Brewmaster Survivability

[Kisho]

Well yeah, if it was by itself... But it's not.

To use the Stone Guard example further, it'd be 2 50k dots for 100,000 damage per second (somewhere between 1/5th and 1/6th of our HP pool), plus the melee attacks of the boss (going by a WoL report of my guild's kill, those average out at around 46,000 damage, potentially x2 for tanking 2 dogs at once), plus the raid wide AoE every so often, etc. etc.

So when the sources of damage add up to around 200,000 damage that you could take in a single second, are you really suggesting that we just leave quarter of that up because we don't have the resources to purify it? We could've got a bit more haste, thus more chi to get rid of it, but nah, let's instead get more mastery to push EVEN MORE into that DoT. Mastery which, currently, doesn't really provide much per rating point anyway.

The vast majority of our Stagger comes from the baseline amount (20%), and Shuffle (20%), 40% total. From there we get a baseline 4% mastery (4% extra stagger), then every 1,200 rating increases that by 1%.

With my current gear, I could switch everything over to Mastery and get an extra... Roughly 6,000 mastery. An extra 5% stagger. That would take me to about 50% of damage staggered, at the cost of a ton of haste, hit, expertise, and crit.

It just doesn't add up. There's nothing to suggest that stacking extra mastery would be more beneficial in the slightest. We already get so much from our simple baseline abilities, and when mastery scales so badly why on earth would we want more of it?

[Ampere]

Well yeah, if it was by itself... But it's not.

To use the Stone Guard example further, it'd be 2 50k dots for 100,000 damage per second (somewhere between 1/5th and 1/6th of our HP pool), plus the melee attacks of the boss (going by a WoL report of my guild's kill, those average out at around 46,000 damage, potentially x2 for tanking 2 dogs at once), plus the raid wide AoE every so often, etc. etc.

So when the sources of damage add up to around 200,000 damage that you could take in a single second, are you really suggesting that we just leave quarter of that up because we don't have the resources to purify it? We could've got a bit more haste, thus more chi to get rid of it, but nah, let's instead get more mastery to push EVEN MORE into that DoT. Mastery which, currently, doesn't really provide much per rating point anyway.

The vast majority of our Stagger comes from the baseline amount (20%), and Shuffle (20%), 40% total. From there we get a baseline 4% mastery (4% extra stagger), then every 1,200 rating increases that by 1%.

With my current gear, I could switch everything over to Mastery and get an extra... Roughly 6,000 mastery. An extra 5% stagger. That would take me to about 50% of damage staggered, at the cost of a ton of haste, hit, expertise, and crit.

It just doesn't add up. There's nothing to suggest that stacking extra mastery would be more beneficial in the slightest. We already get so much from our simple baseline abilities, and when mastery scales so badly why on earth would we want more of it?

I'm pretty sure that kaidam is only arguing in favor of mastery when tanks are undergeared, reason being that you just might not have the health pool to prevent being globaled in heroic progression.

It's always been like this afaik. You'll see cutting edge prot paladins such as Absalom stacking mastery/stamina, but 3 night a week heroic guild prot paladins capping hit/exp and stacking haste. It's not that one method is wrong, it's just a different level of progression where effective health concerns are different.

[kaiadam]

I'm going to reiterate once again that it's the quality of the incoming damage that matters, not the quantity. Let me explain with an example:

Our last stone guard kill which we 3 tanked, took 5 minutes and the average tank took 23 million damage total throughout the fight.
Our last sha of fear kill which we also 3 tanked, took 20 minutes and the average tank took 20 million damage total throughout the fight (adjusted slightly for dk.)

Tanks are taking over six times the dps in stone guards vs sha. Which boss do you think stresses tank survivability much, much, more? (Hint: it's not stone guards.)

Is this a sufficient enough example of how effortless it is to heal dot damage?

Stagger damage is utterly trivial to heal through regardless of how high it is. You use purifying brew not because you're harder to heal with heavy stagger up, but almost because as if you had absolutely nothing else better to do.

It just doesn't add up. There's nothing to suggest that stacking extra mastery would be more beneficial in the slightest. We already get so much from our simple baseline abilities, and when mastery scales so badly why on earth would we want more of it?

I'm not sure how this turned into another mastery vs other stats debate, but the bottom line is mastery simply gives more EH and helps survivability, especially during progression, end of story. I don't advise you (or anyone else at the moment) gearing for mastery, nor do I personally do so because tanks are now significantly overgeared for every t14 encounter.

Our brewmaster died more often not because he was mastery stacking and couldn't keep up shuffle, or was a bad player, but because avoidance tanks simply have to deal with more burst damage than plate tanks.

[SurrealNight]

I'm trying to be as un-elitist as I can here but you (and your healers) literally outgear us by 20-25 ilvls since we did those heroics. With that amount of gear you could socket and enchant spirit + intellect and you'd still be at a survivability advantage. The other week in an alt run one of the tanks forgot to taunt heroic garajal and we had a frost dk tank him for a phase and no one died.

My first H MSV kills were over a month ago and since then I have gotten 9 gear drops and 5x4ilevel VP upgrades to gear and history doesn't go all the way back to the kill so my iLevel was MUCH lower when I first downed him too.

The comment was in response to doing all raids in 10m last week and all raids in 25m this week where people complain about higher damage and I didn't really notice a difference at all.

[djtravitrav]

The only real issue I have with getting gibbed any more is the trash before the first boss in HoF. If I pull completely empty on chi, I will get wrecked without shuffle up. The key is to always be pulling so your shuffle doesn't drop, because those first few hits you take before you can get it up is essentially deadly on that trash.

I'm seeing similar issues in challenge modes, haste/energy generation is nerfed heavily, so I find myself starving for chi at times. But, the enormous amount of dps compensates for that somewhat.

[Kisho]

Absolutely, I know what he's arguing. It just doesn't really make much sense.

Essentially, there's two playstyles you could use whilst undergeared: more haste for more PBs, or more mastery to reduce push more damage into stagger, without having the resources to remove PB as often as the haste stacker.

The mastery stacker leaves Stagger on for longer, as more damage is pushed into Stagger but he doesn't have the Chi to purify it. He still will, but he won't be able to do it as much as the haste stacker.

Alternatively, the haste stacker takes more damage up front (as less damage is pushed into Stagger), but overall takes less damage. He can purify more often, so keeps stagger under control a lot more easily. But there's that extra damage taken up front.

So let's talk numbers. How much of a difference are we talking here? I'm going to use my own gear and the example already provided, even though my gear is far more advanced than the gear used during cutting edge progression: that example being 6,000 mastery, or that 6,000 mastery being pushed into other stats.

So first off, both tanks have 44% stagger as an absolute minimum, assuming 100% uptime on Shuffle and 0 mastery. 20% base, 20% shuffle, 4% mastery.

With 6,000 mastery comes an extra 5% staggered damage (1,200 x 5 = 6,000), so the mastery stacker has 49% stagger, the haste stacker has 44% stagger. Numbers are simplified yes, but let's stick with it.

Now, looking at World of Logs, Will of the Emperor normal seems to have an average of 120,000 damage dealt per melee hit on the Warrior tank in my raid. By using the hits he took, I'm taking Stagger out of the equation entirely. I'm not looking at the blocked hits, either (though he has higher armor, but I just need a realistic number as a starting point). For reference: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=10913&e=11339

So, 120,000 damage. On the haste stacker:

44% of 120,000 = 52,800 damage staggered

120,000 - 52,800 = 67,200 damage taken up front.

Alternatively, on the mastery stacker:

49% of 120,000 = 58,800 damage staggered

120,000 - 58,800 = 61,200 damage taken up front.

67,200 - 61,200 = 6,000 damage difference taken up front.

Is 6,000 damage really going to kill you? Really? Even if you bump that up to 200,000 melee damage, the difference only becomes 10,000. (I've also only just realised I could've simplified that a lot more by just working out 5% of 120,000 in the first place. Derp. I guess it's good to show your working though...)

I just don't see how mastery stacking was ever any good. Stamina, yes. Absolutely. Mastery? Nope.

[kaiadam]

I've never seen a progression-minded tank go and say "reduce incoming burst by 10% guaranteed passively? no thanks, I want to reduce my overall damage intake."

Again, there's literally no point in discussing this. Cutting edge tanks will do whatever it takes to survive, and in the brewmaster's case, that involves mastery and stamina. Remember, this is/was over hundreds of hours of raiding both in beta and on live with different gearing combinations. Mastery simply worked better. Gear is high enough at this point to make mastery irrelevant.

[Kitmajere]

That's exactly my point, it's the boss attacks that kill you and hots that would've been overheal otherwise go to healing stagger.

This is simply not the case in 10 man when 2 healing the harder encounters. If you have a holy pally and disc priest (pretty much the optimal healing comp), there just aren't that many incidental hots going out and high stagger is very noticeable.

[Kisho]

Our brewmaster died more often not because he was mastery stacking and couldn't keep up shuffle, or was a bad player, but because avoidance tanks simply have to deal with more burst damage than plate tanks.

But you're not providing any proof whatsoever for this. You're just saying 'this is how it is, because it is'. Well yeah, ok, but why?

[kaiadam]

This is simply not the case in 10 man when 2 healing the harder encounters. If you have a holy pally and disc priest (pretty much the optimal healing comp), there just aren't that many incidental hots going out and high stagger is very noticeable.

Granted, although the brewmaster I was talking about is in a 25m. Also, high stagger may be noticeable but it's still not terribly difficult to heal through (check your tank damage on stone guards vs will, for example).

But you're not providing any proof whatsoever for this. You're just saying 'this is how it is, because it is'. Well yeah, ok, but why?

Game design.

Plate tank has ~25-30% avoidance.
Leather tank has ~60-65% avoidance.

If burst potential on the plate tank = burst potential on the leather tank, then that means leather tanks straight up take half as much damage.

Thus, to balance, burst potential on the leather tanks have to be higher, but due to the higher avoidance, occur at a lower frequency compared to plate tanks. Or in other words, healers get many small heart attacks when healing a plate tank and few but large heart attacks when healing a leather tank. Tanks would be unbalanced otherwise.

Unfortunately, this turns into: the best played plate tanks just simply have more survivability due to the addition of active mitigation, numerous outside cooldowns, etc. I'm not sure what proof you expect. I guess you can just browse the top 20 or 50 guilds on wowprogress and check what tanks they're using. I can guarantee you that bears + brewmasters added together aren't even 20% of the total. While this can be attributed to many things, tank survivability is a huge part.

[SurrealNight]

This is simply not the case in 10 man when 2 healing the harder encounters. If you have a holy pally and disc priest (pretty much the optimal healing comp), there just aren't that many incidental hots going out and high stagger is very noticeable.

Have to agree with this even started a thread about my healer noticing the correlation between my dot color and how difficult it was to heal me. Even so far as saying it was nearly impossible for him to push me towards positive health from where I was until it was cleared. Resulted in me running with more haste thenn I probably need as I got in the habit of clearing yellow+ near instantly if Chi was available (which Ascension easily lets you keep 1 pooled always).

[Promdates]

Then I rolled a Monk. My god, the level of things you need to keep track of... Overwhelming at first, but you get used to it. Then you go back to your previous characters...

Long story short, every single other character is ruined for me. I can't play them anymore. They're just so boring. Tried tanking normal Jade Serpent temple on my Paladin, for example. I yawned from start to finish.

Very late (2 pages) to this party, but I 100% agree with this. After tanking raids and heroic fights for a month now on my Monk, going back and tanking on my druid and paladin are rather... disappointing.

[Forumchibi]

My guildies frequently tell me when they switch from their monks back to their mains: "I keep looking for my Roll button!"

Tanking as a monk is pretty overwhelming at the start. I was so excited when they were announced since I enjoy the finesse and mobility of a staff-wielder versus plate (loved the friar in DAoC). When I got on the beta, and threw 30 abilities on my bar, it was pretty much a WTF moment. No idea of the rotation and priorities, couldn't make sense of anything. Read up on a few things, still did not fully grasp it. Ran End Time and later Jade Temple, could not tell if it was my fault or the random monk healer that I felt like I was made of paper.

I decided as soon as I heard of them that monk would be my new main over my prot pally, so when MoP released I instant leveled to 81 via RAF so I could keep up with my raiding guild, and leveled as WW. I kinda knew what I was doing still, the guides were updated, but it was really very disheartening at first. My health was always mid to low, I spiked like crazy, I couldn't understand why we got no clear damage reduction buffs like paladins, cooldowns seemed too long or too short... you seriously had to know what you were doing, unlike my Cata paladin where I would CS/HotR, SotR, and faceroll the keyboard with DPS or self-heals and repeat. Meanwhile my raid leader switched over from warrior to paladin tank, was pulling everything and taking little to no damage, would just pop a cooldown and no big deal. I felt ashamed and was not truly comfortable main tanking any boss in MSV when we first went in.

5.1 definitely helped with the Ascension, Tiger Palm, and Expel Harm changes, but it's still very easy for an amateur tank to completely fail. I started out too obsessed with stagger and Purifying Brew, couldn't figure out how on earth you could use chi to keep shuffle up and still do anything else, couldn't figure out AoE threat or the rotation, didn't know when to use Breath of Fire over other chi abilities, saved Guard way too much, didn't know when to pop Elusive Brew... for a long time I misread Keg Smash and was using it when nothing was in range since the button was still active (which also got changed in 5.1) which give me no chi. Gear is obviously a factor as well since it effects your haste, and therefore your energy regen.

Now that I understand what skills really matter and when to use them, tanking is a breeze and enjoyable. Sometimes in heroics I won't even put up Shuffle, just spam damage and Chi Wave and laugh. Emperor became effortless, gaining shuffle, popping Guard, Elusive/Fortifying Brew, and Dampen Harm between dances and during gas phases, and Purifying Brew as a dance began to give my healer a short break. The flowing movement and utilities of a monk were completely worth the effort. I wouldn't trade Roll, Touch of Death, and Xuen (assuming I'm not using RJW) for anything, among other things. Windwalker is also extremely fun, and I'm looking even more forward to both in 5.2.

[elicko]

Brewmaster is awesome as windwalker but windwalker is more stronger but I am not having fun when I am playing with him it is better when I am plaing with Brewmaster

[SurrealNight]

5.1 definitely helped with the Ascension, Tiger Palm, and Expel Harm changes, but it's still very easy for an amateur tank to completely fail.

That is probably one of the biggest issues with the class. Without reading the guides and loading a strong Weak Aura setup from day one I'd probably have struggled a lot as well. The thing is what % of BrM players do this? It's really impossible to get a good handle on the class through the tools provided in game.

[Forumchibi]

Exactly. It's easy to read every tooltip, but not understand how anything works together. A newbie can see what Purifying Brew is, but do they know when to use it? I sure didn't, for a while I wasn't even sure where I was looking to see what color of stagger I had that people were suggesting to cleanse... most of the time I probably still don't use it when I should, LOL. How much chi do you need to store up, when should you start going on offense, should you ever even go offense or just spend the entire fight using defense and heals...? There's a lot to take in, and monk tanking is serious business!

I was really confused and also jealous in beta looking around for ANY ability like the paladin that would reduce damage like Divine Protection, Guardian of Ancient Kings, and Ardent Defender, and wondered at the time how on earth I would survive through bosses like old Ultraxion with the Hour of Twilight. It didn't feel like we had an "oh crap, incoming damage" button... instead it turns out pretty much every monk skill is a small part of a huge total damage reduction and flat out avoidance, but only if you're using them correctly. Otherwise you're blocking tiny chucks of damage bit by bit, and you get tanks like the OP mentioned who fall over at the sight of a decent sized pull that's laughable to every other tank. Some of my guildies were impressed by how fast I picked it up after they tried leveling their own.

[Deleted]

I'm probably repeating somebody earlier in the post here but I want to weigh in (a little late) on some of the topics brought up.

Stamina vs. Mastery: these actually go hand-in-hand to increase effective health. However, the item value points of 1 stamina to effective health vs. mastery rating to effective health is currently overweighted towards stamina. Also, consider magic damage: someone pointed out Elegon as a good example. Elegon Heroic can be solo tanked* by either a Brewmaster or a Druid due to the 25% magic reduction passive these tanks have. More health means breaths can be soaked up at higher stacks of the Overcharged debuff, and this also gives the tank stupid amounts of vengeance, helping with both phase pushing and spark wave slaying. As for stagger, clear it with Purifying Brew - why is that even an issue?

Stagger DoT Colour: as all Brewmasters should know, the colour is linked to your own health.

The color is purely for display purposes, to give you a quick indication of how strong the Stagger DoT currently is. The logic for the colors is based on the damage per tick as a % of your max health. Red means >6%, Yellow means >3%, Green means >0%.

It's possible to gear for stamina so much that you will rarely ever see a Heavy Stagger DoT on yourself, but this doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't be clearing it. If you're taking hits, you should be clearing stagger periodically, and I would recommend tracking the value somehow more numerically so you can clear it when you know it is relatively high in comparison to your available healing.


*"solo tanked" here means Elegon himself - a second tank should be used to deal with the Protectors that spawn

One final point I wish to make is that you should be forward thinking when it comes to shields. If you know you have a Disco Priest, for example, stacking Spirit Shell for some big incoming hit, you don't want a stagger dot eating away at it. You must be aware of what stagger is doing to you and know how to deal with it per fight.