Monk tanking hard?

[Deleted]

Is the monk class difficult to tank on?

By difficult i mean whether or not you as the player should look out for a lot of buff/debuffs and how many skills you should be using in your rotation.

[TaxmanCDN]

I wouldn't recommend a monk for someone's first tank class. A well-played brewmaster is awesome. But a poorly played brewmaster is worse than any of the other tanks (equally poorly-played). A brewmaster has more to track than the other tanks, but its not terribly difficult. If you do your research ahead of time you should be fine. But if you're never tanked before and you already have to learn just how to play the role, I would suggest another class until you are comfortable tanking.

[lokatii]

All tanks are easy to play, having said that monks are the "hardest" of the easy. /shrug

[Traveler Voltin]

i say yes because i have slight lag. so its harder to keep the tank buff up for me.

Warrior, pally, and dk tanking easy for me personally.

never tried druid tanking past level 25

[Scinder]

All tanking classes are equally easy to play effectively.

Being a good tank is a different story. They are hard to find.

[britishbubba]

The difficulty of the brewmaster spec is probably the most overstated thing from this expansion. It's not hard to hit BoK at least once every 6 seconds to keep up shuffle, from there you will be an adequate tank for the majority of the content in this game.

The only "hard" thing about brewmaster is knowing on actual hard content what the barrier is for when you should and shouldn't purify your stagger. The good thing is that that is irrelevant for 90% of BrMs out there as you can just take purifying brew off your bars for I'd say 10 out of the 14 heroic bosses this tier.

What actually matters is the skills that makes someone a good tank, and those skills are universally applicable to all tank specs in the game.

[lokatii]

The difficulty of the brewmaster spec is probably the most overstated thing from this expansion. It's not hard to hit BoK at least once every 6 seconds to keep up shuffle, from there you will be an adequate tank for the majority of the content in this game.

The only "hard" thing about brewmaster is knowing on actual hard content what the barrier is for when you should and shouldn't purify your stagger. The good thing is that that is irrelevant for 90% of BrMs out there as you can just take purifying brew off your bars for I'd say 10 out of the 14 heroic bosses this tier.

What actually matters is the skills that makes someone a good tank, and those skills are universally applicable to all tank specs in the game.

You are definitely not a good BrM

[britishbubba]

You are definitely not a good BrM

I'll disagree as you can't possibly know that. Although feel free to explain what I said would make you decide that.

[Quotey]

You are definitely not a good BrM

I'm not sure who britishbubba is, but what he said is pretty true. The main inaccuracy is that it's not just possible to take purify off your bars, in the cases of some people it would improve their tanking. Purifying too much is useless and for some people leads to a lack of shuffle uptime, making them just worse tanks. I purified stagger 3 times on a thok 25h kill- that's all that I felt necessary. Using guard too much is also pretty poor. But maybe I'm a bad tank too.

[britishbubba]

I'm not sure who britishbubba is, but what he said is pretty true. The main inaccuracy is that it's not just possible to take purify off your bars, in the cases of some people it would improve their tanking. Purifying too much is useless and for some people leads to a lack of shuffle uptime, making them just worse tanks. I purified stagger 3 times on a thok 25h kill- that's all that I felt necessary. Using guard too much is also pretty poor. But maybe I'm a bad tank too.

Eh, the thing with my views on purify (I raid 10m btw so it might stem from this) is that the majority of the time there's very rarely something coming right after that big hit that caused the red stagger, that would actually kill me. The main job of a tank is so smooth damage out so that they don't become difficult to heal, and just having shuffle up already does 90% of the work for us due to putting you at only take 55% of the hit upfront (after armor and dmg reduc of course).

And when it comes to a new brewmaster who is for whatever reason struggling with shuffle uptime, just taking purify off their bars so they CAN'T spend chi on that is going to help improve their shuffle uptime (or just make them chi cap I guess). A lot of people I've seen pick up the spec have a knee jerk reaction to hit purify as soon as a red stagger pops up, and it's just not that simple, and the 20% stagger/parry from better shuffle uptime is going to go a longer way to prevent them from dying, than purifying off 500k worth of stagger.

Nazgrim execute? Why stagger, just EH to full health and ride the stagger, it's not going to kill you. That's how I feel about a lot of the physical damage this tier, it just isn't threatening.

Sure, on heroic paragons I purify a lot. Wind reaver is a bitch and hits really fucking hard. Sure, on malk I purify between each blood rage swing. When I tank thok (which I prefer to just let our pally do now because I do more dps in WW on that boss than he does as ret) I purify a few times during phase one. Sometimes I purify after mines on juggernaut.

Point is, with higher mastery so much of the damage you take is back loaded into stagger that even with base mastery on your gear you can just kinda ride stagger for awhile because you aren't taking large enough frontal hits for it to matter. And if you're just doing normals, you very well can just take purify off your bars if you use CW and EH properly.

Overall the spec isn't hard. The most basic levels of proper BrM gameplay is keeping shuffle up, task that requires you spend 2 chi every 6 seconds (0.33/s) and as long as you hit kegsmash on CD, you're already at 0.25/s so all you have to do is get that last 0.08/s, which is only 4.8 chi a minute. So if you kegsmash on CD, and you hit jab at least 5 times a minute, you've figured out how to play the basics of the spec.

It's really taxing, it truly is.

[Deleted]

I think the monk tanking abilities looks to be a lot of fun but im not into watching alot of spells, so is the monk not something for me?

[Alvito]

I think the monk tanking abilities looks to be a lot of fun but im not into watching alot of spells, so is the monk not something for me?

With weakauras it is very easy to keep track of all the things you need to so you can focus on staying out of the shit, picking up adds or whatever else you need to do.
http://sunniersartofwar.com/brewmast...x.html#stagger is pretty helpful for those that are new to BrM or just looking for some UI tweeks.

[Baronthefirst]

All tanks are easy to play, having said that monks are the "hardest" of the easy. /shrug

I don't agree. I find the Monk easier then the Paladin to tank with but I am not a fan of how active mitigation works for the Paladin at current. For me once I got used to how stagger and shuffle worked the Monk was for me the better tank to play.

[Steve the Sloth]

I'll disagree as you can't possibly know that. Although feel free to explain what I said would make you decide that.

You didn't mention Elusive Brew what-so-ever. A skilled BrM needs extremely high uptime to maintain consistent 50% dodge. Stagger is only a minor part of the rotation.

To the OP: I would recommend browsing the Monk sub-forum and learning that way. You never know until you try and I highly recommend trying it as it's some of the most fun I've personally ever had playing a class/spec.

[britishbubba]

You didn't mention Elusive Brew what-so-ever. A skilled BrM needs extremely high uptime to maintain consistent 50% dodge. Stagger is only a minor part of the rotation.

Well it's a good thing I didn't mention keeping up 50% dodge considering it's 30% dodge from the on-use. Unless you meant 50% dodge overall, in which case I have to ask what shit gear are you in? 50% avoidance is what you have BEFORE EB in decent gear.

And if you actually think it's "skill" to keep EB up then I'm sorry but you're just trying to inflate your epeen in terms of playing the class. All the work for EB uptime comes from gearing for crit before you even full the boss. EB uptime during a fight is a complete no brainer in most content. Tanking the boss? Hit EB, it's off the GCD so it doesn't actually matter when you hit it.

Also the notion that shuffle is a minor part of the rotation is retarded. It is the NUMBER ONE CORE JOB OF A BREWMASTER TANK. This is due to the simple fact that as soon as you have shuffle up, you are innately the most tanky tank in the game. That armor bonus that other tanks have over BrM? Irrelevant, 45% base stagger (20% base + 20% shuffle + 5% mastery base) wayyyyyyyy passes other tanks mitigation from armor. Don't have shuffle up and you are literally the same as a mage trying to tank the boss.

So we can go back to my original post. There is nothing hard about keeping shuffle up and EB up. They're both maintenance buffs in anyway halfway decent gear (45%+ crit). The only thing that requires any thought while playing a BrM is proper guard usage (loljk it's the same as when other tanks would use a CD) and proper PB usage (spoilers, you're using it too often).

But please. Keep spreading the notion that BrM is for some reason harder than other tanks. You're just making it look like you need to epeen for playing a harder class than other people. Want a tank that actually requires some more thought other than "Shuffle up, EB cuz tanking, PB if I'm gunna die?" Play a DK, they actually have to think about the optimal moment to deathstrike.

[TheWindWalker]

To summarize and shorten all the above:

Monk is different than other tanks in that their avoidance and mitigation has to be constantly managed and their longer cooldowns, while powerful, aren't nearly as diverse and important as they are for the other tanking classes. It's a "you can't alt+tab while playing this, even when overgeared in LFR" class.

Well it's a good thing I didn't mention keeping up 50% dodge considering it's 35% dodge from the on-use. Unless you meant 50% dodge overall, in which case I have to ask what shit gear are you in? 50% avoidance is what you have BEFORE EB in decent gear.

That's bullshit unless agi->dodge is that intense at heroic Siege gear and that's what you're basing it on. In flex gear you have ~28-35% depending on whether or not you drop agi for more crit/mastery.

[mistahwilshire]

Pretty much a bad BrM is much worse than a bad [any other tank].

[britishbubba]

That's bullshit unless agi->dodge is that intense at heroic Siege gear and that's what you're basing it on. In flex gear you have ~28-35% depending on whether or not you drop agi for more crit/mastery.

http://i.imgur.com/fPwA1rr.jpg

I overstated the value a bit, 51% avoidance before EB on my monk (570 ilvl). Considering how often you have some form of agi proc up though, higher amounts of avoidance isn't unreasonable. The static number would also be higher if I gemmed for agi socket bonuses, but crit is so much more fun at this point.

Pretty much a bad BrM is much worse than a bad [any other tank].

This is accurate. If you can't keep shuffle up, you're like a ragdoll.

[Steve the Sloth]

Britishbubba: You make a post like this and repeatedly try and tell me I have epeen issues? And the fact that you're trying to play down 30% dodge as a factor is laughable. I'm sure EB is easy to maintain when you're 570 but get real dude, this wasn't a post pertaining to heroic raiding. Calm down and go take a walk before you step back in here please.

Plus, I don't even main a BrM, I'm just tryin to help this guy out and point out major gameplay factors that you failed to mention.

[britishbubba]

Britishbubba: You make a post like this and repeatedly try and tell me I have epeen issues? And the fact that you're trying to play down 30% dodge as a factor is laughable. I'm sure EB is easy to maintain when you're 570 but get real dude, this wasn't a post pertaining to heroic raiding. Calm down and go take a walk before you step back in here please.

Except I'm not trying to downplay it as a factor, I'm trying to downplay it as hard to keep up. It's as simple as you either have the EB stacks to hit it while you're tanking or you don't. That's based on a few things.

1) Gemming/gearing for crit.
2) RNG being nice to you and giving you the crits that you should get.

It's just a fact that good EB uptime is completely out of your hands unless you just decide to not hit your EB button ever.

EB hasn't become any easier from when I was 520 ilvl, hell the only reason it was "harder" in tot was because the 2pc that tier was gimmicky so you were supposed to cancel aura it sometimes in order to proc your 2pc. I've just been given more stacks so it's higher uptime. I understand that RNG happens and sometimes you get shafted on EB generation. Even at crit cap I've had streaks of funky RNG where I just miss/glance a long string of autos and sit at 1 stack of EB. That doesn't make it hard to hit EB when I'm tanking something and I have the stacks to use.

It's just like I consider shuffle as a nonfactor in the difficulty of the spec. Maintenance buffs aren't hard. If you're going to suck at keeping shuffle up, you're going to suck just as much at Rage gen on a prot warrior, HoPo Gen on a prot paladin, DS usage on a DK, Rage gen on a guardian druid. The notion that BrM is for some reason hard for doing the same things that other tanks do (gain resources to spend to increase active mitigation) is just a dumb notion. BrM isn't any different other than without shuffle, we're paper. But even on that note it's not hard to gain and spend 0.33 chi/second on BoK in order to keep shuffle up. Just like it's not hard to hit SS and Revenge enough to gain 10 rage/second in order to keep Shield block or barrier up as much as possible.

Plus, I don't even main a BrM, I'm just tryin to help this guy out and point out major gameplay factors that you failed to mention.

Then actually mention the part that every other tank has to do the exact same thing as BrM. BrM isn't a special snowflake, and it's actually arguably the easiest tank to play once you get past keeping shuffle up.

Let's quote OP for some context.

By difficult i mean whether or not you as the player should look out for a lot of buff/debuffs and how many skills you should be using in your rotation.

Going off that, BrM is the exact same as every other tank. EB falls off just like SoTR, Sbar, Sblock, SD, BShield, and needs to be watched over slightly (albeit EB the least of those as BrM has stagger to back it up). BrM doesn't have as many rotational abilities as some other tanks, in order from least to most in rotation I want to say it's warrior < Monk = DK < Druid < Paladin. DK and monk might be interchangeable, havn't played my dk in like 2 months, but I'm pretty sure the rest of those are in proper order.

Shuffle is a non factor because even at 0 haste you have the energy to keep it up 100% of the time, and still allow for guard and PB usage.