Brewmaster getting discouraged with tanking

[Toddrick]

Hello, everyone. I switched to a monk after years of playing a tankadin. I have done tons of research on the class. My armory (may have logged out in Windwalker but the gear is the same except I have a second trinket that is reforged to Expertise to hit the hardcap). I FEEL like I am doing everything right albeit failure to sit down and work on my weakauras to ensure better shuffle uptime (guildie said world of logs had me at 60% on some fights) and to resist spending chi on other things such as chi wave (am I the only one who loves its sound? pew...pew...).

I am being hounded by SOME members of my guild. "We are going to hardmodes soon. Why is your damage intake so spiky? Why are you taking SOOO much more damage because world of logs says so? Why do you have the darkmoon dps trinket and not the tanking one? Blah blah blah."

So, I provided them numerous links to sources such as the brewmaster guide here, icy-veins, noxxic, etc. even linking the brewmaster from Method to show how some of the top end brewmasters stat prioritize. Heck, I even linked them a post about how World of Logs was incorrect and showing that I was taking MUCH more damage than I actually was due to how shuffle was being treated. I told them that Recount has me neck in neck with the other tanks on damage taken. Sure, my health pool is a little lower but my dps is MUCH higher.

Pretty much, should I just give in and reforge/gem/enchant everything for Mastery like some are claiming I should do to prove my point? Should I say "screw tanking", even though I don't mind tanking and somewhat enjoy it, and switch to DPS (which I was top DPS on our first Tay'ak kill last night)?

[Bodakane]

Hello, everyone. I switched to a monk after years of playing a tankadin. I have done tons of research on the class. My armory (may have logged out in Windwalker but the gear is the same except I have a second trinket that is reforged to Expertise to hit the hardcap). I FEEL like I am doing everything right albeit failure to sit down and work on my weakauras to ensure better shuffle uptime (guildie said world of logs had me at 60% on some fights) and to resist spending chi on other things such as chi wave (am I the only one who loves its sound? pew...pew...).

I am being hounded by SOME members of my guild. "We are going to hardmodes soon. Why is your damage intake so spiky? Why are you taking SOOO much more damage because world of logs says so? Why do you have the darkmoon dps trinket and not the tanking one? Blah blah blah."

So, I provided them numerous links to sources such as the brewmaster guide here, icy-veins, noxxic, etc. even linking the brewmaster from Method to show how some of the top end brewmasters stat prioritize. Heck, I even linked them a post about how World of Logs was incorrect and showing that I was taking MUCH more damage than I actually was due to how shuffle was being treated. I told them that Recount has me neck in neck with the other tanks on damage taken. Sure, my health pool is a little lower but my dps is MUCH higher.

Pretty much, should I just give in and reforge/gem/enchant everything for Mastery like some are claiming I should do to prove my point? Should I say "screw tanking", even though I don't mind tanking and somewhat enjoy it, and switch to DPS (which I was top DPS on our first Tay'ak kill last night)?

If you know you're shuffle uptime is low, then why are you asking about spiky damage?

You're basically saying, I know my single most important mitigation tool has a low uptime, but why is my damage spiky...........

[Zene]

Doesn't take long to go look up current weak aura setups and use them for yourself... I use some of these ones here. http://sunniersartofwar.com/blog/201...er-weak-auras/

Also, while you're there check out: http://sunniersartofwar.com/blog/201...-tanking-tips/

You don't want to blindly be using your abilities on cool down, although a shuffle uptime of 60% does sound like you need to improve it. :P That could explain why you get spiky damage intake.

[fizzbob]

if you're in melee range shuffle should be up

stop wasting mitigation resources on BoF, doesn't dot the boss. you know you have been.

[Alvito]

Doesn't take long to go look up current weak aura setups and use them for yourself... I use some of these ones here. http://sunniersartofwar.com/blog/201...er-weak-auras/

Also, while you're there check out: http://sunniersartofwar.com/blog/201...-tanking-tips/

You don't want to blindly be using your abilities on cool down, although a shuffle uptime of 60% does sound like you need to improve it. :P That could explain why you get spiky damage intake.

Thanks for the links and info Zene, having limited BM experience this should help me and my guildies and friends.

[Zumzar]

World of Logs damage taken is bugged for Brewmasters. Damage taken should NOT be trusted. Brewmasters are perfectly fine, if not OP, right now if played correctly!

Try looking @ this thread to help you keep track of your active mitigations and CDs: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...v1-0-by-Zumzar

You could also check out some of my Brewmaster PoV videos. Maybe they're able to help you out.

Also, I would NOT go for the expertise hard cap at your gear level. Imho, don't go for the expertise hardcap untill you're @ ilvl ~490ish.

[Toddrick]

if you're in melee range shuffle should be up

stop wasting mitigation resources on BoF, doesn't dot the boss. you know you have been.

Umm, no. I have not been using BoF on boss fights...

[Audax]

I told them that Recount has me neck in neck with the other tanks on damage taken.

Recount does not count friendly fire under damage taken, and counts stagger as friendly fire. It's less of an annoying bug than worldoflogs not counting the damage reduction from stagger though, since you can just add the friendly fire damage to get the real value.

[NRL1515]

Also, I would NOT go for the expertise hard cap at your gear level. Imho, don't go for the expertise hardcap untill you're @ ilvl ~490ish.

What's your reasoning behind this? Is it because at lower ilvls haste and crit are more desirable?
My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...3%B4shi/simple

Before I started raiding (with all 463 gear) I got fairly close, ~13%, and I liked the feeling of having most of my abilities not being parried. As I collected more RF gear (as we were waiting on some guildies to gear up to start raiding, I hit 90 much earlier than most of them did) I started to take a lot of exp away to put me at soft caps.

I frequent these forums and I want to squeeze the most out of my BrM that I possibly can, and I would like to hear your POV on why to hold off hitting the hard cap?

[fizzbob]

Umm, no. I have not been using BoF on boss fights...

then what are you using instead of BOK? in heroic gear you're overlapping shuffle with more shuffle as long as you're in melee range. if you're not in melee range shuffle doesn't make a damn

---------- Post added 2012-11-09 at 03:19 PM ----------

What's your reasoning behind this? Is it because at lower ilvls haste and crit are more desirable?
My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...3%B4shi/simple

Before I started raiding (with all 463 gear) I got fairly close, ~13%, and I liked the feeling of having most of my abilities not being parried. As I collected more RF gear (as we were waiting on some guildies to gear up to start raiding, I hit 90 much earlier than most of them did) I started to take a lot of exp away to put me at soft caps.

I frequent these forums and I want to squeeze the most out of my BrM that I possibly can, and I would like to hear your POV on why to hold off hitting the hard cap?

most of your abilities aren't gonna be parried anyway, you won't feel a difference in dodge and parry caps

[Zumzar]

What's your reasoning behind this? Is it because at lower ilvls haste and crit are more desirable?
My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...3%B4shi/simple

Before I started raiding (with all 463 gear) I got fairly close, ~13%, and I liked the feeling of having most of my abilities not being parried. As I collected more RF gear (as we were waiting on some guildies to gear up to start raiding, I hit 90 much earlier than most of them did) I started to take a lot of exp away to put me at soft caps.

I frequent these forums and I want to squeeze the most out of my BrM that I possibly can, and I would like to hear your POV on why to hold off hitting the hard cap?

I'm sorry to say, but there's no EJ math behind my reasoning. I read EJ etc. and take mathematical evaluations into all (well, most) of my considerations, but at ~480 ilvl, I feel stats like Stamina, Haste and Crit are more valuable after expertise soft cap, for overall surviveability and tanking. And yes, I tried raiding with both options at around 480 ilvl.

Reaching the expertise hard cap at that gear level requires you to gem all expertise sockets, and reforge out of all haste/crit. This means you will be running around with gimped stats across the board except Expertise. At higher ilvls, your gear will be much better, and the hard cap will be easier to obtain, without sacrificing too much of everything else.

Getting a high amount of Haste is going to help you just as much in keeping up your active mitigation spells, through faster energy regen.

That being said, I can't wait till my own gear gets better and I hit the expertise hard cap. Expertise hard cap + 2x agility trinkets means one badass DPS.. I mean tank, in terms of DPS/HPS.

ps. If you're ONLY going for DPS, yes Expertise is the way to go, even at low ilvls -- but you are a tank after all.

/Zumzar

[Kamadenhu]

Well, the main thing that got me off of expertise hard cap was the re-evaluation of Gift of the Ox crits, and just reading my raid logs on worldoflogs and realizing how little healing I was really doing with Gift of the Ox.

Personally I have found my survivability to have gone up since I ditched the expertise hardcap for sure.