and use it on the one who struggles.

As for Glyphs, i would highly recommend using Glyph of Transcendence. 50(!) yards teleportation means you can get out of the storm very quickly. Watch out for the tornados, since you will have to run/roll the last few yards and the last one might catch you. It is easy to avoid though. In addition, be careful to not despawn your mirror image by getting out of its range (which might happen if you run to Qons spawnpoint. Let him come to you instead).

Don't forget to use your 20% raid cd in the last phase if needed.

Other than that, you will have pretty high vengeance solotanking, so be prepared to enjoy high dps/hps

[Trendy-Ideology]

Your gear level is still pretty low and you won't be getting much vengeance from 5 man heroic content, it'll be easier to help once you get to 460 and start tanking some MSV LFR.

There's like 50 billion catchup mechanics atm for new 90s.

Latent items, LFRx2tiers, crafted BoEs, Reborns, 516s from scenarios, various VP grindables... should have no issue gearing up to the current tier in a few weeks tops.

[Deleted]

Sorry if this has been brought up far too many times this current tier, but I was wondering what were your guys thoughts on how Blizzard will attempt to nerf Brewmaster scaling for 5.4 and what your reaction would be depending on the type of nerf (A nerf to EB, Shuffle or perhaps something different)?

[Chuupag]

I had a question regarding the 2-set as I still do not have it. I got the pants the first week that wing was available in LFR and nothing else since despite 30+ coins on tier dropping bosses. I often find that when I'm 2 tanking, on Frost Lord for instance, that when I taunt back I've got a full 15 stacks of EB ready, and by the time that wears off I have another 6-9 stacks again. If I get 15 seconds of 12% more stagger starting when the first set fell off does the 9 second stack overwrite the stagger bonus buff or does it get added on? And if the former should I make a weak aura to track the stagger bonus so I can use it more strategically then?

[Kisho]

I had a question regarding the 2-set as I still do not have it. I got the pants the first week that wing was available in LFR and nothing else since despite 30+ coins on tier dropping bosses. I often find that when I'm 2 tanking, on Frost Lord for instance, that when I taunt back I've got a full 15 stacks of EB ready, and by the time that wears off I have another 6-9 stacks again. If I get 15 seconds of 12% more stagger starting when the first set fell off does the 9 second stack overwrite the stagger bonus buff or does it get added on? And if the former should I make a weak aura to track the stagger bonus so I can use it more strategically then?

EB doesn't over-write the 12% stagger buff: you can have both of those up at once. As for 12% stagger over-writing itself... I think it does, so you'd effectively lose duration: it doesn't add on like Shuffle. So a Weak Aura would probably be a good thing, and I've been meaning to make one myself (made one for the 4 set bonus, to tell me when it procs).

I'm not 100% certain though, this just seems to be my perception of it.

[Ahsakura]

We had a really strange epiphany on that fight. We started by clearing Static Shock first and kept wiping, then soon as we started killing Bouncing Bolt instead we one shot it soon as we switched. This is 25m N but my point is don't assume that the most common approach is the best for your raid group. We were doing what most groups seemed to do and was blind to the fact that we weren't clearing the mechanic that our group personally was derping on the worst.

We've actually been overcharging Diffusion Chain first, then Static Shock second. That being said, when we wiped to a mechanic like bouncing bolt it was almost always in the first transition. Honestly we should have cleared him on the 5th or so pull of the night. We've wiped about 45 times now and spent 2 full raid nights on him, people are just making stupid mistakes on every single pull.

[Kisho]

Sorry if this has been brought up far too many times this current tier, but I was wondering what were your guys thoughts on how Blizzard will attempt to nerf Brewmaster scaling for 5.4 and what your reaction would be depending on the type of nerf (A nerf to EB, Shuffle or perhaps something different)?

I think the main concern would be the Stagger mechanic. With RoRo and the T15 2 set bonus, we're already seeing some pretty crazy Stagger amounts when the stars align. With an entirely new tier of gear I wouldn't be surprised if we could hit very high amounts of Stagger on a consistent basis, which could potentially do wacky things with our survivability.

Thus, that'd be the main area to expect a balancing nerf. EB itself should be alright: it's only dodge, and a consistent amount at that (it'll never go above 30% with the exception of T14 2 set), so there shouldn't be a scaling issue there. We'll be able to have the buff up more often, but it shouldn't be an issue.

Our DPS... I'm still surprised we haven't seen an AoE damage nerf in all honesty. I keep expecting it, and then it never really happens. I can only assume the reason is that a nerf to our DPS is also a nerf to our utility (ox statue), so Blizzard are wary on doing that. We can only wait and see however.

[Pazx]

EB doesn't over-write the 12% stagger buff: you can have both of those up at once. As for 12% stagger over-writing itself... I think it does, so you'd effectively lose duration: it doesn't add on like Shuffle. So a Weak Aura would probably be a good thing, and I've been meaning to make one myself (made one for the 4 set bonus, to tell me when it procs).

I'm not 100% certain though, this just seems to be my perception of it.

if you make one, any chance getting it to? im very bad at making weak auras

[Deleted]

I think the main concern would be the Stagger mechanic. With RoRo and the T15 2 set bonus, we're already seeing some pretty crazy Stagger amounts when the stars align. With an entirely new tier of gear I wouldn't be surprised if we could hit very high amounts of Stagger on a consistent basis, which could potentially do wacky things with our survivability.

Thus, that'd be the main area to expect a balancing nerf. EB itself should be alright: it's only dodge, and a consistent amount at that (it'll never go above 30% with the exception of T14 2 set), so there shouldn't be a scaling issue there. We'll be able to have the buff up more often, but it shouldn't be an issue.

Our DPS... I'm still surprised we haven't seen an AoE damage nerf in all honesty. I keep expecting it, and then it never really happens. I can only assume the reason is that a nerf to our DPS is also a nerf to our utility (ox statue), so Blizzard are wary on doing that. We can only wait and see however.

You bring up a very good point with what you said about our DPS. I wouldn't mind a Stagger nerf but I'd be wary on what to expect to people who run normal 10mans (like myself) who run with mastery purely what comes off gear even if it isn't a mandatory stat for that kind of raiding. I was thinking of a EB nerf not because of the EB generation necessarily but as a indirect nerf to our DPS. Though I guess a AP nerf to the damage calculation of KS/SCK would be far more effective.

[Ragethorn]

We've actually been overcharging Diffusion Chain first, then Static Shock second. That being said, when we wiped to a mechanic like bouncing bolt it was almost always in the first transition. Honestly we should have cleared him on the 5th or so pull of the night. We've wiped about 45 times now and spent 2 full raid nights on him, people are just making stupid mistakes on every single pull.

Sounds like our attempts the last 2 nights on Heroic Horridon. Starting to hate that goddamn fight as I'm always stuck on add duty while our paladin solo tanks the boss. Told him last night I didn't care what boss it was, next time he's the add bitch.

[Ampere]

EB doesn't over-write the 12% stagger buff: you can have both of those up at once. As for 12% stagger over-writing itself... I think it does, so you'd effectively lose duration: it doesn't add on like Shuffle. So a Weak Aura would probably be a good thing, and I've been meaning to make one myself (made one for the 4 set bonus, to tell me when it procs).

I'm not 100% certain though, this just seems to be my perception of it.

You're right, it overwrites and doesn't add to the duration. I use NeedToKnow to track Shuffle, Elusive Brew, Staggering (2 piece bonus), and Purifier (4 piece bonus).

[Deleted]

Sounds like our attempts the last 2 nights on Heroic Horridon. Starting to hate that goddamn fight as I'm always stuck on add duty while our paladin solo tanks the boss. Told him last night I didn't care what boss it was, next time he's the add bitch.

wheres the fun hitting a dummy for 8-9min

[Rockets]

You're right, it overwrites and doesn't add to the duration. I use NeedToKnow to track Shuffle, Elusive Brew, Staggering (2 piece bonus), and Purifier (4 piece bonus).

Yeah, it'll overwrite if the new buff has longer duration than what's already up. So if you have 12s left on the 2pc and only 2 stacks of EB but you really need it up right now (eg. snapping bite), you're safe to use it and you won't clobber the mastery buff with a new 2s one.

For maximum coverage, you want to start your next EB when you have the same number of stacks as the remaining duration on the 2pc, so it goes right back up as soon as it drops.

It feels like there should be a better way to use it than what I'm doing on tank-swap fights, though. My usual experience on a 60s-swap fight is something like:

0: EB for 15s
15: EB drops, 2pc for 15s
~20: EB for ~10s
30: Staggering and EB both drop, 2pc for ~10s
~34: EB for ~6s
40: Both drop, 2pc for ~6s
46: 2pc drops
50: EB for 5s
55: EB drops, 2pc for 5s
60: tank swap

So it ends up being weirdly bursty. That first 15s of EB feels almost like ramp-up would for DPS; once that finishes I can get ~30s of the 2pc with a decent amount of overlapping EB, and then the last 15s before the other tank swaps back in is either nothing or only one of the two buffs. It feels like I should be able to spread it out more evenly with a different strategy....

[Deleted]

My Guild is progressing slowly into the HC mode. So after a few failed tries on Tortos HC we decided to kill it in NH mode.
But this was just to boring for me so I convinced my mates to let me tank it solo and I must say it was just a little bit harder than with 2 tanks.

Has anyone else tried to tank Tortos solo with his/her brewmaster?

[archkiller]

Has anyone able to use Transcendence to get out of dark animus ring without getting a debuff in this patch?

[Trendy-Ideology]

How often do you guys (all of you) save yourself from outright dying with expel harm?

Or delay it by one or more expel harm casts? How many casts?

Sometimes, with a full energy pool, I can go sub 35, EH twice (bug?), get destroyed again somehow and sub 35, and EH again x2.

Sometimes the total healing for a situation like that is like, 150 and 300k crits.

So that's anywhere between a lay on hands, and 4 lay on hands if they all crit, which isn't that improbably when your crit is almost 50% with raid buffs and you're running RoR.



So when healers say I'm "Squishy" I tell them, yea, and, no other tank is going to be able to save themselves with that much last second healing, that reliably, or that repeatedly, it wouldn't have mattered how much HP I had when I had zero direct heals for 10 seconds and I was repeatedly saving my own life.


As far as I'm concerned expel harm might as well be a part of our effective health.