5.4, Windwalkers, and Chi Brew

[Jingshui]

I've been trying to get to the bottom of Chi Brew vs. Ascension. I wanted to let the changes be out for a bit, to see where everything would settle. But I'm not finding anything terribly helpful out there, so I thought I would ask directly: I am a Windwalker. What is best, Chi brew, or Ascension? I've been using Ascension the whole x-pac. I hate button bloat, so Chi Brew would need to be pretty amazing to justify taking up a spot on the hotbar.

The last couple of days, I've taken Chi Brew out for a spin, but I'm constantly energy-starved. I've turned to stacking more and more haste, but it very quickly becomes a question of how much agi and crit it is safe to dump to feed my energy-needs. I'm ilvl 554, and have 9k haste atm, and am wanting more. I was using 6800 quite happily with Ascension. Before I buy more gems and experiment further, I wanted to hear what people's takes were on the two talents now that the changes have been live for a couple of months.

Thank you for your time and any thoughts you care to share!

[anon5123]

From the stickied guide...

Ascension and Chi Brew are roughly neck-to neck for most encounters, but in practicality, Chi Brew pulls ahead. Additionally, Chi Brew is great for burst (such as an encounter with an early Lust) while Ascension is good for Patchwerk-like fights.

Even with 9k haste, I found myself liking Ascension, if only for having 5 chi instead of 4 plus a fuckton of energy regen.

[Molestron]

Ascension. Chi Brew is for hipsters.

[Jonky]

They were neck and neck before Chi Brew got fixed to work with the mastery. Chi Brew pulls ahead in almost every situation now.

Just put Agi/Haste gems in your yellow sockets and stop going for haste around 11k-12k. Keep in mind, this kind of thing changes a lot with gear, ESPECIALLY if you get Assurance of Consequence.

[Totaltotemic]

They were neck and neck before Chi Brew got fixed to work with the mastery. Chi Brew pulls ahead in almost every situation now.

Just put Agi/Haste gems in your yellow sockets and stop going for haste around 11k-12k. Keep in mind, this kind of thing changes a lot with gear, ESPECIALLY if you get Assurance of Consequence.

Basically this.

The important thing to keep in mind is that, while Ascension does give more energy than Chi Brew gives in chi, Chi Brew gives a comparative ton more TEB. Chi Brew is still better than Ascension even at 0 haste because Ascension actually gets better with haste, not worse. Unfortunately the point at which Ascension overtakes the TEB gains from Chi Brew is up at around 18k haste, and that's quite literally not possible in a single target rotation without wasting all of that energy anyways. The fact that your rotation feels more full when using Ascension has absolutely nothing to do with the actual DPS difference between Chi Brew and Ascension.

Sources for the mathematical analyses of the two talents are available upon request.

P.S. That small section of the guide was not updated when the hotfix happened that let Chi Brew benefit from mastery, so "neck and neck" is no longer accurate.

[Zetsumei]

I've been trying to get to the bottom of Chi Brew vs. Ascension. I wanted to let the changes be out for a bit, to see where everything would settle. But I'm not finding anything terribly helpful out there, so I thought I would ask directly: I am a Windwalker. What is best, Chi brew, or Ascension? I've been using Ascension the whole x-pac. I hate button bloat, so Chi Brew would need to be pretty amazing to justify taking up a spot on the hotbar.

The last couple of days, I've taken Chi Brew out for a spin, but I'm constantly energy-starved. I've turned to stacking more and more haste, but it very quickly becomes a question of how much agi and crit it is safe to dump to feed my energy-needs. I'm ilvl 554, and have 9k haste atm, and am wanting more. I was using 6800 quite happily with Ascension. Before I buy more gems and experiment further, I wanted to hear what people's takes were on the two talents now that the changes have been live for a couple of months.

Thank you for your time and any thoughts you care to share!

Go Ascension + Crit > Haste > Mastery and Rushing Jade Wind

[Jingshui]

I definitely looked at the sticky-guide to start, I didn't want to pester unnecessarily. As noted, though, the sticky is out of date. And Googling gave me a lot of gut reactions, not advice from theorycrafters.

The point about Chi Brew = more TEB stacks is certainly compelling. For better or worse I've been rolling with the assumption, however, that an unused GCD is a wasted GCD. I assume, in this case, that being energy-starved (at least a little) is worth it in this case for the DPS gain? I also could go back to using FoF more often, and get that energy pooling moment back. I've been avoiding it for a while because the circumstances for it being an actual increase are so difficult to land.

My other concern is getting to 11k haste. I use Ask Mr Robot with custom weights. It's saying that, in order to get to 11k haste, I'd lose 882 agility (due to swapping pure agi gems to orange, and using green haste/hit gems for blue slots) for a total of about 28k agility. Is the loss of that much agility worth it?

As you can see, I seem to involve myself with the numbers -just- enough to get me in trouble. And frustrated. Especially considering that Flex is about as serious as I'm raiding atm.

[Deleted]

i've always used ascension, because i hate button bloat, and i'm fairly starved for room on my bars as it is. also i love having 5 chi, because i don't need to have as strict a rotation, and i'd mess up with only 4 so it's probably much better for me personally

[Totaltotemic]

No, losing Agility isn't worth it.

About not "filling" the entire rotation, when it comes down to it there are only 2 buttons that you press besides RSK and TP to turn more energy into more damage: Jab and Blackout Kick. Thus, every bit of energy you get beyond the core rotation of RSK on CD and keeping TP up can be quantified as some portion of Jabs, Combo Breaker procs from those Jabs, Blackout Kicks with the chi from the Jabs, and the resulting TEB from those Combo Breaker procs and Blackout Kicks.

If we take a 7 minute fight and subtract the Ascension extra TEB from the Chi Brew TEB, Chi Brew would provide about 25 more TEB stacks in that 7 minutes. On the other side, Ascension (assuming 9k haste here) would be responsible for around 18 Jabs worth of damage and ~14 BoK/TPs depending on Combo Breaker procs plus the chi from extra Jabs beyond what Chi Brew provides. Long story short, the TEB is quite a bit more damage, translating to a good 3-5% damage increase over Ascension. This is true regardless of AoE, haste levels (with the exception that any less haste means Ascension is even worse than that), or gear levels.

[Jingshui]

So basically, accept as much haste as I can from reforging and non-red slots, and go for agi bonuses still? Makes sense. Thank you so much for your help, Totaltotemic.