[GUIDE] Drunken Savagery: Brewmaster Tanking in [6.2]

[Totaltotemic]

I was recently reminded that Pawn exists, though it doesn't take into account set bonuses. But if you've got stat weights you're using as your guiding factor, then you can just plug them in and it'll let you compare stuff at a glance with a little customization.

Sure, but if you're magically conjuring stat weights out of thin air (which is basically what taking a single boss out of SimC and using those as gospel is doing) that's really just the same thing as eyeballing it but doing a lot more work to get the illusion of a solid answer. If that's what works for you that's cool, but I don't really advocate the idea of stat weights as they apply to tanks in general.

[Gothmog]

It's frustrating and cool at the same time.

You can never be sure beyond doubt that you're gearing "right". Whenever you go into numerical answer mode, you want exactitude, you want to rely on those numbers you're tossing around.
Tank meta is laughing in your face while you're doing that, telling you that you can do what you want... BUT, you have to make it work

It's a lot more hands on approach, a "play and see what happens". Which I can't help but think, is an overall better model of approaching gameplay optimization than what just about all DPS specs are doing (at least partially) - crunching numbers for a few hours, then coming up with an answer and finally going into the raid with it. Then they do the same thing we do, see if the theory works, if it's their execution of it that's at fault or if there's room for optimization,...

Roughly same thing, just with that additional first step of throwing numbers around to see what talent/build to start with. Or rather, browse fanbase content to find the numbers someone else already crunched through ^^
And Blizz is in favor of making that step more intuitive, for players to be able to glean from tooltip already what circumstance the talent should be used for. Alas, in the DPS game, making them all useful in right encounter is a tall order.

[Trendy-Ideology]

Sure, but if you're magically conjuring stat weights out of thin air (which is basically what taking a single boss out of SimC and using those as gospel is doing) that's really just the same thing as eyeballing it but doing a lot more work to get the illusion of a solid answer. If that's what works for you that's cool, but I don't really advocate the idea of stat weights as they apply to tanks in general.

I don't disagree, I personally have adjusted my "weights" like 5 times this tier in anticipation of certain content/bosses, this is also why I personally am OK with a much more well rounded set of stats rather that subscribing to a particular gearing paradigm. I just wanted to throw that out there since I use it for whatever my current stat priorities are to help me see at a glance if an item is better.

[Deleted]

guys

what Macro do you use for Serenity???? It's only dawned on me that I actually alternate between BOK and Purifying Brew with two key binds during Serenity

[Deleted]

guys

what Macro do you use for Serenity???? It's only dawned on me that I actually alternate between BOK and Purifying Brew with two key binds during Serenity

I'm using the following:
/cast serenity
/cast blackout kick
/cast purifying brew

[Yenami]

#showtooltip
/cast [talent:7/3] Serenity
/cast Blackout Kick
/cast Purifying Brew

Activates Serenity and then becomes a spammable Blackout Kick + Purify button.

[Roshar]

guys

what Macro do you use for Serenity???? It's only dawned on me that I actually alternate between BOK and Purifying Brew with two key binds during Serenity

I just spam both the BoK ans PB keybinds together during Serenity (have them bound to Q and E). Am I overlooking something for this to not be a good system?

[keqe]

I just spam both the BoK ans PB keybinds together during Serenity (have them bound to Q and E). Am I overlooking something for this to not be a good system?

Only thing worse about is that you have to use 2 fingers instead of one, making some movements harder. Situations where you have to strafe a lot and serenity-BoK spam are quite rare though so not that much difference.

[Totaltotemic]

Only thing worse about is that you have to use 2 fingers instead of one, making some movements harder. Situations where you have to strafe a lot and serenity-BoK spam are quite rare though so not that much difference.

You kind of have to do that all of the time anyways since Guard, PB, and EB are all off of the GCD and used quite frequently. Personally I find mashing two buttons mindlessly that are right next to each other to be actually easier than the normal mode.

[Gothmog]

Aye, I found the same. The mental effort and attention required to keep mashing 2 buttons in the same rhytm is equivalent to 1 button. If you wanted to alternate the timing between the pushes, that'd be a more challenging task - I've cursory studied these things. But there's no incentive to do so during Serenity. Theoretically if you wanted to sync Purify with boss' swing timer, but that's really just nitpicking for insignificant gains. If there are any at all, not even sure, since Stagger takes a while to update.

So it really comes down to just how many free fingers you have. I have Purify on scroll wheel up though, so I never felt the slightest need for a macro to do both.

[Totaltotemic]

Stagger takes one full second for the DoT to actually tick, so there is no difference between mashing it and timing it during Serenity since PB is being hit every 1.0 seconds.

[Velithris]

Has anyone experienced the bug that's explained in this post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2743688511? Even with manual targeting.

It's probably not that noticeable on a Brewmaster but this has happened to me with DK's grip, warrior's charge and paladin's avenger's shield that was meant to be an interrupt. Really frustrating.

[Deleted]

Has anyone experienced the bug that's explained in this post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2743688511? Even with manual targeting.

It's probably not that noticeable on a Brewmaster but this has happened to me with DK's grip, warrior's charge and paladin's avenger's shield that was meant to be an interrupt. Really frustrating.

Thats a 4yr old post or is a similar issue happening again now?

[Octa]

Has anyone experienced the bug that's explained in this post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2743688511? Even with manual targeting.

It's probably not that noticeable on a Brewmaster but this has happened to me with DK's grip, warrior's charge and paladin's avenger's shield that was meant to be an interrupt. Really frustrating.

No but I have been having the issue where my Keg Smash just will not hit my target at times and I have 0 clue why. It'll act as if the mob isn't in range and it won't let me use KS until I use another ability first. So when that happens I'll usually hit it 2-3 times before I notice, which wastes like 1-1.5 seconds, then I have to put a global into Tiger Palm and THEN I can KS just fine. It's so fucking weird.

[Trendy-Ideology]

No but I have been having the issue where my Keg Smash just will not hit my target at times and I have 0 clue why. It'll act as if the mob isn't in range and it won't let me use KS until I use another ability first. So when that happens I'll usually hit it 2-3 times before I notice, which wastes like 1-1.5 seconds, then I have to put a global into Tiger Palm and THEN I can KS just fine. It's so fucking weird.

Are we complaining about random broken shit?

Can I lodge a formal complaint about the fucking abhorrent pathing the last two expansions that's gotten even worse in WoD?

[Hekili]

Hekili is not worth using while tanking. It's far too rigid and not capable of making informed decisions about the environment like a player can.

Hey, sorry, I just saw your post. I search through the forums on occasion to see if anything has come up regarding the addon that I can clarify.

DPS is an exact science, but tanking is not. A player knows what is going on in the environment, whether or not they're actively tanking and whether or not they about to actively tank or tank switch.

I'd argue that maximizing DPS is more complicated than your statement suggests, and tanking is slightly less complicated than your statement suggests. For DPS specs, the addon naturally knows the current relevant buffs, debuffs, cooldown timers, health and resources, etc. and can make recommendations accordingly.

It doesn't naturally know if interrupting one ability takes a higher priority than another, or if you're assigned to the 3rd interrupt on Oregorger, but you have the ability to tell the addon not to advise you regarding interrupts on a fight where interrupts are a special consideration.

It doesn't naturally know if any particular fight includes an immunity phase or a vulnerability phase. You probably don't want to pop your DPS cooldowns when you can't actually harm the boss or when the cooldowns would be far more effective 20 seconds later when the boss takes double damage. Fortunately, you have the ability to tell the addon not to advise you regarding cooldowns during a particular fight, or even during a phase of a particular fight, with a simple keybinding.

So there are situational awareness factors that impact the addon's recommendations even while addressing an exact science like maximizing DPS.

The same applies to tanking. I will note that the addon knows quite a bit about what is going on in the environment. All of the aforementioned points remain true, but it's worth noting that the addon does know if you've received damage recently, and how much of it (incoming_damage_3s gets you the damage you've taken in the past 3 seconds, incoming_damage_1500ms gets you the damage you've taken in the past 1.5 seconds). If you haven't taken damage in the past 3 seconds, you're *probably* not actively tanking, but it's not a 100% given.

You are correct that it doesn't know if you're about to tank swap, such that you won't be actively tanking in 3 seconds. But you do. And you can tell the addon to stop recommending damage mitigation abilities when you're not actively tanking, using the same keybinding system that lets you disable cooldowns or interrupts. And when you get the boss back, you can toggle them back on and get pretty decent suggestions about when to use them.

Note, the next version of the addon will have more customizable class settings, and those settings will let you specify how much damage you need to be taking before abilities like Purifying Brew or Guard or Dampen Harm are recommended.

A player is aware of when they're going to cheese mechanics through cooldown usage or use a Touch of Death to kill an elementalist.

Right, there are always special cases. You could turn off recommendations for Touch of Death during Blast Furnace, if you don't want the addon to recommend it on another target before focusing on a Primal Elementalist. Or turn off interrupts for Oregorger, as described above.

More importantly, you can just choose not to follow any addon's recommendations when you know its recommendations don't apply to your present circumstances.

Hekili can't do any of those things. It will create a rigid, non-responsive set of answers that probably won't be correct for anything other than the most basic of situations.

What can't it do? How are its recommendations "rigid" and "non-responsive"? It literally tracks buffs, cooldowns, incoming damage, health, resources, and gives recommendations very consistent with what the current SimulationCraft APLs recommend under the same circumstances.

Get yourself a good set of Weakauras and learn how to read them. You'll do far better.

I use both. I recommend both. Use them both to improve your situational awareness -- not to replace it. If I have a big WeakAura set up to warn me about Rend stacks on Darmac, but I know that we've planned for a Hand of Protection or something, I know to ignore the WeakAura. If I have Hekili set up to suggest mitigation abilities on the same fight, but I know that the other tank is going to taunt in 1.5s, I know to ignore Hekili or to toggle the mitigation abilities off.

They're both tools that are extremely useful (I hope) under the correct circumstances. When used incorrectly -- or followed blindly -- either tool can hinder more than it helps.

[Treeskee]

So, I just started tanking on my monk, but I have a fairly solid set of gear. Am I right that we can only take 2 inferno strikes solo in a row (through diffuse magic, zen med)?

[Deleted]

So, I just started tanking on my monk, but I have a fairly solid set of gear. Am I right that we can only take 2 inferno strikes solo in a row (through diffuse magic, zen med)?

I take 4. Your milage may vary.

[Totaltotemic]

What can't it do? How are its recommendations "rigid" and "non-responsive"? It literally tracks buffs, cooldowns, incoming damage, health, resources, and gives recommendations very consistent with what the current SimulationCraft APLs recommend under the same circumstances.

I'm kind of against addons telling players what buttons to press on general principle (because I would highly doubt the ability of a player to deal with any complex mechanics if they can't even play their spec correctly without being told what to do on a second to second basis), but if that was something I wanted to advocate for, recommending something consistent with what SimC does for tanking would be a heavy mark against it, not something for it.

The SimC BrM APL is developed and optimized for the best possible TMI and DPS on the TMI Standard boss. The purpose of this is to give accurate evaluations of stats and possibly talents/glyphs in the most generic setting possible, not to determine what is actually a good use case in reality. For example, the entire idea of using Guard or Dampen Harm based on current incoming damage is one that only exists in a simulated setting trying to find averages over thousands of iterations; in reality these things (and just about all tank cooldowns) are used on a predictive basis and not a reactive basis. Similarly, always wanting to Purify at a certain threshold is completely wrong outside of a perfectly simulated environment because the value of chi and eliminated Stagger damage varies drastically depending on the situation.

Furthermore, your solution for these problems of a rigid APL not functioning well in reality is to add extra keybinds and toggle them on and off in the middle of fights as they are needed, or to simply ignore the addon when it isn't correct. This adds extra mental taxation and effort on top of players who presumably only use the addon because they are not good enough to execute the rotation on their own. I think this is actively harmful to the intended audience, as you are neither providing correct answers when they matter (since the SimC APL is optimized to reduce AA and a constant magic DoT damage, neither of which are threatening on any real bosses) or making things easier by recommending people already struggling to commit extra effort to something else.

I would definitely not recommend this addon to anyone playing a tank, especially not Brewmasters. The entire idea that the SimC APL can just be transplanted into reality is a faulty premise to begin with and it's much better to just learn how to play the game. Monitoring resources, buffs, and cooldowns are okay, but when you cross into trying to tell people what to do based on their own health or incoming damage for tanking it's impossible to create a catch-all list that is actually effective in most situations.

[Hekili]

I'm kind of against addons telling players what buttons to press on general principle (because I would highly doubt the ability of a player to deal with any complex mechanics if they can't even play their spec correctly without being told what to do on a second to second basis), but if that was something I wanted to advocate for, recommending something consistent with what SimC does for tanking would be a heavy mark against it, not something for it.

For the first point, personal philosophy about priority helper addons is essentially an opinion and I won't try to persuade you to change yours. I think it might be overly negative to suggest that a player who uses a priority helper can't play without one, or can't deal with complex mechanics, but I think that a lot of that criticism is based on the expectation that someone using a priority helper follows it blindly, doesn't use it as an educational tool, and never deviates from its recommendation.

The SimC BrM APL is developed and optimized for the best possible TMI and DPS on the TMI Standard boss. The purpose of this is to give accurate evaluations of stats and possibly talents/glyphs in the most generic setting possible, not to determine what is actually a good use case in reality.

That doesn't mean it's not a good general use case. I wouldn't argue that it's ideal for every situation, but that it's a reasonably good recommendation based on the data that's available. As in my last post, when the player has access to more data -- the player should act on that data and not blindly follow a recommendation. Just like we ignore our WeakAuras sometimes. Just like we ignore our DBM timers sometimes. Just like we ignore the default illuminated buttons sometimes.

For example, the entire idea of using Guard or Dampen Harm based on current incoming damage is one that only exists in a simulated setting trying to find averages over thousands of iterations; in reality these things (and just about all tank cooldowns) are used on a predictive basis and not a reactive basis.

Right. Reactivity is always second to predictivity. I could add boss profiles to the addon and even make it respond to boss timers from BW or DBM, and the addon would be able to give predictive answers. (I don't think that would change your feelings about the addon, however.) Without doing that, this doesn't make reactivity without value, though. A reactive recommendation won't help someone avoid getting globaled by a single boss ability, but it can certainly help when a player is brought low by a large nuke and the player needs to mitigate incoming damage while getting healed up.

My personal opinion is that users should do what they know, and treat the addon as a back-up or a critique. If you proactively used Fortifying Brew, the addon's not going to recommend it after the fact -- because it's already on cooldown. Or, looking at it from another angle, if a mitigation ability is recommended, that might serve as an indicator that you should've already used it. It's critique of your gameplay.

Similarly, always wanting to Purify at a certain threshold is completely wrong outside of a perfectly simulated environment because the value of chi and eliminated Stagger damage varies drastically depending on the situation.

Using Purifying Brew at a certain threshold isn't completely wrong, but it's certainly not ideal when there are complicating factors to consider. The default APL in SimulationCraft recommends Purifying under the following circumstances: Heavy Stagger; Serenity is up and you have any damage to Purify; Moderate Stagger and Shuffle will remain up for at least 6 seconds. Those will work for many cases, and when they won't work for you, you can simply turn them off.

Furthermore, your solution for these problems of a rigid APL not functioning well in reality is to add extra keybinds and toggle them on and off in the middle of fights as they are needed, or to simply ignore the addon when it isn't correct.

I don't think having a keybind to activate or deactivate an option is particularly laborious, and I primarily play the most keybloated DPS spec in the game (Enhancement). Even so, if a person wants to use the addon, but doesn't want damage mitigation abilities to be recommended, they can turn off the mitigation recommendations altogether. There's no concern about toggling something on and off if you intend to just leave it turned off.

Ignoring any addon -- WeakAuras, DBM, etc. -- is basically the default player behavior whenever the player disagrees with its warning or recommendation.

This adds extra mental taxation and effort on top of players who presumably only use the addon because they are not good enough to execute the rotation on their own.

Hm, I think this has more to do with the philosophical disagreement about priority helper addons. I disagree that using a priority helper implies that a person is not good enough to execute a priority list without it. When I see that someone has recommended the addon to another player, a lot of the time the recommendation reads as "use it to learn the fundamentals, when you get the hang of it, turn it off or use it sparingly." It effectively helps players to compare their own playing behavior, live and in-game, to what the SimulationCraft APL would carry out under the same or similar circumstances.

I think this is actively harmful to the intended audience, as you are neither providing correct answers when they matter (since the SimC APL is optimized to reduce AA and a constant magic DoT damage, neither of which are threatening on any real bosses) or making things easier by recommending people already struggling to commit extra effort to something else.

Obviously, I disagree about it being harmful. It's entirely plausible that a better APL than the SimulationCraft APL could be developed for usage in the addon, factoring in the considerations you've noted. That doesn't make it a harmful starting point.

I would definitely not recommend this addon to anyone playing a tank, especially not Brewmasters. The entire idea that the SimC APL can just be transplanted into reality is a faulty premise to begin with and it's much better to just learn how to play the game. Monitoring resources, buffs, and cooldowns are okay, but when you cross into trying to tell people what to do based on their own health or incoming damage for tanking it's impossible to create a catch-all list that is actually effective in most situations.

You shouldn't recommend anything you disagree with, certainly. I understand your disagreement is strenuous, but I think the foundation of your disagreement is based on a very restrictive interpretation of the purpose of this addons and similar addons.

The goal of the addon is not to remove player decision-making from the game. The goal of the addon is to facilitate performance improvement. Yes, the default settings are very closely modeled from SimulationCraft and that leads to certain benefits and disadvantages. The player is given a visual tool to compare their own decision-making to what my addon's engine would recommend under the same circumstances. These are recommendations, not orders.