The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[durrtygoodz]

Alright cool I'll just go with what I got. do my trinkets work too or are there some better alternatives?

[Quotey]

Thanks guys. So drop some expertise and grab more crit/mastery/haste. Cool.

Don't drop expertise. Expertise gives more chi gen and DPS than any other stat. We capped expertise in 463 gear and there's no reason not to do it now.

[Drayarr]

Don't drop expertise. Expertise gives more chi gen and DPS than any other stat. We capped expertise in 463 gear and there's no reason not to do it now.

Soft capping it still, I was forcing hard cap.

[Babylonius]

Soft capping it still, I was forcing hard cap.

What do you mean by soft cap/hard cap?

If you're saying you're going with 7.5% exp rather than 15% then you're still doing it wrong. As it was mentioned earlier, 15% exp was achievable in the first raid tier, no reason you can't get there now.

[Leblue]

That's the first raid tier, not when we were in 463 blues. In 463 blues you hit capped and expertise soft capped (7.5%) because you didn't have too much in the way of stats to play with. If you've got the best raid gear you can get a hold of (aka you have as many potential sockets as possible) you could probably make an argument for hard capping expertise with red gems. Keep in mind where your damage/chi gen matters are the trash pulls where mobs are level 82/81 meaning you don't need near the expertise to actually cap. Bosses are the only thing that are 83 and are also the easiest part of CMs.

That's a good bit of stats that could be shifted to crit that could increase your trash dps which is what will kill you (unless something goes horribly wrong on a boss) in a CM. Just because its achievable doesn't mean we *should* go for it. It was debated how necessary it was to cap all the way till you were gearing up in heroic ToT gear because of all the stats we had available (and also the relative devaluing of mastery due to our 2 piece).

[Rainbowdash]

^ what Leblue said. I thought it was more important to get haste to a comfortable level (around 3.5k) and did my CMs at ~12% expertise. Expertise really only matters for Keg Smash, since if Jab gets parried you can just Jab again, and RJW always gives you Chi. Hard-capping expertise is important for raid bosses but less important for dungeons.

edit: 1-handed weapons from TOT are best for challenge modes if you've done the legendary quest so you can put extra sockets on them. Sha-touched one-hander might be good too. I haven't looked at the details for that.

[Quotey]

The poster I was replying to isn't talking about CMs. More likely LFR or Flex, but armoury is down right now. There's no longer any difference between soft and hard capping expertise for tanks, as the first 7.5% removes dodges and the second removes parries. Or something like that, it's been a while since they changed that stuff. Point is, 15% expertise or bust in raids.

[Sunnydee]

The poster I was replying to isn't talking about CMs. More likely LFR or Flex, but armoury is down right now. There's no longer any difference between soft and hard capping expertise for tanks, as the first 7.5% removes dodges and the second removes parries. Or something like that, it's been a while since they changed that stuff. Point is, 15% expertise or bust in raids.

he forced exp cap from having 3k haste and 5.5k critt. with a few timeless items. which are most often crappy statweights on. so dropping 2-3% expertise would help alot on his energy regen etc

[Deleted]

Siegecrafter stacks go to 10. As far as paragon tips, monks probably aren't the best class to use the scorpion vehicle.

Hum yeah i noticed it tonight , was at 10 and ... 10 . I already tought monk wasn't best for scorpion so i let take whoever want it . Thank's anyway

[Deleted]

Hello all,

I posted before, bad unfortunately didn't receive an answer:

Hello fellow monk tanks!

I have a 558 ilvl geared brewmaster monk, which is my alt at the moment, but my main (new) guild rather have me tanking on my monk then my paladin, because they already have a prot paladin. They used to be 10-man hc and are now going 25-man hc. At the moment of speaking I am crit builed, but was wondering if I should change to a mastery build.

I have read several websites/forums, but can't make up my mind. Could any1 here give me some information and/or help me out finding what is best to do? Is a crit build really that bad for hc progress?

Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...jitsu/advanced

Thanks in advance.

At this moment my monk is 560 ilvl and I am tanking 25m hc with it. On Protectors, while tanking Rook, I noticed alot of spike dmg (obviously a legendary meta gem + cloak would help, but working on that). I was even struggling to get shuffle up all the time, because of the extra amount of purify brew I had to do. I know there are some mastery monks out there, but I was thinking if changing to 8k haste instead of 4.5k haste could work out for my crit monk.

Any thoughts about this?

Thanks in advance!

[Shamanberry]

At this moment my monk is 560 ilvl and I am tanking 25m hc with it. On Protectors, while tanking Rook, I noticed alot of spike dmg (obviously a legendary meta gem + cloak would help, but working on that). I was even struggling to get shuffle up all the time, because of the extra amount of purify brew I had to do. I know there are some mastery monks out there, but I was thinking if changing to 8k haste instead of 4.5k haste could work out for my crit monk.

If you're having trouble keeping Shuffle up, your problem may be that you're purifying too much.

One thing you have to get used to, regardless of if you're going from a crit to a mastery build or just moving up from 10 to 25 or normal to heroics is that stagger isn't always your enemy. When doing easier content, you get used to seeing your stagger hitting red meaning "must purify NOW!", but if you do that on harder content, you're going to be hitting it more and more frequently, and that can take a serious toll on your shuffle uptime, moreso on fights that have interruptions to time on target.

Treat PB like you treat Word of Glory on your Paladin. Put most of your chi into BoK, and hit PB when your healing is light (e.g., if the raid is taking a lot of damage and healers' attention is split), or just after big spikes in damage. Doing that lets you bank extra shuffle time so that during harder parts of the fight, you can purify more often as a "self-healing" tool.

It helps to have a WeakAura that can show you stagger damage as a % of health rather than just a color. Sunnier has some good ones you can use, or you can track down the Brewmaster Weak Auras thread and find one that suits you better.

Also, you should check your chi generation. One easy mistake that newer brewmasters make is to spam Jab - but depending on how much you end up delaying Keg Smash, that can quite easily end up giving you *less* chi. Jab to avoid hitting energy cap, aim to always have 40 energy when Keg Smash is about to come off CD. Not only will you have better chi generation, you'll also be more likely to have the 40 energy you need to Expel Harm exactly when you need it instead of having to wait on regen. Fill empty GCDs with Tiger Palm, not spamming Jab.



As for haste/crit, remember that the two work together, but more haste (or more crit) doesn't translate to higher EB uptime beyond some crit%, and the effect is pretty small overall either way unless your crit is absurdly low to start with. If you feel you're spiking in damage, adding more mastery is always the way to go - it is (without question) the better stat for damage mitigation, and a tank's main job is going to be to stay alive, moreso on 25 man where your personal DPS contribution is less important.

That said, haste is a comfort level thing. If you're newer to brewmaster, going higher on haste is good because it helps you smooth out your rotation with more "wiggle room". As you get more comfortable with the rotation, you can lower it until you find a good level. 4.5 is a number thrown around a lot, but it has no real basis. Some people like keeping haste to a minimum, others use slightly higher. Start high, and adjust down if you find yourself hitting the energy cap more than every once in a while.

[Deleted]

Hum yeah i noticed it tonight , was at 10 and ... 10 . I already tought monk wasn't best for scorpion so i let take whoever want it . Thank's anyway

I don't know, we tried it with different classes, and the best option for us was still me, a Brewmaster. I literally delete the Paragon I'm using the Scorpion buff on.

[Deleted]

If you're having trouble keeping Shuffle up, your problem may be that you're purifying too much.

One thing you have to get used to, regardless of if you're going from a crit to a mastery build or just moving up from 10 to 25 or normal to heroics is that stagger isn't always your enemy. When doing easier content, you get used to seeing your stagger hitting red meaning "must purify NOW!", but if you do that on harder content, you're going to be hitting it more and more frequently, and that can take a serious toll on your shuffle uptime, moreso on fights that have interruptions to time on target.

Treat PB like you treat Word of Glory on your Paladin. Put most of your chi into BoK, and hit PB when your healing is light (e.g., if the raid is taking a lot of damage and healers' attention is split), or just after big spikes in damage. Doing that lets you bank extra shuffle time so that during harder parts of the fight, you can purify more often as a "self-healing" tool.

It helps to have a WeakAura that can show you stagger damage as a % of health rather than just a color. Sunnier has some good ones you can use, or you can track down the Brewmaster Weak Auras thread and find one that suits you better.

Also, you should check your chi generation. One easy mistake that newer brewmasters make is to spam Jab - but depending on how much you end up delaying Keg Smash, that can quite easily end up giving you *less* chi. Jab to avoid hitting energy cap, aim to always have 40 energy when Keg Smash is about to come off CD. Not only will you have better chi generation, you'll also be more likely to have the 40 energy you need to Expel Harm exactly when you need it instead of having to wait on regen. Fill empty GCDs with Tiger Palm, not spamming Jab.



As for haste/crit, remember that the two work together, but more haste (or more crit) doesn't translate to higher EB uptime beyond some crit%, and the effect is pretty small overall either way unless your crit is absurdly low to start with. If you feel you're spiking in damage, adding more mastery is always the way to go - it is (without question) the better stat for damage mitigation, and a tank's main job is going to be to stay alive, moreso on 25 man where your personal DPS contribution is less important.

That said, haste is a comfort level thing. If you're newer to brewmaster, going higher on haste is good because it helps you smooth out your rotation with more "wiggle room". As you get more comfortable with the rotation, you can lower it until you find a good level. 4.5 is a number thrown around a lot, but it has no real basis. Some people like keeping haste to a minimum, others use slightly higher. Start high, and adjust down if you find yourself hitting the energy cap more than every once in a while.

Thank you for your time in trying to help me out in becoming a better Monk tank.

I have to agree on the fact that I am tracking stagger with just a color. I will try out Sunnier or something else, but around what % of my health would you consider using PB? Or does that depend on the boss?

I also have to agree that I might spam jab too much and adapt on fights to focus more in taking big damage.

I currently have 4.5k haste, but I think I will try out 8k haste to see how that feels/goes. If tanking then still is an issue I might need to change to a mastery build for 25m hc tanking.

[kaiadam]

I don't know, we tried it with different classes, and the best option for us was still me, a Brewmaster. I literally delete the Paragon I'm using the Scorpion buff on.

Any other tank class is better as a scorpion than we are.

1.) Paragons hit hard enough that you won't be able to have 2 minutes worth of shuffle banked for the fight, which is how much time you spend in scorp mode. You'll likely also spend some time tanking Korven, and your shuffle bank generally doesn't go up during that period.
2.) Monks have the worst AFK defense of all tank classes, which is essentially what happens when you're in scorp mode. Basically only armor and passives separating you from being splatted (no shuffle as per #1), and we have the worst armor by far of all the tanks.
3.) Monks have a 15% passive damage nerf which applies to scorpion form. This basically balances out our crit, such that the str tanks and monks do roughly equal amounts of scorpion damage. Bears do massively more than the other tanks due to ~85% passive crit and no weakness aura.

We're a better choice than a nontank for sure, but unless you've got two brewmasters in the raid, let the other tank pick the thing up imo.

[Shamanberry]

I have to agree on the fact that I am tracking stagger with just a color. I will try out Sunnier or something else, but around what % of my health would you consider using PB? Or does that depend on the boss?

Largely depends on the boss. I'll usually start feeling like I NEED to purify around 125-130%, but some bosses just don't hit hard enough to get you there that often, so on those fights you'd be sitting on a massive stagger bank for no good reason if you skipped out on purifying all together. In those cases, you can hit it earlier, particularly if you can do so when the rest of the raid may be taking damage to help out your healers a bit (e.g., if you're tanking one of the easier ones on Paragons and a Calculate goes out, you can clear out even a lower stagger when you start to dip on health and get a 4pc/healing elixirs heal at the same time - so long as shuffle isn't going to fall off in the process).

[Bonsaii]

So, I don't understand what is wrong with our brewmaster. He seems squishy and he doesn't seem to put out the damage he should be. It's to the point where it's hard to justify bringing him to raids.

Armory
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...n/Jaeve/simple

Heroic 1-9
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-aopdxdrxtvhyfd0z/

Heroic Blackfuse
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-pt3lm6489lssi5cr/

[Deleted]

So, I don't understand what is wrong with our brewmaster. He seems squishy and he doesn't seem to put out the damage he should be. It's to the point where it's hard to justify bringing him to raids.

After a quick glance, it seems to me he's not grasped the basics. His gemming is all over the place, his Shuffle uptime on some fights is abysmal, he's missing out on a lot of potential Keg Smashes by not using it on CD and his cooldown usage is questionable, as are his talent choises for some fights (Diffuse Magic on Nazgrim ?!). He's basically doing very little to actively reduce big spikes such as a 4 stack Froststorm Strike on Shamans or Jugg's Flame Vents, which is most likely the cause to his "squishyness".

[Deleted]

Siegecrafter stacks go to 10. As far as paragon tips, monks probably aren't the best class to use the scorpion vehicle. Other than that, I don't know what the major differences between 10 and 25 there are, other than less targets for fiery edge, more room to spread out.

A monk would actually be my second choice after a Guardian Druid to take the Scorpion. For some bizarre reason, Monk mastery seems to still work while in it, so monks can successfully go scorpion even while tanking a boss like Ka'roz or Kil'ruk, whereas a paladin or warrior is likely to simply get demolished, and nobody should be bringing a DK to the fight to begin with.

[Bonsaii]

After a quick glance, it seems to me he's not grasped the basics. His gemming is all over the place, his Shuffle uptime on some fights is abysmal, he's missing out on a lot of potential Keg Smashes by not using it on CD and his cooldown usage is questionable, as are his talent choises for some fights (Diffuse Magic on Nazgrim ?!). He's basically doing very little to actively reduce big spikes such as a 4 stack Froststorm Strike on Shamans or Jugg's Flame Vents, which is most likely the cause to his "squishyness".

That's what I was afraid of. Man I'm tired of people who don't understand their class. We've rotated through like 4 or 5 monks now because they get benched for similar issues.

How do you recommend I try and change him? We need a dependable tank right now.

[Promdates]

A monk would actually be my second choice after a Guardian Druid to take the Scorpion. For some bizarre reason, Monk mastery seems to still work while in it, so monks can successfully go scorpion even while tanking a boss like Ka'roz or Kil'ruk, whereas a paladin or warrior is likely to simply get demolished, and nobody should be bringing a DK to the fight to begin with.

In order for you to take less damage as a brewmaster than a warrior doing scorpion duty, you would need at least 8485 UNBUFFED mastery and 22434 armor. This also doesn't include the Blackout Kick shuffle bonus of 20%. Since as Kaiadam pointed out, you probably won't have that much banked (I can't say for certain, as I haven't done the fight as a brewmaster, only a warrior) for you to last through the duration of scorpion. On top of that, you're going to be taking ticking stagger dot damage as well. So while you will take less damage up front than a warrior, you will still take more damage overall than a warrior.

Using a 3m damage hit, 22,434 armor 11,485 buffed mastery comparing to 80,034 armor warrior

3,000,000*.75*.9*.7224*(1-(.2+.1696))= 922,135
3,000,000*.75*.9*.4554= 922,185

Lets also not forget that while in scorpion you can still proc riposte as a warrior, and you have no negative damage output multiplier that you would as a brewmaster. As a comparison a druid with 22,039 caster armor will take 794,534 damage from that 3m, and a paladin with 70,110 armor will take 1,042,848 damage.

So, Druids>Warriors>Monks for scorpion damage taken (and probably damage done too). For comparison, my Monk with 20% mastery would be taking 877,731 damage per 3m swing, but would also take another 212k damage per stagger tick. Which ends up still higher than what my warrior would take.