The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Deleted]

Just coming back from a bit of a break during the summer (guild canned raids for july/august) and we're just starting up with some ToT to get warm for SoO. We're raiding 10m normal, with the odd heroic. Been taking pretty good care of my brewmaster during this tier, trying to read up and keep up to date with the latest and greatest in buttkicking tech, sitting on 537 ilvl atm with the quest cloak, fully crit geared.

The patchnotes from the PTR got me thinking on stats weights and reading through this thread nothing got clearer :P. (Except maybe kaidam ditching the dps cloak but talking up the dps meta even with the uptime change. If i understood things right). Seeing as I raid 10m i was first considering going all out stamina/mastery the first couple of weeks to see how we're doing, i feel kind of reliant on our t15 2p atm, to deal with things like Talon rake on heroic so some mastery to make up for that nerf should be good.

-Hows the damage in SoO normal? Should i be worried going in there fully crit geared? Will i make a fool of myself.
-Hows the enrage timers, we're having a few people pull 180-220k but some struggle with 120-180k. Do i need to bring my a-game damage wise?
-LMG+cloak, yay nay? Was thinking tank cloak at least, but what about the gem? The uptime and all dmg reduction sure seems nice.

I read various forums frequently and it always seems to be a balance between mitigation and damage. But personally i have a feeling survival is top prio when testing new content, regardless if we hit enrages (getting there is prio 1). So, going into the unknown full on stamina/mastery seems like a solid choice, right? Not to mention stuff like crit capping with proccs and dual wield even in my low gear. I'm rambling a bit, but would love some input on the questions above even if it's partly mention earlier in the thread. Thanks!

[Dirtdogs]

Just tooltip fixes.

Source: https://twitter.com/devolore/status/372057967123648512

So no real damage change from what were used to other than the one kegsmash nerf and the vengance changes?

[lairpie]

I'm never sure where this belief that tank damage (or any damage really) only matters when you're hitting enrages comes from. At the very least, if you make the fight 2% shorter because you're doing more damage (a pretty realistic value with how huge tank damage is at the beginning of a tier), that's pretty much the best 2% avoidance in the world because its also 2% avoidance on chances for people to do something stupid. In a lot of fights, increased damage actually compounds to shorten the fight by even more by spawning fewer adds and similar mechanics. There were fights in ToT where the enrage wasn't a big deal, and there was no specific need for more damage on some add, but where we could bring a whole extra healer because I was doing 50% more damage than people in the same gear and same level of progression were. I think that's really a much better way to look at the tank damage done vs tank damage taken thing. Don't think "am I going to die if i do this" think about the actual cost to the raid. The answer is simply that most times, taking more damage, or taking damage in a slightly more bursty manner isn't going to kill you it's going to change your CD timing, or cost a live cocoon or something. Maybe in an extreme situation it requires an extra healer, and even that might be worth it, especially in a situation where that healer might save a few other people and you can make up a lot of the lost damage. Now, sometimes the answer really is that it is better for you to take a 1% lower chance that you'll die over doing 10% more damage, and there's always a balance on how much damage is worth, but there's a huge amount of variation based on the fight, your guild's damage and healing situation, and your personal ability.

I know for me and my raid that an occasional get out of jail free card from the tank cape that actually waits to proc until you need it is more valuable to me than some cleave proc on a most single target fights. Even if I'm not too afraid of dying, I think knowing the proc is available to save me if I push too hard on damage would be worth almost damage as much as the cleave proc itself. On a fight that hits considerably harder, I can abuse that proc as a planned cooldown for things. Adding another relatively controllable cooldown to use to bridge the space between guards, on top of DH, FB, ZM, externals allows for DK like coverage of special abilities. A monk with the tank cloak can eat an insane physical hit every 15 seconds indefinitely with only 1 external cd. It also lets you lean considerably harder on the T16 4pc, knowing that you can heal back a lot of damage rather than preventing it, and swap to prevention only after the cape procs. It's a huge, game changing thing. Playing a blood DK for progression too probably helps me see a lot of the ways to use this purgatory style too.

A random proc that increases overhealing on me by 20% most of the time that it procs however isn't worth losing even the post nerf 4-5% of my damage (we're literally talking about 1-2% of the entire raid's damage coming from a single gem in a lot of fights). 20% isn't enough to really change my short term behavior much, it's not enough to skip using a real cooldown, and it doesn't last long enough for healers to really adjust to it either. Think through the gem proccing randomly as you're tanking and look at what would actually happen if it procced at different times. Even in the rare cases where I died, precious few of them would have been changed by a 20% proc, and the number of times I would have thought "oh, let me not guard this boss special that's about to happen because i have the meta proc" could be counted on the fingers of someone without a hand. In a fight without defined bursts, can you ever picture yourself at 40% hp and saying "don't worry, i won't guard, use EB, or DH, the meta proc will save me?"

I doubt I'll stick to those choices for every fight, but that's certainly the starting point I'm planning on going with. Conveniently, the melee cloak proc cleaving also means that it is best for fights with multiple things to hit, which are the same fights generally where a cheat death proc would be the least useful due to the mechanics of rapid smaller hits compared to slower bigger hits.

[Ampere]

So no real damage change from what were used to other than the one kegsmash nerf and the vengance changes?

There's the across the board vengeance nerf 1.8% -> 1.5%, the Kegsmash nerf, and these tooltip fixes seem to be related to the Brewmaster shift of some damage from AP to weapon damage. We'll rely slightly more on weapon damage in 5.4 and slightly less on AP/vengeance.

[Vasilisa]

I've been away on vacations and thus didn't have a chance to see what's been going on over the last 2 weeks (lack of inet access). Since the day of the patch is drawing nearer with every day I've two related questions - how is monk state on ptr in comparison to protection paladin and to how things are on live atm? I have two tanks (prot paladin which has been my main since tbc) and monk which is my current main. I like monk playstyle but since its the last raiding tier I'd prefer to pick the one which would offer easier and smoother progrees in 10 man setup. Which one would you pick?

[Deleted]

Contrary to my earlier stated opinion of BiS being a dead concept, I created a list with an optimal (manually selected) combination of items. Just to get an idea of what's possible stat-wise.

Here.

[Dimzum]

We got Lei Shen down over the weekend so onto heroics. Thanks for the advice guys. I did manage to derp it once on fusion slash. Since my co-tank is a lesser geared DK, I didn't get to take advantage of soaking a decap for the ridiculous Vengeance. More often than not I have to use a /cancelaura macro on tank swaps.

One thing I think would be nice to see here or in another thread is a boss by boss breakdown of some what abilities/talents to pick. With SoO coming up, I think it will be helpful. I know trying to come through 220+ pages to determine if I should grab Diffuse Magic or Dampen harm, or glyph guard for a certain boss can be tedious.

[lairpie]

One thing I think would be nice to see here or in another thread is a boss by boss breakdown of some what abilities/talents to pick. With SoO coming up, I think it will be helpful. I know trying to come through 220+ pages to determine if I should grab Diffuse Magic or Dampen harm, or glyph guard for a certain boss can be tedious.

I'm working on something like that, for all specs, along with simply ways to use the abilities you can't choose to counter fight specific mechanics. Things like which fights have disarmable mobs, what things are physically able to be clashed / useful to clash. Basically a clone of the long standing rogue thread on the EJ forums with the same idea. I'll get a shell up in the next day or two along with specific things that need tested.

[Dimzum]

I'm working on something like that, for all specs, along with simply ways to use the abilities you can't choose to counter fight specific mechanics. Things like which fights have disarmable mobs, what things are physically able to be clashed / useful to clash. Basically a clone of the long standing rogue thread on the EJ forums with the same idea. I'll get a shell up in the next day or two along with specific things that need tested.

Great idea. It wasn't until we had downed Horridon a few times until I found out that monks could click the orb then use SCK to get past the channel. Things like that in centralized place I think would do wonders for several people, especially slow people like myself :P

[Aure]

I'm working on something like that, for all specs, along with simply ways to use the abilities you can't choose to counter fight specific mechanics. Things like which fights have disarmable mobs, what things are physically able to be clashed / useful to clash. Basically a clone of the long standing rogue thread on the EJ forums with the same idea. I'll get a shell up in the next day or two along with specific things that need tested.

Very nice indeed, please let us know

[Deleted]

More often than not I have to use a /cancelaura macro on tank swaps.

Forgive my ignorance, but what aura do you cancel? Vengeance?

My main is a palatank so I cancelaura bubbles and righteous fury a lot, but I'm less experienced with my BrM alt and would be interested to know what they can do to drop threat.

[SurrealNight]

Correct depending on the other tank it may be a better option than throttling your attacks (which can result in shuffle/guard/PB loss). Pretty common problem with our high DPS unless you are solo tanking or have another well geared co-tank.

[Dimzum]

Just as Surreal said. Before I'd have to sit on my hands and that was a loss of dps, shuffle and guards going out on the raid. I am in the habit now of whenever I do a swap of cancelling Vengeance and continuing with my dps priority. I can pop heals, and pump out damage, and in turn through guards out on the raid.

I keep yelling at my co-tank to get better at pumping out damage, but he's a poor lesser geared DK.

[Bryce]

I'm fortunate to tank with a pally. I rarely have threat issues now that he's up there in gear with me. There are times though where I'll have to back down for 2-3 seconds, but it's pretty rare now.

[Deleted]

I'm fortunate to tank with a pally. I rarely have threat issues now that he's up there in gear with me. There are times though where I'll have to back down for 2-3 seconds, but it's pretty rare now.

Yea, i've been tanking with a DK and it's not pleasant all the time. Either cancel vengeance right away or go into /afk mode with only jabs and boks. Considered switching to my druid to feel more active while offtanking and having some utility skills. Wish we could just have a flat reduction from 500% to 350% threat or something. Actually pushing some damage to maintain threat between tanks would even be welcome.

Part of this is ofc vengenace+high crit and the legendary meta. So going with the tank meta and some mastery in 5.4 coupled with the crit change for warriors/dks will hopefully make Brms less aggrostealing.

[lairpie]

Swapping to a terrible weapon for 5 seconds, then back to your real weapon can also help that initial threat issue, while letting you keep building shuffle, EB, guard shields, etc. Cancelling vengeance is easier, weapon swapping is a little bit better in that usually after 5 seconds you would still have lots of vengeance for quite a while, and could swap back to your real weapon and benefit from that vengeance. I was doing that a lot prior to swapping guilds, then didn't need to once the other tank adjusted, but think I'm going to have to again. I'm going to try macroing re-equipping my real weapons to happen after keg smash on the idea that however long from the taunt swap till keg smash, including the keg smash, of having gimpy weapons should be enough. We'll see how it goes.

[Crevan]

Threat after tank swaps will be a non-issue in 5.4 in most situations. A small change that has been implemented on the ptr gives you a 200% threat bonus for 3 seconds after you taunt. If a tank makes sure to use a couple of hard-hitting abilities in that 3 second window, the triple threat they generate should be enough to keep the enemy's attention for longer than 8 seconds, by which time taunt will be available again.

[Zonex]

Threat should never be an issue if you have good tank vengeance management, but if it is, abuse your paladins. You also have tiger stance, which reduces your threat to DPS levels, it resets shuffle, but shuffle really isnt an issue nowadays.

[Deleted]

Or just go ham and join the vengeance train all the way to glory.

[Deleted]

It seems that I am the only BrM that uses Retreat glyph for cases with threat issues. With glyph, you can enjoy full vengeance for dmg, just keep in mind that roll is not for moving :-).