The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[SurrealNight]

While I'm really enjoying Monk tanking, I can always look back over at my Blood DK and say "she can periodically have her entire HP as a shield when offtanking, doesn't take a CD to turn it on, doesn't have a CD on it, has decent static dodge and parry, and far more HP than a Monk." It feels a bit scary to look at magic damage incoming and knowing that another tank with less ilvl than me has as much as 100k more health to survive it than I do with similar cooldowns.

For 10m I went through all of MSV, HoF, and ToeS without a stam meta, stam trinket, or stam gem. I'm right about 500k now with stam food + agil flask. Don't worry about your HP unless you are a) undergeared for the instance you are tanking b) pushing heavy hitting heroics c) possibly 25m vs 10m but those reports vary.

Considering we have a 30-35% dodge buff (In your face thrash), a CD that cuts 3 atks in half (In your face Overwhelming assault), and Stagger soaks 100% of attacks that do hit basically giving us 100% CTC by default, there isn't much to worry about. Only time I've seen tank issues with my groups was H Gara and that was losing DPS while the DK was tanking, I just hit EB for each Shadowy Attacks and yawned through it (well not yawned I think that fight is incredibly fun as a BrM).

Keeping your buffs up properly and smart use of our limited CD's will get you really far. On magic fights save your CD's for breaths (Fort Brew, Diffuse Magic, Zen Med, Glyph'd Guard), I barely notice Tsulong or H Elegon's breaths. The only fight that really sucks for us in Lei Shi but that fight just sucks all around and doesn't ruin the fact there are a ton of fights we excel at.

Just keep some stam trinkets in your and if a LW some threads to swap out enchants and if EH becomes an issue swap to them. Usually when someone posts "Why am I so squishy?" you look at the logs and easily see it's due to poor buff uptime, CD use, and sitting at high levels of stagger to long.

[Kisho]

It's easy to look at other tanks and wonder why they can do some things so much better than us and consider us weaker tanks as a result. But the thing to remember is that we're much stronger in other areas.

Brewmasters are brilliant tanks once you learn them. I think we all go through a period where we're wondering wtf we're doing, seem to be terrible tanks, take loads of damage etc... But then you just 'get' it, and it all falls into place. Keep at it if you're enjoying the theme of Brewmasters, they're very rewarding once you learn it.

[Promdates]

What ^ that man said. Coming from Paladin, Bear, and DK tanking from WotLK and Cata... I wasn't looking forward to learning yet another tanking class. Much less with the new tanking style. Then I was forced into it by my guild as a 3rd backup tank (now the second tank behind our DK while our Paladin is out due to real life injuries), and it's been a blast.

Once you get it, if you're historically a tank, you'll probably love it.

[herpecin]

Also doesn't help that other tanks are probably gemming/enchanting for stamina, while we gem for other things.

really only LFR tanks do this, no class actually likes stam for tanking(the other 4 are all mastery post hit/exp i believe).

while my prot pally companion does have like 150k more buffed health then me, i take less damage then her and actually do more HPS.

[TheWindWalker]

Once you get it, if you're historically a tank, you'll probably love it.

That's mostly the issue. The only tanking I'd done before this was Blood DK in Cata, and that wasn't very often, the constant self-healing nature of their "rotation" is a lot safer and easier to handle. Thing is, on a physical-only fight my Monk is beautiful comparitively. The ability to have end-of-expansion Dodge/Parry stats before you're even geared is fantastic.

[Ampere]

I have a question regarding Gara'jal. It's not a huge deal, but I'm curious and I have not been able to definitively figure it out.

Does anyone know if Stagger ticks generate damage to Voodoo Doll targets? I don't think it does, but I haven't been able to confirm or deny it. Only thing it would change is how I prioritize Purifying vs Chi Wave when my Stagger isn't terribly high.

logs to check here

edit: is there a bug with tracking shuffle uptime on gara'jal? it was certainly a lot higher than 25%

[alucardtnuoc]

I have a question regarding Gara'jal. It's not a huge deal, but I'm curious and I have not been able to definitively figure it out.

Does anyone know if Stagger ticks generate damage to Voodoo Doll targets? I don't think it does, but I haven't been able to confirm or deny it. Only thing it would change is how I prioritize Purifying vs Chi Wave when my Stagger isn't terribly high.

logs to check here

edit: is there a bug with tracking shuffle uptime on gara'jal? it was certainly a lot higher than 25%

If the logs aren't generated by you, their will be a discrepancy in the numbers due to you getting banished or the person who is uploading logs gets banished. When you're banished you don't get other players info unless they are with you too.

[Ampere]

If the logs aren't generated by you, their will be a discrepancy in the numbers due to you getting banished or the person who is uploading logs gets banished. When you're banished you don't get other players info unless they are with you too.

Yeah that is true, but I did upload the logs I linked, so it seems odd.

[Promdates]

Does anyone know if Stagger ticks generate damage to Voodoo Doll targets?

Going through the log you linked, it looks like Stagger ticks do in fact do damage to the Voodoo targets.

[00:56:58.556] Amp Stagger Amp 13804 (A: 9346)
[00:56:58.774] Amp Voodoo Dolls Shadowsquall 13804
[00:56:58.774] Amp Voodoo Dolls Totemic Absorb (13804)
[00:56:59.536] Amp Stagger Amp 23149
[00:56:59.592] Amp Voodoo Dolls Shadowsquall 23149
[00:56:59.592] Amp Voodoo Dolls Totemic 8792 (A: 14357)
[00:57:00.353] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder Right Cross Amp Parry
[00:57:00.548] Amp Stagger Amp 23149
[00:57:00.796] Amp Voodoo Dolls Shadowsquall 23149
[00:57:00.796] Amp Voodoo Dolls Totemic 23149

[Ampere]

Going through the log you linked, it looks like Stagger ticks do in fact do damage to the Voodoo targets.

Thanks for the help, I'm a bit surprised that it does mirror stagger damage.

Could you explain how to browse the logs in that way? I've tried using the "Log Browser" setting, but I can't seem to view more than a small portion of the beginning of the fight.

[SurrealNight]

Thanks for the help, I'm a bit surprised that it does mirror stagger damage.

Could you explain how to browse the logs in that way? I've tried using the "Log Browser" setting, but I can't seem to view more than a small portion of the beginning of the fight.

It's not surprising the power says ALL damage is redirected to the Voodoo Doll targets, Stagger is just a debuff cast by us on ourself, it's still considered incoming damage like any other source. The benefit is we can control how much of that damage goes out.

Use the Expression Editor > Build Query, you can start with something like sourceName = "Amp" and then add OR statements with what your looking to track. There are a bazillion things you can do with the editor. Might want to read the forums a little for how to build different searches (sourceName, sourceType, target ect can all be confusing what to use).

Not 100% sure what code promdate used sure he could post it easy.

[TheWindWalker]

It's not surprising the power says ALL damage is redirected to the Voodoo Doll targets, Stagger is just a debuff cast by us on ourself, it's still considered incoming damage like any other source. The benefit is we can control how much of that damage goes out.

I guess the only question is, if that "all" doesn't include damage from the Voodoo Doll's effect, as that would cause an infinite loop pretty fast, doesn't Stagger technically cause 20% extra damage from the tank to be cycled back out to the other "dolls" that otherwise wouldn't have been?

[Promdates]

On heroic, 100% of the damage you take is given to the Voodoo doll targets as well. If you have 47% stagger, when the boss hits you, you take 53% of the damage. The voodoo dolls also take 100% of that 53% damage. Each time your stagger dot ticks, the voodoo dolls will take 100% of that stagger dot. This is what makes monks one of the best classes for the fight, as you can fully control how much damage the raid will take from your stagger. Because of that and shields, the raid can end up taking very little damage overall.

[TheWindWalker]

On heroic, 100% of the damage you take is given to the Voodoo doll targets as well.

I wasn't even thinking of the boss specifically, my question was about the other dolled targets getting hit by the "adds." If one of the "shadow bolts" hits them, everyone shares in that damage, don't they? If so, then the tank's stagger takes a tiny bit of that he recieved from everyone else that got hit by it and redistributes it again.

[thedr8993]

I wasn't even thinking of the boss specifically, my question was about the other dolled targets getting hit by the "adds." If one of the "shadow bolts" hits them, everyone shares in that damage, don't they? If so, then the tank's stagger takes a tiny bit of that he recieved from everyone else that got hit by it and redistributes it again.

No. Look at the fight again. That's not how the mechanic works.

[Valsh]

Proper usage of Elusive brew and dampen harm on his Shadowy Attacks reduces the damage dolls take to almost nothing, don't get bogged down worrying about stagger or his normal swings.

[TheWindWalker]

No. Look at the fight again. That's not how the mechanic works.

According to the dungeon journal it's "A Voodoo Doll copies 70%(100%H) of their damage received to all other Voodoo Dolls in the raid." Are you saying there's an unlisted asterisk clause along the lines of "*only damage from Gara'jal himself is copied?" Otherwise, my point stands. Adds hit the dolled people, they each take 70% of each other's add damage, stagger copies 20% and that gets spread out too.

Mind you, this is mostly out of curiosity. A single chi and the stagger's gone so it's not really something to worry about.

[Kisho]

It's bad wording. By that it means damage the tank takes is redistributed to the other dolls. It doesn't go the other way around.

[Promdates]

Looking through our last 25H Gara'jal kill, the majority of the time the tank is taking damage and giving it to the raid. There are a few instances where the other voodoo dolls will take some damage, and it gets diverted to the tank. Turns out, it's because of Spirit Link Totem.

If you're worried about the phased adds that shoot shadowbolts at the raid, don't be. As long as you're sending down the right people to kill them, you should be more than fine.

[SurrealNight]

Mind you, this is mostly out of curiosity. A single chi and the stagger's gone so it's not really something to worry about.

From the log post stagger was passing on 13-24k damage to the dolls, that isn't much on a heroic fight. It's his Shadow Attacks + a follow up melee hit that pops your DPS/Healers. I don't clear stagger any different than other fights and can't think of a single time one of the dolls exploded while I was tanking.