The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Radio]

I think that's a bit harsh, i use spheres a lot. At 200k vengeance they heal nicely and on all bosses with a tank swap you can always spend 80-120 energy on a split heal. Not to mention you can heal others too!

You can also load up 2-3 spheres in preparation for an incoming high damage ability that you can't spare a CD for (Megaera Heroic was a big one for this).

There's also abilities such as Froststorm Bolt from Kardris which can easily hit for a large portion of your health pool while including melee damage immediately before and immediately after and you need a quick self heal to bring yourself to a safe level when you haven't hit 35% to reset EH.

I also used to use spheres during Nuclear Inferno on Twin Consorts, help out the healers when you have nothing to do!

[siccora]

I don't recall the ability caring about EB, as it's not listed in the tooltip or any other patch note since 5.3. Shuffle is still the way to go, as if it was based on EB we would be worse than druids for that fight.

yes it was quite easy and we made it on the first try without anybody dying. fatal striker never hits me over 300k. was quite funny that fight.

[Atomicfelony]

Question for all the heroic raiding brewmasters out there.

My guild recently started on heroics, and I will be tanking on my slightly undergeared brewmaster: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...orike/advanced

I realize my trinkets are terrible; but unfortunately the only other trinkets I have are 522 Renataki's and 528 TED. 10m loot drops...

I'll have my LMG next Tuesday, so that will help some. My thoughts on being ready for heroics were to go Stam to chest, drop some crit to get up to about 9k mastery, 12.5k crit and 5000 haste.

I thought about going for stam on shoulders/back/legs but holding off for now. Appreciate any advice thanks!

[Goil]

Question for all the heroic raiding brewmasters out there.

My guild recently started on heroics, and I will be tanking on my slightly undergeared brewmaster: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...orike/advanced

I realize my trinkets are terrible; but unfortunately the only other trinkets I have are 522 Renataki's and 528 TED. 10m loot drops...

I'll have my LMG next Tuesday, so that will help some. My thoughts on being ready for heroics were to go Stam to chest, drop some crit to get up to about 9k mastery, 12.5k crit and 5000 haste.

I thought about going for stam on shoulders/back/legs but holding off for now. Appreciate any advice thanks!

Other than not having the legendary items you are not really undergeared for heroics.
You don't need any more Stam, if you get in there and decide you are taking too much damage get more mastery instead. Currently you have a little extra hit that could be used for mastery. Use TED with one of the trinkets you currently have on. If you need more survival use it with Rooks, if not use it with Thoks.

Make sure you are using correct talents for each fight (don't be afraid to try them and change them depending on the situation) and you should be fine.

[Quotey]

You're not undergeared. Use the Renataki's and TED, your current reforgings/gemming is fine.

[Atomicfelony]

Will try current setup with Renataki and TED. Thanks!

[Leblue]

Just try and hurry on getting at least that meta gem because its proc happens pretty frequently and will help make you a less spikey tank. If you feel squish squish, use that feeling to try and maximize your cooldown usage so you feel more comfortable. The first bunch of heroic bosses aren't super hard hitting for tanks, especially brewmasters, so decent play should keep you from feeling terribly squishy.

[Dimzum]

So I finally got another 1hander to go with my WF 1hander. I was currently using the staff of Immerseus, so now I can DW the fists from protectors (one being WF).
My question is, to those that go DW for BrM, do you drop the amount of crit you have because of the crit cap (52% if my memory serves).

I was sitting at something like 15.5k crit (55% unbuffed) with about 7k mastery and 4500 haste. Since AMR doesn't have a crit cap option, was wondering what others did.

[Babylonius]

So I finally got another 1hander to go with my WF 1hander. I was currently using the staff of Immerseus, so now I can DW the fists from protectors (one being WF).
My question is, to those that go DW for BrM, do you drop the amount of crit you have because of the crit cap (52% if my memory serves).

I was sitting at something like 15.5k crit (55% unbuffed) with about 7k mastery and 4500 haste. Since AMR doesn't have a crit cap option, was wondering what others did.

AMR does have a crit cap option, just hit "Advanced" on the "Stat Weights" then enter in the % you want.

As far as crit after the cap you have decide if you need more survivability. If you do then once you're at the crit cap you won't gain more Elusive Brew stacks more often, so if you need a little more survivability then add it to mastery. If you don't and want more dps then add it to Crit or haste, higher crit continues to increase the crit % of your non-auto attacks.

[Dimzum]

AMR does have a crit cap option, just hit "Advanced" on the "Stat Weights" then enter in the % you want.

As far as crit after the cap you have decide if you need more survivability. If you do then once you're at the crit cap you won't gain more Elusive Brew stacks more often, so if you need a little more survivability then add it to mastery. If you don't and want more dps then add it to Crit or haste, higher crit continues to increase the crit % of your non-auto attacks.

Good deal. Survivability has never been a problem and my dps has been clutch on several fights (10 man normal). I vastly overgear 10 man normals as it is (563 and we're working on Thok) so I'll just keep stacking Crit for the time being.

The good news if if I want I can easily start to swaping out for DPS (if my raid leader ever lets me DPS again).

[Rainbowdash]

DW crit cap is actually ~60%, and if you happen to be over hit cap for whatever reason that raises the crit cap. Also you can go well into heroics with a crit build. I solo-soaked 10H Malkorok's Bloodrage with like 5k mastery NBD.

edit: I have a H WF strength ring ... I took it because it's crit/haste and it replaced a flex ring. lol

[Leblue]

For heroic 10, you could probably make a pretty strong argument for mostly favoring a crit build through all of progression. I haven't started garrosh progression but siegecrafter didn't seem like he hit hard (melee wise) and really the only fight I've run into so far that I'm thankful that I favored mastery to the extent I did was Thok when we had me solo tanking him (because 7 - 8 stacks of panic hurt). I'm running (super close to) dual wield soft cap and dumping the rest into mastery, and I'm sure I'll be happy for this on Ka'oraz when we kill him during H Paragons because of all of his stacks. At that point there isn't much raid damage though so you could argue that healers will be focused on me and my co-tank w/ kil'ruk anyways but I digress.

More damage is always a huge advantage to your raid (especially with how crit scales with high attack power from vengence) and isn't ever something to shy away from if you can get away with doing it without ending up dead and/or straining your healers.

[Deleted]

I agree. We just managed to down HC Garrosh 10, and I didn't switch to mastery at any point. Rolling with about 5-7k throughout Thok (solo tanked a few times) up until Garrosh, and despite sometimes feeling a bit more squishy than say my co-warrior tank, I'm happy with my survivability in all out crit gear (22-23k crit rating).

[Dimzum]

Yeah kept with crit, noticed an increase in damage with the new setup as DW. EB generation didn't seem different at all.

We downed Siegecrafter (10man normal) with ease, but seem to be having problems on Thok. I had read about solo tanking him. Any thoughts/suggestions? Would I need to stack mastery for him (don't have TED).

[Leblue]

If you have a paladin, his beacon can make it so you're mostly self sustaining with very little extra input so far as healing out. Solo tanking thok is a lot of ways less how you gear your character, and more how comfortable you are with your cooldowns and playing to keep yourself alive. It forces you to fully utilize your tanking kit to survive but has a pretty nice reward (allowing you to bring another dps while you yourself do some insane dps).

Mastery is something you should stack until you feel comfortable for solo tanking thok. I personally run DW soft crit cap and then dump everything into mastery. I'm not the top dps brewmaster, but its a pretty dang solid mixture of damage and survivability.

[Dimzum]

Thanks for the input. We'll try the two tank method for the time. I do not believe our problem is dps or the tanks, rather some of our healers and others in the raid not rotating the CDs properly. We're in the process of figuring out healers but should have a disc, holy paladin and shaman as our healers. My co-tank is a warrior and sadly his dps is nowhere near my output. I'll start to look into how I can easily swap out some crit to mastery between the fights.

[Atomicfelony]

Hi all, back for some more advice. We plowed through the first 5 10H bosses this week with no problems. Juggernaut is the first fight I've really had trouble surviving on so far. I tried the fight in full crit build with TED, Renataki's and about 5k haste but healers had -severe- trouble keeping me up through a 3 stack + a mine.

My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...orike/advanced

I was thinking of trying tonight going with Vial, Rook's and going up to 8k haste for more EHs on myself (lose about 3% crit). Dampen Harm is best used when you go to soak mines, or against the actual vents? I was using Guard (glyphed) for vents 1 & 3.

Appreciate any help, thank you.

[Rainbowdash]

I used Dampen Harm on the 3rd Flame Vent, which means you still have two charges for the mines. I use Fort Brew the same way. With a 558 ilevel, going against 10H Juggernaut, I'd go with Rook's and TED, and use Rook's on one of the Vents.

make sure you still have shuffle up while you're getting mines ....... If it's close you can hit one of them with BOK before you jump on it.

[Silentturtle]

Hi all, looking for some words of wisdom on perfecting my Brewmaster. It is an alt I plan to bring into a 25m raid with a few heroics mixed in and want to make it as seamless as possible. I come from a 10m background and a Blood DK as my main. Mainly looking for up percentages and what they should be for specific fights. This toon does not have their cloak so obviously that will be changed whenever RNG is in my favor.

My monk is currently Mastery to allow more wiggle room healing wise and to prep for 25m where there will be more splash healing and once I get my 4 set it will be a nice heal depending on the stagger I am in.

I cannot post links but tried my best.

Here is my monk's armory: Coldbrews - Proudmoore
Also here are some logs: worldoflogs.com/reports/2y7i1bqzhre3a6bk/
worldoflogs.com/reports/qhwocqzvaiy8258j/ (Most recent)

Any information would be helpful and greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Babylonius]

Hi all, looking for some words of wisdom on perfecting my Brewmaster. It is an alt I plan to bring into a 25m raid with a few heroics mixed in and want to make it as seamless as possible. I come from a 10m background and a Blood DK as my main. Mainly looking for up percentages and what they should be for specific fights. This toon does not have their cloak so obviously that will be changed whenever RNG is in my favor.

My monk is currently Mastery to allow more wiggle room healing wise and to prep for 25m where there will be more splash healing and once I get my 4 set it will be a nice heal depending on the stagger I am in.

I cannot post links but tried my best.

Here is my monk's armory: Coldbrews - Proudmoore
Also here are some logs: worldoflogs.com/reports/2y7i1bqzhre3a6bk/
worldoflogs.com/reports/qhwocqzvaiy8258j/ (Most recent)

Any information would be helpful and greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tiger Power and Shuffle uptimes look good.

Generally if you're going to gem for mastery you ignore the socket bonuses as they are often Agi and Agi isn't as good as secondary stats for BrM. Also you're better off gemming for Mastery/Hit in blue sockets then reforging out of the hit elsewhere instead of gemming for stam which is our least useful tank stat.

If you can get a new trinket, the Cleave, Sigil of Rampage, isn't that useful for survival or threat. It will provide some extra dps during fights with a lot of adds, but that's not every fight.