Brewmaster questions (10M normal MSV)

[Maelstromm15]

Hey guys, I've been using these forums for quite a while, never posted.

I have some questions following my most recent run of MSV on my brewmaster tank, in regards to Stone Guard.

Now, all in all, I've never run with a tank that took more damage than me. Not boasting, simple fact. I also do about 20-30k hps on myself and others (if i find time to use chi wave, this does not include any guards). However, this week i noticed that i fell under 50% health a LOT, having to rely much more heavily on chi wave and expel harm than i usually do. With my healing and the disc priest assigned to me combined, i was taking about 40-50k hps, and yet my health just kept falling.

I use guard on cooldown, never let the BoK buff fall off, used elusive brew when i had over 10 stacks (or when my health was beginning to get low), and purified only when it began to reach 5-6% of my health.

Is there anything im doing wrong? If there's any more information you need, ill provide it, i do not have logs though.

[cuervos]

Hey guys, I've been using these forums for quite a while, never posted.

I have some questions following my most recent run of MSV on my brewmaster tank, in regards to Stone Guard.

Now, all in all, I've never run with a tank that took more damage than me. Not boasting, simple fact. I also do about 20-30k hps on myself and others (if i find time to use chi wave, this does not include any guards). However, this week i noticed that i fell under 50% health a LOT, having to rely much more heavily on chi wave and expel harm than i usually do. With my healing and the disc priest assigned to me combined, i was taking about 40-50k hps, and yet my health just kept falling.

I use guard on cooldown, never let the BoK buff fall off, used elusive brew when i had over 10 stacks (or when my health was beginning to get low), and purified only when it began to reach 5-6% of my health.

Is there anything im doing wrong? If there's any more information you need, ill provide it, i do not have logs though.

Could simply be a more difficult boss set-up.

[BlackMagicMarkel]

Are you taking one dog or two? Armory link would be helpful as well.

[Maelstromm15]

Are you taking one dog or two? Armory link would be helpful as well.

We switch. The way my guild does it, whoever is holding the dog that is petrifying holds the 2.

battle.net/wow/en/character/azjolnerub/Jendu/simple

Wouldnt let me post a link, so i took the front part out.

[BlackMagicMarkel]

Going to get a bit picky, so here’s the warning.

Two empty glyph slots, one of which (spinning crane kick) does nothing for you on this fight. Glyph of Fortifying Brew, as well as the Glyph of Stoneskin should be your two main choices for this one. 25% less damage taken and 10% more health still trumps 20% less damage and 20% health. Stoneskin will also help you with Rend Flesh when you use Fort Brew. As for the third glyph, not too many “important” choices for this fight in particular, but I personally use Enduring Healing Spheres (It applies to your GotO spheres, making them last a hell of a long time, though if you’re taking this much damage you’re probably using them as much as you can anyways when they pop up). Minor glyphs are pretty much irrelevant for BrM.

As for talents, lightning fast movement isn’t exactly a priority (you’re not kiting, anyways, and rolling out of bad in such a confined space with bad everywhere else on the floor causes more harm than good, usually) so first talent is alright.

Second talent, Chi Wave, also good. Useful personal emergency heal if absolutely needed, as long as no one else is in range to take a wave from you.

Third talent, Ascension. Read great on the tooltip, but when applied it doesn’t quite match the Chi generation of Power Strikes until the upper haste levels (8-9k), which you’re currently about half that.

Fourth talent. Sadly, Healing Elixirs also falls into the “sounds great but sucks in practice” category. If you’re taking large hits from melee, not the bleed, Dampen Harm will do you good to smooth out when needed.

Fifth is fine. More damage is more damage.

Gear wise, reforging seems to be alright, aside from having low expertise. Some people say “soft cap it” to 7.50%, other side says “hard cap it” to 15%. I fall into the latter category, as I find it more comfortable, and more useful as a whole. More damage, more healing orbs, consistent Chi generation. You press Jab or Keg Smash, Jab and Keg Smash will hit. No uncertainty, no questions asked. More damage means a boss dying faster (which is a small, small, -tiny- tank concern, but it still helps) and more Ox Statue shields on the raid.

Gemming, you want to stay away from anything “+something stamina”. Health isn’t a large issue for BrM, as we get much more use out of Agi/Haste/Crit, even with lower health pools than other tanks. While Crit is still good, you still want to focus more on haste at these levels until roughly the 8-9K mark (also where you’d most likely be switching to Ascension, if you so choose).

Like I said originally, being picky, so you’re also missing a leg enchant, of which you want the Agi/Crit variety of.

In practice for the actual fight outside of stats, obviously you want to continue upon what you’re generally doing. Keep BoK up, purify stagger whenever you can (usually best to actually have some kind of meter telling you the exact stagger damage you’re taking, but a safe bet is just purify Yellow when you can, and purify Red right away. Elusive Brew might also do you better using it a bit more. 9 second CD means you want to use it around your 10th stack so any new stacks will be up when it comes off, but I tend to use it around 6-ish for more uptime. No use sitting on 3-6 and waiting for a 9th stack that doesn’t arrive right away, especially when you have both dogs on you.

Use Dampen Harm whenever you’re taking large spikes (once again, especially with both dogs on you). Guard does help off cooldown, but if you’re expecting a Rend Flesh to be applied soon, it will help more there than just boss melee swings. Also make sure to use Fort Brew as much as you can (broken record, but especially both dogs and Rend Flesh). You’d be surprised how much Stoneskin Glyph and Fort Glyph shave off incoming damage in regards to bleeding. Finally, if you’re far enough away not to take damage from other people, you can use Avert Harm as a personal 20% reduction CD, if you absolutely need it. Don’t forget Zen Meditation if you’re about to die. 90% off a single otherwise killing melee swing can be the difference between a wipe and a kill.

[Maelstromm15]

Yeah, I go with 7.5 expertise because I'm also the designated dpser and I use the same set for WW. I USED to run 15 exp, and as for glyphs, I just haven't had the time or money to get more (very poor). I only went Ascension so I could always have energy to use expel. I've never liked the way PS worked. Does dampen harm even work on bleeds? They never hit me for more than 20%, I haven't gotten hit for over 100k once that I can recall in that fight. (509k)

[Chuupag]

Third talent, Ascension. Read great on the tooltip, but when applied it doesn’t quite match the Chi generation of Power Strikes until the upper haste levels (8-9k), which you’re currently about half that.

Fourth talent. Sadly, Healing Elixirs also falls into the “sounds great but sucks in practice” category. If you’re taking large hits from melee, not the bleed, Dampen Harm will do you good to smooth out when needed.

You don't take Asc for more chi. You take it for the QoL changes. Very rarely is the extra chi from PS going to be the make or break part of a boss.

Healing Elixirs makes much more sense for dogs b/c they will very rarely, if at all, proc dampen harm once you get a decent amount of gear, making Healing Elixirs the far superior choice for that fight.

[BlackMagicMarkel]

Dampen Harm isn't for the bleed, as the ticking damage will not tick for 20% of your health. It's for the melee swings, as well as any Overloads that do too much damage (Or traps that you may accidentally step in, but that's a minor reason). It's more about spreading your cooldowns out as a whole. Dampen for big spikes, guard for the bleed, Fort for heavy damage periods, and Avert Harm/Zen Meditation for emergencies.

[Vargarii]

snip.

I've got to say that his having 7.5 expertise isn't even remotely a problem. Setting aside the discussion of preferences for high levels, asking someone to push it at lower gear levels is asking them to keep a lot of points out of chi generation and mitigation stats, and I wouldn't ask that of them.

I don't really disagree with the rest, but even if someone wants to play expertise cap, I can't say I'd reccomend it at the 480 ilvl range.

---------- Post added 2013-01-27 at 09:23 PM ----------

Dampen Harm isn't for the bleed, as the ticking damage will not tick for 20% of your health. It's for the melee swings, as well as any Overloads that do too much damage (Or traps that you may accidentally step in, but that's a minor reason). It's more about spreading your cooldowns out as a whole. Dampen for big spikes, guard for the bleed, Fort for heavy damage periods, and Avert Harm/Zen Meditation for emergencies.

There shouldn't be overloads that do too much damage. Even if you aren't doing heroic, you should practice dog swapping properly so that only the correct dog explodes, this way there is less to learn if you move into heroics.

[Chuupag]

Dampen Harm isn't for the bleed, as the ticking damage will not tick for 20% of your health. It's for the melee swings, as well as any Overloads that do too much damage (Or traps that you may accidentally step in, but that's a minor reason). It's more about spreading your cooldowns out as a whole. Dampen for big spikes, guard for the bleed, Fort for heavy damage periods, and Avert Harm/Zen Meditation for emergencies.

Their melee attacks hit like wet noodles. Bleed is 60%+ of the damage on that fight. I haven't been tanking that fight recently, our Pally and DK have, the dogs average melee hit on them is 25k. Even accounting for less armor on BrM that is no where close to procing a 20% health cooldown. And as Vargarri said you should be using it b/c you think you might explode the wrong dog, just learn not to explode the wrong dog. There are addons for that if you don't want to have to think about which one to taunt.

[BlackMagicMarkel]

You don't take Asc for more chi. You take it for the QoL changes. Very rarely is the extra chi from PS going to be the make or break part of a boss.

Healing Elixirs makes much more sense for dogs b/c they will very rarely, if at all, proc dampen harm once you get a decent amount of gear, making Healing Elixirs the far superior choice for that fight.

Wouldn't quite call Healing Elixir "superior". They said 509k health (at the moment), so we have a 50.9k heal available every 18 seconds, that is used up regardless of health levels whenever one uses Purify/Elusive. If used correctly, and with little overhealing, it helps, sure. I'd still say a more controllable 50% reduction for 3 large hits would be more dependable. If it was farm content, I'd say go ahead with Healing, but the whole point of the thread was that they were dropping health like no one's business and taking large damage for the fight.

[Vargarii]

Wouldn't quite call Healing Elixir "superior". They said 509k health (at the moment), so we have a 50.9k heal available every 18 seconds, that is used up regardless of health levels whenever one uses Purify/Elusive. If used correctly, and with little overhealing, it helps, sure. I'd still say a more controllable 50% reduction for 3 large hits would be more dependable. If it was farm content, I'd say go ahead with Healing, but the whole point of the thread was that they were dropping health like no one's business and taking large damage for the fight.

There aren't three large hits, though. What you are comparing is a cooldown that will not negate any damage, vs 59k health every 18 seconds. It's an open and shut case

---------- Post added 2013-01-27 at 09:44 PM ----------

There aren't three large hits, though. What you are comparing is a cooldown that will not negate any damage, vs 59k health every 18 seconds. It's an open and shut case

To continue on this in detail, to set off dampen harm in his gear, he'd need to be hit for 101.8k damage in one go. The only damage I've ever taken in any heroic attempt that cleared that was an off dog explosion, which shouldn't happen anyway. (We had never bothered doing it right on normal, so we took a 4-5 pulls to get tank swapping right.)

[Maelstromm15]

Made a mistake regarding healing in my first post. Went over the numbers again, and it seems that the disc priest did 30k total hps, only about 44% of that was done to me. I did about 25k, and about 80% on me. At work at, so can't take the time to work out how much has that really is.

Edit: 32k?

[Deleted]

I also don't think dampen will proc from the dogs at all, the damage comes from the bleed mostly. I prefer diffuse magic there personally to clear some cobalt mines if it would make positioning a lot easier. QoL ftw. Although healing elixirs is the clear choice for helping out healers.

[SurrealNight]

Is there anything im doing wrong? If there's any more information you need, ill provide it, i do not have logs though.

Do you have any logs? Usually tank both dogs on H 25m and never have any issues plus our DPS is off the chart from cleave damage.

I keep Dampen Harm myself and try to use it around the overload explosion just to keep damage smooth. Does take a bit to proc all 3 charges but they do eventually (at least on Heroic).

[Maelstromm15]

Do you have any logs? Usually tank both dogs on H 25m and never have any issues plus our DPS is off the chart from cleave damage.

I keep Dampen Harm myself and try to use it around the overload explosion just to keep damage smooth. Does take a bit to proc all 3 charges but they do eventually (at least on Heroic).

Well, the sentence you quoted says specifically that i do not have logs, and the title says that this is in regards to 10m normal mode. I never take hits over 100k, so dampen harm is pretty useless to me.

[Vargarii]

Do you have any logs? Usually tank both dogs on H 25m and never have any issues plus our DPS is off the chart from cleave damage.

I keep Dampen Harm myself and try to use it around the overload explosion just to keep damage smooth. Does take a bit to proc all 3 charges but they do eventually (at least on Heroic).

I'm not sure how you set it off on heroic either. The only heroic damage I've taken that can set it off is a non petrifying overload.

[SurrealNight]

hmm maybe it is just falling off I'll try to pay closer attention this week. Monitoring energy and calling out swaps while keeping everything rolling is about all my concentration can handle lol.

[Solial]

Take diffuse magic, ask for a freedom, soak the traps, ???, profit!