The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Deleted]

What nerf ? The one capping Vengeance at your maximum health ?

Only tested 1 fight thus far on PTS, and damage is considerably lower there. Wasn't receiving the same amount of vengeance as T14 bosses in comparison. Just because something isn't in the notes, doesn't mean that it isn't there. I will continue to do more testing and let you know.

If there's a nerf on Vengeance in 5.2, i would be really interested in knowing more about it. Did you have time to do some tests ? An important part of a Brewmaster's active mitigation comes from Attack Power, so it's essential to know exactly how Vengeance is or isn't modified. If you have any information, i'll take them.

So far, i've noticed that a good way of making tests about Vengeance was to find a lvl 90 mob with no special attacks, only melee autoattacks (they're not that common ; flying mantids around the Gate of the Setting Sun can do the job), let them hit you for a long while and heal yourself with Healing Spheres, without using Keg Smash at the pull so that the mob doesn't have the Weakened Blows effect (it's not a problem if it has the debuff, but you'll not Keg Smash the mob during the test, otherwise the mob will die and you won't have spent enough time being hit for the test to be relevant ; so you should take into account the Weakened Blows debuff only for the first hits, which is unnecessarily annoying).

What you actually need to know is a precise value of the average damage of the mob, its swing timer, and the Vengeance this damage gives you. But i would understand if you don't go through these steps on the PTR, since such tests can take some time and are not particularly interesting.

And actually, as long as Blizzard doesn't change the way Vengeance ramps up when you're autoattacked, just knowing the value of the first unmitigated damage taken, the swing timer of the mob and the Vengeance given by that first hit is enough. Only... the low Vengeance you observe can come from a modification of the way Vengeance ramps.

Also, dodging/parrying the first hit will give you Vengeance depending on the average unmitigated damage of the mob. But this is useful to know the average damage only if you also know the way Vengeance ramps up... In 5.1 you should initially get Vengeance from the first unmitigated hit equal to :
0.5 * 0.36 * (damage_of_the_hit / swing_timer)
if i'm not mistaken

[Ergar]

Ok so i just got 1 quick question. We just downed empress normal, and i checked world of logs for our kill. It said that i had 86.2 % uptime on my suffle. Is this "average" on that fight, or should i maybe be higher?

[Deleted]

if you kite the adds, then i guess its good, if you dont i guess it should be higher
(and theres a topic on brm@empress below)

[Raider321]

You can't just look at the shuffle uptime and ask if it's good or bad for an encounter..

It all depends on how much of the time you spend tanking - Whats the point in keeping shuffle up if you're not taking any hits? might as well chi wave or swap to tiger stance and dps there instead.

FYI I have ~70% uptime on shuffle on heroic mode.

[The Madgod]

You can't just look at the shuffle uptime and ask if it's good or bad for an encounter..

It all depends on how much of the time you spend tanking - Whats the point in keeping shuffle up if you're not taking any hits? might as well chi wave or swap to tiger stance and dps there instead.

FYI I have ~70% uptime on shuffle on heroic mode.

Because it stacks, and if it stacks, that means when you DO start taking hits, you don't have to worry as much about shuffle and can focus on other things like cooldown management.

[Raider321]

Because it stacks, and if it stacks, that means when you DO start taking hits, you don't have to worry as much about shuffle and can focus on other things like cooldown management.

Sure

If you're happy with being an average player and not use your class to its full potential you could sit in ox stance the entire time when not tanking and stacking up shuffle.

If you instead want to help you raid to its maximum you should swap to tiger stance and dps while not tanking and just before you taunt, swap back to ox stance and get shuffle running,

I mean if I did it in my gear the first week of HoF release, he should certainly have better gear than I did at the time and no problem with his energy regeneration to get stuff up n running before taunting, without sitting in ox stance the entire time.


Either way, the point I was trying to make is that shuffle uptime isn't something you can just look at and see if it's good or bad. It all depends on how much you tank and more importantly, when you DON'T have shuffle up, what are you doing? tanking?

[The Madgod]

So I just did a quick test of that. It was fairly basic... did a pure damage test on a raid dummy using the Ox stance and Tiger stance. To simulate a period of time when not actively tanking, each test was 2 minutes long (though really that's an extended period of time). The only buff used was stats, so while these aren't going to be perfect, they will show a relative pattern.

3.36m total
1.13m autoattack
783.1k Keg Smash
750.8k Blackout Kick
476.2k Tiger Palm
212.4k Jab

3.61m total
1.44m Blackout Kick
1.34m autoattack
474.6k Tiger Palm
355.8k Jab

I'd have to do more tests to confirm this pattern is correct, obviously, but at least from this I'm only doing roughly 300k more damage in that 2 minute period... roughly 7% more damage, which is to be expected, considering the power of keg smash. That's not really that much, and while you do generate shuffle, your stacks are lost when you switch stances, so it's completely meaningless. Call it personal preference if you must, but brewmasters are a tank class. I'd rather keep boosting shuffle... especially if damage isn't an issue. Even assuming that there's a 600k difference for roughly one minute (an estimated amount of time) of not tanking and switching ten times, that's 6 million damage. On Heroic 25 Grand Empress, that is about 0.6% of her health.

Of course, again, these numbers are incomplete. No doubt Tiger stance benefits much more from adding full raid buffs into the mix moreso than Ox stance does with a buffed Keg Smash from the same.

And 70% uptime, unless WoL doesn't count shuffle when in tiger stance (since it DOES generate... it just resets when stance dancing) is pretty low compared to some of the other brewmasters on these boards. You're right in saying that in general it's not overall uptime that matters but when it's up, but on the other hand it DOES tell us you aren't using BoK as often as others... which is basically what you're supposed to be pushing while in Tiger stance if you want to out-DPS Ox stance. At this point, I'd only advocate going Tiger stance for a significant increase in damage output only if your fellow tank has low threat generation, which can cause you to slow down if you're in Ox stance, and if you have a high enough energy regen that you can quickly build shuffle when it's your turn to tank.

[Deleted]

If you're happy with being an average player and not use your class to its full potential

So what's your WoL rank, super player ?

[Raider321]

So I just did a quick test of that. It was fairly basic... did a pure damage test on a raid dummy using the Ox stance and Tiger stance. To simulate a period of time when not actively tanking, each test was 2 minutes long (though really that's an extended period of time). The only buff used was stats, so while these aren't going to be perfect, they will show a relative pattern.

It's about a 12-14% dps increase when solo targetting.

So what's your WoL rank, super player ?

I don't even know what this means. There is no overall ranking at WoL, only ranking for each specific encounter.

Do you mean if I have any ranks at WoL at all? or rank 1 logs only?

[Deleted]

There is no overall ranking at WoL, only ranking for each specific encounter.

Yes, and we're talking about Shek'Zeer. Does switching to Tiger Stance help you do more dps ? No, it doesn't. Since the best WoL ranks on this fight do not switch to Tiger Stance. Probably because they're just average players.

[Kisho]

Switching to Tiger Stance is probably a DPS increase, sure: but is it worth it? It'd be worth providing logs to give us some numbers to work with, at any rate.

With switching, you get improved DPS. However, you also don't build up Shuffle and gain one extra thing to keep track of. I can see simple human error causing us to, say, taunt without switching stance, thus taking a burst of damage that could kill us. Or only remembering to switch just before we need to taunt, meaning we start tanking without our Active Mitigation up. Or we delay the taunt to get said AM up, which could kill our co-tank.

All of these things are human error and can be near-eliminated with practice and experience. But is it worth it? I suppose it is, if you're wiping at 1% to enrage timers. But if you aren't, wouldn't it be better to smooth out your damage in-take, removing as many RNG/human error aspects as possible, to give your DPS the time to meet those enrage timers themselves?

Probably something to decide on a personal basis, I'd say. Strictly speaking, swapping to Tiger stance whilst not tanking would be a DPS increase (assuming further combat logs agree with this conclusion). But it's also one extra thing to keep track of, one extra area where human error can ruin an otherwise great boss attempt.

Personally I probably won't bother, until the day when we need every last bit of DPS we can push out. Then it's somewhere I can improve and help out my raid a bit more. For now, not necessary.

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 01:37 PM ----------

Yes, and we're talking about Shek'Zeer. Does switching to Tiger Stance help you do more dps ? No, it doesn't. Since the best WoL ranks on this fight do not switch to Tiger Stance. Probably because they're just average players.

You do realise the top logs are probably cheesing the add phase to get those DPS numbers, not actually doing more single target DPS to the boss, right?

[Raider321]

Yes, and we're talking about Shek'Zeer. Does switching to Tiger Stance help you do more dps ? No, it doesn't. Since the best WoL ranks on this fight do not switch to Tiger Stance. Probably because they're just average players.

If you look at the damage done to Empress only I am sure that the monks with most damage done have swapped to tiger stance

If you instead look at the logs where people cheese dps on adds then yea, maybe they don't swap - but they still do less dmg on the boss compared to those that swap.

Just looking at the top log on Empress, he did ~71% of dps on adds. Is this what you're looking at and coming to the conclusion that good playing monks don't swap stances?

[Deleted]

The adds phase is the only dangerous tank phase, and one of the two phases where tank dps matters. So yeah, building as much Shuffle as possible before the adds arrive is playing properly. It also enables you to cast Chi Wave more often while you're tanking.

[Raider321]

The adds phase is the only dangerous tank phase, and one of the two phases where tank dps matters. So yeah, building as much Shuffle as possible before the adds arrive is playing properly. It also enables you to cast Chi Wave more often while you're tanking.

Only dangerous tank phase? yes
Tank dps matters? absolutely not - we always stop dps on all the small adds so that we can get 2 traps up.

but this really has nothing to do with what we were talking about.. The fact is that swapping to Tiger stance is a dps increase on single target and should be done if you're good enough and progressing through heroics.

[Deleted]

Tank dps matters? absolutely not - we always stop dps on all the small adds so that we can get 2 traps up.

Which is a most welcome "regen" phase for the healers, since they don't have to worry about tanks once most of the adds are dead ; having one or two of them alive is enough to finish the phase and supress the danger on the tank. The sooner the adds die, the better it is. And their death is a result of tank damage.

And in phase 1, increasing your dps is at best useless, and it can be detrimental. The only thing you'll get is a shorter time between the explosion of the last dissonance field and the beginning of phase 3.

and should be done if you're good enough and progressing through heroics

No. For Shek'zeer it's just introducing danger for zero gain.

[The Madgod]

Only dangerous tank phase? yes
Tank dps matters? absolutely not - we always stop dps on all the small adds so that we can get 2 traps up.

but this really has nothing to do with what we were talking about.. The fact is that swapping to Tiger stance is a dps increase on single target and should be done if you're good enough and progressing through heroics.

That's the thing though, tank damage increases on that boss are negligible and the area where it IS useful, you're constantly taking damage, and therefore need to be in Ox stance. I would say it is the better tank who focuses on ensuring that he has as little stuff he needs to manage to survive the adds phase as possible, and part of that is building a large uptime on shuffle, something that is much more difficult to do if you're swapping stances.

If you wipe at 0.6% health on Shek'zeer, it's not going to be because tanks weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing.

[Raider321]

No. For Shek'zeer it's just introducing danger for zero gain.

¨

It's about 12-14% dps increase on Shek'zeer when swapping to tiger stance and dpsing while not tanking

Thats not zero gain.

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 04:06 PM ----------

That's the thing though, tank damage increases on that boss are negligible and the area where it IS useful, you're constantly taking damage, and therefore need to be in Ox stance. I would say it is the better tank who focuses on ensuring that he has as little stuff he needs to manage to survive the adds phase as possible, and part of that is building a large uptime on shuffle, something that is much more difficult to do if you're swapping stances.

If you wipe at 0.6% health on Shek'zeer, it's not going to be because tanks weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing.

Thats what I said

If you're happy with not using your class to its full potential you can sit on ox stance all raids everytime but if you want to optimize as much as possible, you should be swapping stances.

The only downside is what you said, if it's too much for the player to handle and he/she messes things up but thats again just what I was talking about optimizing to its full potential or just being average.

[The Madgod]

Thats what I said

If you're happy with not using your class to its full potential you can sit on ox stance all raids everytime but if you want to optimize as much as possible, you should be swapping stances.

The only downside is what you said, if it's too much for the player to handle and he/she messes things up but thats again just what I was talking about optimizing to its full potential or just being average.

So in other words it's average to realize that switching stances and complicating your survivability for a DPS gain will not make a noticeable difference in the difficulty and damage requirement of the fight and that you're better off just staying in Ox stance, provided the other tank's threat is solid?

I appreciate the attack on a more conservative, practical mindset.

[Deleted]

It's about 12-14% dps increase on Shek'zeer when swapping to tiger stance and dpsing while not tanking

Thats not zero gain.

It is. You must not damage Shek'Zeer too much, otherwishe phase 3 will come too soon. Most guilds may now have enough gear to be forced to stop dpsing her to give healers some time to breathe between the last dissonance field and the beginning of phase 3.

Everything a Brewmaster has to do on this fight is done better if you stack Shuffle by not switching to Tiger Stance.

optimizing to its full potential or just being average.

You say you play better than others because you think you do something more. Actually you do something wrong. You just prove that Brewmasters have the potential to be played in a wrong way if they make mistakes when they think about how they can improve the chances of killing the boss. You focus on one (actually fictive) advantage and forget about all the downsides. You're just helping Shek'Zeer kill your raid if you switch to Tiger Stance.

[Archdrood]

Personally I stay in Ox stance to pop Avert Harm on the OT/Melee when the rings are blowing up, which you can still stagger/PB too. I like to stack my stagger so that I can use lvl30 healing when I tank again. And correct me if I'm wrong, but when you switch to Tiger stance, does Sanctuary of the Ox still bubble the raid? Also for a few seconds after the tank swaps you still have vengeance and do quite a lot of dmg. I'm sure other tanks can think of other reasons to stay in Ox stance, that hasn't been mentioned already.
At best, I feel it's a personal preference to switch stances and you shouldn't accuse the BrM community of not playing their class to an optimal manner.