Give us back Guard..

[Tauguy]

This spell was one of my favorite parts about being a monk but sadly was swept away around 7.1.3..

I for one would love to have this spell back in its original state. They can even take expel harm from me if they wanted.

[Nerovar]

Guard was great. Blizzard likes to remove great things.

[ArmatisUlv]

This spell was super powerful in pve. I played a monk at the start of wod and I could completely absorb both stacks of impale from Kargath on heroic. It was super broken and op.

They should get another defensive though I agree. I hate zen med because I think it is useless (maybe I dunno how to use it properly, which is probably the case). Maybe guard increases your parry by X for 5 seconds or something. To fit the class fantasy that is. Considering wow monks are all about the fist fighting, creating a bubble seamed out of place

[NakaKuro]

Guard was so hilariously busted with Vengeance scaling. We got our realm first Ra-Den kill on the first pull despite half the raid dying pretty early, entirely on the back of Brewmaster being essentially unkillable once the Vengeance was flowing. Good times.

[Super Kami Dende]

Guard and Clash were my favourite things about BrM in MoP. RIP to them both.

I do find it strange though they removed Guard from BrM because they wanted to move away from Absorbs, yet gave VDH Soul Barrier literally an expansion later.

[Tech614]

Guard was so hilariously busted with Vengeance scaling. We got our realm first Ra-Den kill on the first pull despite half the raid dying pretty early, entirely on the back of Brewmaster being essentially unkillable once the Vengeance was flowing. Good times.

The days of popping guards that where 3x the size of your health pool.

Even better when a fight had aoe damage and you where putting those guards on the raid at a rapid pace.

MoP tanking was broken as fuck though, fun but broken(and not just brewmaster). Definitely not healthy for the game to want that to come back.

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Guard and Clash were my favourite things about BrM in MoP. RIP to them both.

I do find it strange though they removed Guard from BrM because they wanted to move away from Absorbs, yet gave VDH Soul Barrier literally an expansion later.

Soul Barrier existed all of legion... It's not new. It's still going to be a niche talent and is definitely not comparable in any way to Guard be it the MoP or WoD versions. It will be used to counter magic based spikes you can properly time and it lines up with, outside of that nobody is going to pick that talent.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

The new guard seems interesting, but it depends on how well its tuned.
The reason Guard was so strong in old expansions was because of Vengeance / Resolve though.
It would be a weaker version of Ignore pain now, so while I'd like to see it back in its original form, this new version is likely considerably stronger.

They would have to completely redesign Monk for me to love them, but guard and elusive brew can't simply come back to the game and have an impact. Their current mitigation in a world without Vengeance is simply stronger and more consistent.

[Tech614]

It will really depends on the numerical value on the new guard talent it could end up completely worthless or it could end up in solo tank cheese or tanking hard enrages for 20 seconds lol.

I wouldn't want to be the dev trying to find the sweet spot for that.

[Super Kami Dende]

Soul Barrier existed all of legion... It's not new.

No shit sherlock. It is also entirely comparable to Guard.

[OreoLover]

Blue Post, Guard coming as talent:

"Various things to expect next build:

New talent: Guard (replacing Elusive Dance on L100). "Guard against future attacks, causing the next X damage you Stagger to instead be prevented." 30s cooldown.
(The Guard Honor Talent will be renamed)."

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1091234-brewmasters-quality-of-life/

[Mokuna]

This talent being in the same row as HT and combo and absorbing only staggered hits makes it likely not usable.
The tuning would have to be ridiculous to consider that over the other talents in this row, also absorbing the staggered part makes it awkward, when you can double purify a hit and it's pretty much the same result.
Guard doesn't really fit in the current monk design(which was clearly made with the idea of removing guard in the first place) , and bringing back a really conservative version of it like this one seems like a shy attempt to please people who begged to bring it back despite it being incompatible with having a really high stagger making absorbs way less valuable.

[keqe]

Well if the duration is the same 30s as its CD like original guard it will help a lot with "low" content where most of our issues are. If it is tuned to be useful in raids it will be a beast in heroics/mythic 0's pre-raid which kind of were the worst place for BrM in BfA compared to other tanks.

Though good way to balance it would be to have it with lower duration so it doesn't just absorb everything at lower content nor it would be useless in raids if the absorb was low.

[ttylol]

That's so odd for a tank cooldown to not scale with incoming damage.... Unless X is based on the last 5 seconds of damage taken (a la DK & DH)? But it's probably just a % of max hp or more hidden agi scaling

[keqe]

That's so odd for a tank cooldown to not scale with incoming damage.... Unless X is based on the last 5 seconds of damage taken (a la DK & DH)? But it's probably just a % of max hp or more hidden agi scaling

The last thing brewmaster needs is something scaling from incoming damage. The whole spec only has % mitigation. That has been the biggest problem with Legion brewmaster. We had increasing returns from increasing incoming damage because of GotO and purifying interaction. Every other spec has some "flat" mitigation/healing. It made us bad at "easier" content and broken at "harder". Technically it is obviously better to be good where it matters but it is kind of weird to bleed out at HC dungeon with raid gear.

Having some flat mitigation is a good addition. Though it is in my opinion bad design to have it in form of a talent.

It obviously scales from agility in form of AP. Just like old guard. I don't see how it is "hidden". It isn't anything weird like armor/stagger scaling.

[Anufis]

What's average stagger chance of BrMs in BfA with and without ISB?

[Deeth]

Im happy theyre wanting to give us guard/sustain back. My concern is turning into early legion IP. we shall see

[dcc626]

Im happy theyre wanting to give us guard/sustain back. My concern is turning into early legion IP. we shall see

im thinking it will be like BfA IP. And also on the gcd.

[Saverem]

What's average stagger chance of BrMs in BfA with and without ISB?

My character transferred 110 who has about 972 ilvl on live has about 80% stagger in BfA with ISB up and high 30s without. So not too bad. I particularly like that they buffed spell damage stagger to 35%, our shitty spell damage mitigation (compared to other tanks) was what was worrying me the most.

[Nefarious Tea]

This spell was super powerful in pve. I played a monk at the start of wod and I could completely absorb both stacks of impale from Kargath on heroic. It was super broken and op.

They should get another defensive though I agree. I hate zen med because I think it is useless (maybe I dunno how to use it properly, which is probably the case). Maybe guard increases your parry by X for 5 seconds or something. To fit the class fantasy that is. Considering wow monks are all about the fist fighting, creating a bubble seamed out of place

The problem with Zen Meditation isn't that it doesn't fit the class fantasy, it's that it's useless for Tanks as it'll break as soon as you activate it because the boss melee'd you.

[Tech614]

No shit sherlock. It is also entirely comparable to Guard.

I really hope you're not serious. It's not comparable in any way to MoP or WoD Guard. Soul Barrier in legion provided similar numbers to prydaz or AHR. Comparing it to old guard is laughable. Soul Barrier was only taken on fights with adds because of the minimum absorb amount, as a flat absorb it was laughable compared to the other choices. The new Soul Barrier which is a better one time absorb but lacks the minimum amount it used to have is also nothing special and will once again only be used to counter magic burst.

Also for the record with the "no shit sherlock" you might want to word your posts properly if you actually knew that. Seeing as you claim they gave SB to VDH 1 expansion AFTER removing guard, that expansion would be BFA. Just saying.

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The problem with Zen Meditation isn't that it doesn't fit the class fantasy, it's that it's useless for Tanks as it'll break as soon as you activate it because the boss melee'd you.

It's not useless for tanks at all if you use it properly. IE on a telegraphed major hit. Why would you try to use it to counter AAs? It's not by any means a game changer in most situations for brewmaster but it is far from "useless".