The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Anzen]

Even if i used it as an avoidance CD i would have to hit it regardless if i need it or not or i would end up wasting stacks.

Wasting Stacks > Not having EB when you need it most.

[trystero]

So what if you 'waste stacks'? That doesn't mean anything. It's not like you take extra damage, or have a lower shot at loot, or threaten to cause a wipe, because you're capped at 15 EB stacks when not tanking the boss. Seriously, that's such a wrong way of thinking. You pool EB to 15, take the boss, pop it, and proceed from there. That's basic.

[Gemini Soul]

So what if you 'waste stacks'? That doesn't mean anything. It's not like you take extra damage, or have a lower shot at loot, or threaten to cause a wipe, because you're capped at 15 EB stacks when not tanking the boss. Seriously, that's such a wrong way of thinking. You pool EB to 15, take the boss, pop it, and proceed from there. That's basic.

Was talking about wasting stacks when i have the boss on me, not when i don't.

[Promdates]

There are honestly times where you might not want to use EB, so having it macro'd to another ability would be bad as it forces you to lose full control over when you actually want to use it.

I'm pretty certain everyone here can't figure out why you would want to macro it to any other ability, even if you say you use it on cooldown.

[Rainbowdash]

If i macro it to BoK can use BoF when not tanking, when tanking i always keep it on CD anyways to get maximum up time on it.

Even if i used it as an avoidance CD i would have to hit it regardless if i need it or not or i would end up wasting stacks.

you don't want to use BOF single target even if you're not tanking. BOK is more damage and stacks up your Shuffle pool.

The ONLY reason that macroing EB MIGHT work is if you have so much gear that you're just overflowing with EB and it doesn't matter if you waste it. It's a really bad habit to get into.

[The Madgod]

If i macro it to BoK can use BoF when not tanking, when tanking i always keep it on CD anyways to get maximum up time on it.

Even if i used it as an avoidance CD i would have to hit it regardless if i need it or not or i would end up wasting stacks.

When you aren't actively tanking things that's when you should be maximizing your EB and Shuffle stacks so that you don't have to worry about those when you regain aggro.

Breath of Fire is by and large not as efficient a DPS tool on single target boss encounters and it can potentially open up risk of having shuffle fall off. The only time it's really useful is when you're supposed to AoE down adds in addition to dealing damage to the boss and if your shuffle is in a very safe place (>30-60 seconds).

It's far better to waste EB uptime and take a bit more easily healable damage than to use your stacks too early and leave yourself open to a fatal blow.

Was talking about wasting stacks when i have the boss on me, not when i don't.

And as I said, there are fights where you do want to save it. Wasting stacks via macroing can be akin to playing Russian Roulette depending on the encounter.

[Totaltotemic]

Here's a list of when timing EB properly over using it automatically is objectively better:


Immerseus: Doesn't matter, does no tank damage anyways.

Fallen Protectors: The tail end of tanking the Anguish makes EB far more important than using it at the beginning, this is one of the very few things that can kill you as a tank in the first few bosses.

Norushen: Doesn't matter, you tank for 60 seconds at a time so maximizing EB uptime is actually the best way to go.

Sha of Pride: You only tank for 30 seconds at a time, at 40% or more Crit if you use 15 stacks of EB the second you taunt you can cover the entire duration of tanking.

Galakras: Irrelevant, most significant tank damage is magic.

Iron Juggernaut: Again most tank damage is magic, but you should be covering the entire span of time from 2 stack to 3 stacks with EB or you risk dying.

Dark Shamans: See Sha of Pride, another 30 second tanking interval.

Nazgrim: See Sha of Pride, another 30 second tanking interval.

Malkorok: See Sha of Pride, another 30 second tanking interval.

Spoils: Irrelevant, almost no melee damage matters.

Thok: See Sha of Pride, another 30 second tanking interval.

Siegecrafter Blackfuse: Time with Protective Frenzy, failure to do so can get you killed.

Paragons: DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY USE EB IF TANKING RIKKAL AND YOU NEED PARASITES, not to mention that only a few of the bosses actually AA, and the 2 that AA the hardest (Kil'ruk and Karoz) only actually hit you half the time. Timing EB properly is absolutely required on this fight.

Garrosh: Like Sha of Pride, but only a 15 second tanking interval. If Garrosh hits you without having EB up even at 30% or lower crit, you're being lazy.


This is the world of active mitigation, and this is how tanking has worked since MoP launched. Timing it properly will be better than using it automatically most of the time. Since there is no button that you only press regularly when you are tanking that you do not press when not tanking, there is no efficient way to constantly use all incoming stacks of EB while tanking, but not waste them when not tanking.

[trystero]

There's just no advantage to macro'ing it at all on a gameplay level. Zilch. At the absolute best, in rare circumstances, it's equal to not macro'ing it. Such a macro like that is only there to compensate for weak/poor play. Consequently it can never be (properly) advised to do.

[Deleted]

Great guide, helped me a lot, ty!

[Deleted]

I was able to bring in my Brewmaster alt to Normals last Thursday and cleared 12 bosses.
I noticed that the DK tank, Leftbrain, took way less damage than me on Iron Juggernaut - Warcraftlogs. His itemlevel 567'ish.

Monk's Armory

My question: did I take that much more damage because of me screwing up (if so, with what?), the difference in ilvl or difference in classes?

If you find anything else to improve on, much appreciated! Fell nearly asleep on Dark Shaman though, just glad we didn't wipe.

Thanks!

[trystero]

I was able to bring in my Brewmaster alt to Normals last Thursday and cleared 12 bosses.
I noticed that the DK tank, Leftbrain, took way less damage than me on Iron Juggernaut - Warcraftlogs. His itemlevel 567'ish.

Monk's Armory

My question: did I take that much more damage because of me screwing up (if so, with what?), the difference in ilvl or difference in classes?

If you find anything else to improve on, much appreciated! Fell nearly asleep on Dark Shaman though, just glad we didn't wipe.

Thanks!

I didn't go into a lot of detail, but you took that much more damage because you pulled the boss. Then after Seismic Phase you took the boss first again (he technically took the first melee swing, but you taunted the boss immediately basically and suffered Flame Vents). Consequently you took almost 3x as much damage as he did from Ignite Armor. Then there's AM. Because of a DK's AM on that content, interacting with his avoidance, he took literally 128k damage in melee swings excluding absorbs.

This doesn't mean you were playing perfectly, I didn't look much into your play, but it explains the gap. I did notice when looking at melee damage taken that you avoided almost 2/3rds of the total attacks and staggered the rest with Shuffle (97% uptime), so this means you're using Elusive Brew frequently.

Overall damage taken is one of the most worthless stats to use in logs, especially when comparing different classes.

[Deleted]

I didn't go into ... when comparing different classes.

Works for me! Thanks for your quick reply and logical explanation

[Babylonius]

I am noticing a trend through Brewmasters that I find disturbing. Similar to the trend of WW's taking AMR's stat values as optimal without looking.

Many new Brewmasters are reading guides, posts, discussions, etc. and looking at armories of top BrM and seeing full Crit gemming. This prompts them to do so without understanding why. They may even think they understand why and believe that it is the optimal survivability path. The thought of Mastery and stam being for survivability was replaced with "enough" mastery/stam to survive any given hit, and now seems to be interpreted as "ignore mastery/stam, gem Crit" (Critpnotoad). Even discussions educating new Brewmasters point them toward gemming Crit and saying that you don't need much haste or much mastery.

The truth of this matter is that Crit provides nearly no defensive capability when compared to other stats. Yes, it provides Elusive Brew to the autoattack crit cap, but this simply increases your dodge by 20% while the buff is up. There are times, no matter how much crit you have, that you wont' get crits and EB will fall off. Even at the high end of gear (Daught) With EB he has roughly 55% chance to avoid, with EB up. This means he has 45% chance to take the full hit. Anyone below the 583 ilvl will have even less of a chance to avoid hits. If you get hit then your % of crit does nothing for you.

Mastery helps mitigate physical damage, Stam helps you stay alive through big hits, Haste helps you purify away your stagger. These are the real defensive stats, in order of significance. Crit is for DPS, the top monks gem for Crit because they want to do more DPS, not because it helps them survive. If someone wants to survive or increase their chance of surviving then the push should be to gem fro Mastery/Stam.

I feel that many need to stop suggesting that people set up for Crit when they complain they are taking too much damage or can't survive. Its not always the healers fault, it could be that they don't have enough haste to purify with their playstyle, or enough mastery to split up a big attack or series of attacks. Crit helps lessen the chance for bad luck to about 40-45%. I've done alt runs with Brewmasters who can't understand why they struggle to stay alive, or a burden to healers, when they are geared 100% into Crit. They don't believe me when I try to tell them they need to get more Mastery or Stam, or more haste to purify more because ___ of <____> gems full Crit and they're 14/14H so they clearly don't die.

Unless you're a top monk who can play with 4.5k haste while still having enough Chi to purify whenever, have great healers able to keep you up through everything, or enough single CD's in your raid to survive all the big hits, you're going to need more Mastery/Stam/Haste than the ideal.

[Promdates]

Unless you're a top monk who can play with 4.5k haste while still having enough Chi to purify whenever, have great healers able to keep you up through everything, or enough single CD's in your raid to survive all the big hits, you're going to need more Mastery/Stam/Haste than the ideal.

The difference between a top monk, and a middle ground monk is night and day. There's never a reason to copy the build of a high raiding monk, because often times it's for specific situations or for their raid comp. I for a while ran with 20% mastery buffed because it made malkorok easier, and up until we started working on siegecrafter/paragons, I didn't fully trust some of our outside cooldowns for clutch situations.

Crit itself is point for point better for damage reduction up until you reach the EB cap. The reasoning is because you totally remove that damage, not soak it via stagger. Most Brewmasters go DW, which means their EB cap is considerably lower than if they were 2h. So they think they're doing a good thing by stacking more crit and thinking it's doing some good, when it's actually against them. Once you reach that point though, the next best form of damage reduction is mastery with enough haste to purify as often as needed. It also totally varies if they're doing 10m or 25m raids. As 25m bosses melee for a chunk more than 10s.

[Rockets]

EB's 30%, not 20%, but yeah, agreed otherwise.

[trystero]

Brewmasters and crit amuse me. For prot paladins, crit has basically zero survivability value and hence it is never recommended for progression. By contrast, there's the Brewmaster community where crit is pretty much the go-to stat recommended at all levels. The difference in survivability for crit between paladins and monks is not nearly wide enough to justify this gulf. Native crit is essentially good enough to maintain high EB uptime. I'll say essentially, because I have no math behind it and do not know "for sure," but on my BrM alt (560), geared mostly for mastery, he has no trouble generating plentiful Elusive Brew stacks. There's no reason to "stack" crit to the extent that so many players do - all of that stacking deals more damage, that's about it, equivalent to a prot paladin stacking crit - which you will very, very rarely see on progression.

We've gone through many tanks in my guild this tier, and two of them were brewmasters who could barely survive Nazgrim 25H. Embarrassingly neither could soak Malkorok's Blood Rage. When I investigated their logs I had to admit they were playing pretty well outside of Blood Rage; 95%+ Shuffle uptimes, frequent casts of EH/DH, purifying big staggers, using EB, etc. They had leaks, obviously, but none to explain such crippling performances. Then I checked armories and saw a lot of nonsense, all crit stacking, dual DPS trinkets, etc. When I pointed this out to them they both responded the same way, this is what top monks do and our healers need to keep them alive. They've since been gkicked, but the misconception floored me.

Gearing is part of a tank's skill and toolkit. When a tank has trouble surviving, it is his job to troubleshoot why. Unfortunately for most players it ends with "I didn't get heals."

[Totaltotemic]

Brewmasters and crit amuse me. For prot paladins, crit has basically zero survivability value and hence it is never recommended for progression. By contrast, there's the Brewmaster community where crit is pretty much the go-to stat recommended at all levels. The difference in survivability for crit between paladins and monks is not nearly wide enough to justify this gulf. Native crit is essentially good enough to maintain high EB uptime. I'll say essentially, because I have no math behind it and do not know "for sure," but on my BrM alt (560), geared mostly for mastery, he has no trouble generating plentiful Elusive Brew stacks. There's no reason to "stack" crit to the extent that so many players do - all of that stacking deals more damage, that's about it, equivalent to a prot paladin stacking crit - which you will very, very rarely see on progression.

We've gone through many tanks in my guild this tier, and two of them were brewmasters who could barely survive Nazgrim 25H. Embarrassingly neither could soak Malkorok's Blood Rage. When I investigated their logs I had to admit they were playing pretty well outside of Blood Rage; 95%+ Shuffle uptimes, frequent casts of EH/DH, purifying big staggers, using EB, etc. They had leaks, obviously, but none to explain such crippling performances. Then I checked armories and saw a lot of nonsense, all crit stacking, dual DPS trinkets, etc. When I pointed this out to them they both responded the same way, this is what top monks do and our healers need to keep them alive. They've since been gkicked, but the misconception floored me.

Gearing is part of a tank's skill and toolkit. When a tank has trouble surviving, it is his job to troubleshoot why. Unfortunately for most players it ends with "I didn't get heals."

If you knew anything about BrMs you'd know that no one stacks crit for survivability because that's stupid, it doesn't even give any more survivability past 60%. Even at 0% crit mastery is still a better survival stat. The only reason people go for Crit is because BrM is overpowered in terms of tankiness and doesn't actually have to devote many stats to being tanky. Bad BrMs of course cannot take advantage of this natural tankiness because it requires more skill than any other tank's mitigation kit does.

It's really just a symptom of the ever-growing plague of people looking at "top" players and assuming they can just copy what they're doing and it'll work. Because you can pass for decent doing that on most classes, people that have no business raiding at their level of understanding of the game end up in raiding guilds and it takes a while to figure out that they've really just been faking it the whole time.

[Babylonius]

Crit itself is point for point better for damage reduction up until you reach the EB cap. The reasoning is because you totally remove that damage, not soak it via stagger.

I'm not entirely sold on this because as I said previously, in an ideal world with everything going for you, you'll still have 40% chance to take the full damage. Crit works toward minimizing the chance of damage, but not minimizing the damage itself. Mastery and health work to remove the risk by being able to survive any hit(s) you take.

Someone with 15% avoidance and 476 ilvl COULD tank H Garrosh if luck was on their side (exaggerated example), but in reality, they can't because its statistically impossible to be that lucky. This means you have to have the Mastery and health to survive in case the chance works against you. On the other side, someone with 75% avoidance COULD be killed by a trash mob if they don't have the other stats to survive it. The statistical chance of the latter happening is much much much larger than the former.

The goal should be to gem for enough EH to survive any damage you could possibly take, then get Crit to minimize the chance to take that damage, THEN get more EH to make life easier on healers. Getting enough crit doesn't mean anything if there is a 30% chance you will die in two hits. Would you rather a tank have a 20% chance to die and 80% chance to take no damage every hit, 30% chance to take no damage and 0% chance to take no damage.

Brewmasters were designed around smooth damage, using Shuffle/Stagger to smooth out damage spikes making them more regular and easier to heal. They should hypothetically be most people's favorite tank to heal because its predictable. By ignoring Mastery and going full Crit you're defeating the purpose of why Monks tank, and making them very spikey. This is why many will say that BrM is their least favorite tank to heal, due to so many setting up for spikes rather than smooth.

[Promdates]

Brewmasters were designed around smooth damage, using Shuffle/Stagger to smooth out damage spikes making them more regular and easier to heal. They should hypothetically be most people's favorite tank to heal because its predictable. By ignoring Mastery and going full Crit you're defeating the purpose of why Monks tank, and making them very spikey. This is why many will say that BrM is their least favorite tank to heal, due to so many setting up for spikes rather than smooth.

Preaching to the choir on this one. I have been an advocate of using mastery since early T16, yet the entirety of this forum was so instilled that mastery had no significant value, that it often went on deaf ears. Again, it does make a difference between 10H and 25H. People doing 10H content will look towards mastery less just because the amount of damage they take is less than what a 25H monk would take. It's not uncommon to see 10H monks ignore mastery as much as possible, while 25H monks might pick up enough to make sure they can survive the big hits.

At this point in content though, you're not going to want to pick up more EH. You're going to be trying to pick up more damage. It's why you see some Prot Paladins picking up crit in favor of mastery. They have the haste amount and they don't need more mastery, but want the crit to do more damage and speed up clears/kills.

Also, since we're talking about effective health, it surprises me to see some people still use the Fort Brew glyph as it's an effective health loss by using it. You would have to have a small amount of health and take a massive amount of damage in order for the 5% extra DR to make up for the hp loss.

[trystero]

If you knew anything about BrMs you'd know that no one stacks crit for survivability because that's stupid, it doesn't even give any more survivability past 60%. Even at 0% crit mastery is still a better survival stat. The only reason people go for Crit is because BrM is overpowered in terms of tankiness and doesn't actually have to devote many stats to being tanky. Bad BrMs of course cannot take advantage of this natural tankiness because it requires more skill than any other tank's mitigation kit does.

It's really just a symptom of the ever-growing plague of people looking at "top" players and assuming they can just copy what they're doing and it'll work. Because you can pass for decent doing that on most classes, people that have no business raiding at their level of understanding of the game end up in raiding guilds and it takes a while to figure out that they've really just been faking it the whole time.

...did you read anything I wrote?

Because I'm pretty sure nothing you wrote disagreed with anything I said, except maybe your belief that brewmasters don't stack crit for survivability. Why the masses of brewmasters stack crit, I don't personally know, I'm not privy to their thought processes, opinions, and motivations. What seems clear is that they don't understand what they're doing. So try to find a meaningful point of disagreement next time before you come out swinging with some bizarre allegation that I know nothing about brewmasters.

If you believe though that the ONLY reason anyone stacks crit is for damage then you're wrong. I've personally raided with two who believed crit was a "survivability stat" and I've talked to many others who do as well. That is the misconception which I was directly addressing. Maybe good players stack crit with the exclusive intention to deal superior damage, but clearly my post was not about good players, nor was Babylonius's.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not convinced either that brewmaster mitigation requires "more skill" than that of other tanks. You basically won't ever take a fully unmitigated melee swing by virtue of using your rotation.

It's like playing cribbage. Someone who doesn't know the fundamentals, like counting points, what to throw in the crib, etc will get demolished, akin to a monk who can't maintain Shuffle. But once someone understands the basics, and doesn't make total rookie mistakes, they're all but guaranteed to win ~40% of games against even an expert player. That logic to some degree applies to all tanks, but I do think there's a wider gap between, say, good and excellent prot paladins as opposed to good and great brewmasters.