Any 120 BrMs?

[dcc626]

id double guards absorb and give it a second charge. but thats just me

[Gorsameth]

Having a meaningful absorb as BrM would be OP considering the power of stagger.

Your not going to get both.

[Tech614]

Having a meaningful absorb as BrM would be OP considering the power of stagger.

Your not going to get both.

It's not an absorb.

It's a pathetic amount of damage mitigation, damage that already got staggered to boot.

From any meaningful boss fight literally 1 AA would likely break guard with how much we stagger on top of how little stagger damage it mitigates.

It's a pathetic amount of mitigation compared to something that actually is a real absord, in the exact same talent row for another tank spec with the exact same CD.

It's pretty worthless right now.

[Felancelan]

BrM are usually weak at the start of an expansion and dont really start to shine until end of first tier to mid 2nd tier. They are the most healer dependent tanks. However they can possibly shine if you get them geared up since they scale so well in BFA. As far as guard is concerned the passive celestial alignment (as an undocumented change) scales up all absorbs with your crit, so guard will scale with both crot and mastery, personally I'm done with it only taking stagger damage but time will tell how well it works. With threat starting to be an issue again, then it will be nice to have the only ae taunt, with the statue.

[Deleted]

Honestly they should just make spitfire baseline and move guard down to it's place. Spitfire which has little defensive value on the same tier as BoB and light brewing just feels strange.

[keqe]

I'd like to have spitfire be redesigned. The argument for rotational randomness is inheritely good, but doesn't work well on current brewmaster in my opinion. Because the spec rotation revolves around 3s CD of blackout strike and keg smash at X CD the places you'd fit some proc ability are quite limited and hardly feel that great.

What I liked about Face Palm was that it didn't affect rotation directly. It gave randomness in terms of output and a bit of brew generation to anticipate.

Also, it is also bad design that spitfire is obviously more suited for special delivery to fill the global gaps, but by doing so you sacrifice the talent(s) that feed more brews into SD.

[Zhorek]

Guard buffed from 500% to 750% AP. Let's see how it is now.

[Saverem]

Guard buffed from 500% to 750% AP. Let's see how it is now.

Doubt it's enough. Looks at DH's Soul Barrier. It absorbs ALL damage, even magic damage, at about twice as much as the current Guard (requires the full 5 soul frags for it, but each soul frag also heals them for a good amount when they take them in) and it's also a final tier talent and also on 30s CD.

With that said, I still think Guard will be handy for certain applications like PvP and soloing old raid content for mogs... For actual raid/m+ progression, HT/BoC will still be superior.

[Zhorek]

Doubt it's enough. Looks at DH's Soul Barrier. It absorbs ALL damage, even magic damage, at about twice as much as the current Guard (requires the full 5 soul frags for it, but each soul frag also heals them for a good amount when they take them in) and it's also a final tier talent and also on 30s CD.

With that said, I still think Guard will be handy for certain applications like PvP and soloing old raid content for mogs... For actual raid/m+ progression, HT/BoC will still be superior.

I have the impression guard is their answer to the "content you overgear problem".

[Deleted]

Self healing is still very low and that is basically the biggest problem for m+ so far.
Druid dk and dh Deal all good Dmg and heal themselves nearly Solo in m0

[Saverem]

I have the impression guard is their answer to the "content you overgear problem".

Yep. It's basically the best ability we have for soloing or doing low damage encounters so our stagger doesn't slowly kill us. It'll have its uses and it's still 10000X better than that shitty Purify talent we had before.

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Self healing is still very low and that is basically the biggest problem for m+ so far.
Druid dk and dh Deal all good Dmg and heal themselves nearly Solo in m0

I wish they'd just nerf our stagger and increase our healing to compensate. Our stagger is what's holding us back from being good m+ tanks.

[keqe]

Yep. It's basically the best ability we have for soloing or doing low damage encounters so our stagger doesn't slowly kill us. It'll have its uses and it's still 10000X better than that shitty Purify talent we had before.

Elusive Dance would be really good in the current beta build though. With the frequent brews and bob and weave the purifies would be really strong and the buff is quite useful too. It already seemed the best talent for many situations without the brew recharge changes and bob and weave.

It never really was that bad of a talent. Just overshadowed by BoC and HT for most situations.

[Saverem]

Elusive Dance would be really good in the current beta build though. With the frequent brews and bob and weave the purifies would be really strong and the buff is quite useful too. It already seemed the best talent for many situations without the brew recharge changes and bob and weave.

It never really was that bad of a talent. Just overshadowed by BoC and HT for most situations.

I think HT works better with Bob and Weave.

[Marrilaife]

I wish they'd just nerf our stagger and increase our healing to compensate. Our stagger is what's holding us back from being good m+ tanks.

As opposed to being super good in raids. Unfortunately Blizzard promotes "class fantasy" so you have tanks like monks - good in raids, weak in m+, and legion demon hunters - good in m+, weak in raids. Not sure how BFA will shape the meta, afaik blood DKs won't be as OP for m+ anymore, dhs are overtuned and druids are undertuned damage wise (especially now that they nerfed brambles), but if we put number tuning aside, it's obvious either they make all tanks same-ish or otherwise some tanks will struggle somewhere.

Personally I really dislike this "class fantasy" push, I see no reason why would you design specs deliberately crippled in some aspects (if you think brewmaster isn't designed well for m+ look at shadow / holy priest), but that's how the game is planned atm.

If you want to focus on m+ unfortunately the best course of action could be to pick the tank that is strong there, at the expense of raiding content. If you want a self healing tank, pick dh / dk or even paladin. There's no way Blizzard adds another "self healing tank" because that niche is already filled.

I remember legion beta feedback that brewmaster is "weak" and "unplayable" and playerbase abandoned it, but it took just a little buff in 7.1 and nerfing prot warrior that monk was rediscovered as strong raid tank despite no guard. Well they did continue to get hp / armor buffs, however their ability to stack 2 mins of ironskin got nerfed / capped.

I would hope with all the changes to m+ we'd have tanks actually tank instead of kite, healers actually heal instead of off-dps and so on, in that aspect monk hopefully won't be so much behind other classes (you could also see next to none druids / warriors in high m+ after 7.3, however in 7.2 MDI monks and druids were still played because kite meta wasn't yet as dominant).

But it's inherently unfair to have monk healing / absorbs to be as potent as on classes that don't have 100% active mitigation uptime, these usually need the self healing to cover gaps in mitigation. I'm actually more worried about warriors, as they probably won't have 100% mitigation uptime either, yet they lost the legendary bracer self-healing, impending victory competes with good talents so might not able to be picked, and 3% leech aura got removed (yeah it wasn't working on yourself, but it was some form of group utility).

Self healing is still very low and that is basically the biggest problem for m+ so far.
Druid dk and dh Deal all good Dmg and heal themselves nearly Solo in m0

Druid how? Just with frenzied regen and ysera gift? Is that enough now?

[Tech614]

I think HT works better with Bob and Weave.

B&W works the same regardless of if you talent HT or not. They are both smoothing tools, and yea you can combine them like was done on some progression fights in legion but it's just for more smoothing not because they directly synergize with each other.

B&W would directly make elusive dance better as it makes every purify have more value.

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Druid how? Just with frenzied regen and ysera gift? Is that enough now?

Druid self sustain is worse then prot paladin in beta so no, it's certainly not.

Also even VDH and BDK self sustain levels are not strong enough in current BFA beta that they can tank entire M+s without the need of a healer anymore. That may change as the xpac go's on with gear scaling but right now even just getting to a +5 you're going to need direct healing to stay alive on a lot of pulls.

I also disagree with the notion that VDH are weak raid tanks, that is certainly not the case in BFA. In fact as of right now they might even be the strongest but that is debatable. They have strong dps, mitigation and self healing. One of the few tanks that still has a tool to deal with magic burst and still have a cheat death. Bonus for bringing the magic debuff and havok DH looking like a weaker dps spec atm. They are going to be really strong progression tanks if things stay as is.

[Marrilaife]

Also even VDH and BDK self sustain levels are not strong enough in current BFA beta that they can tank entire M+s without the need of a healer anymore. That may change as the xpac go's on with gear scaling but right now even just getting to a +5 you're going to need direct healing to stay alive on a lot of pulls.

Even up to 7.2 the meta of m+ wasn't so set in stone, you would have seen bigger tank variety and bigger healer variety, just as stats, set bonuses and traits progressed, and m+ content became about surviving spiky damage rather than constant healing, we crystallized a meta of blood dk + pala / druid healer. I would really hope BFA doesn't end in that alley. It was boring, it was stale, and it was excluding a lot of classes and specs.

I also disagree with the notion that VDH are weak raid tanks, that is certainly not the case in BFA. In fact as of right now they might even be the strongest but that is debatable.

That's why I wrote legion DH, because in every tier of Legion raids vengeance was the lowest represented tank. In BFA a lot of people say they're OP on beta (or if not OP at least very strong), so time will tell, but during Legion DH and Paladin shaped to be good in m+, but underused in raiding, while monk and druid the opposite. DK was OP in both, especially in m+ but in raiding the amount of "grip bosses" and the massive HP pool of dk made them much more popular than DH/pala. Warrior was slowly abandoned in all content, which is a true failure of Blizzard balancing.

[dcc626]

As opposed to being super good in raids. Unfortunately Blizzard promotes "class fantasy" so you have tanks like monks - good in raids, weak in m+, and legion demon hunters - good in m+, weak in raids. Not sure how BFA will shape the meta, afaik blood DKs won't be as OP for m+ anymore, dhs are overtuned and druids are undertuned damage wise (especially now that they nerfed brambles), but if we put number tuning aside, it's obvious either they make all tanks same-ish or otherwise some tanks will struggle somewhere.

Personally I really dislike this "class fantasy" push, I see no reason why would you design specs deliberately crippled in some aspects (if you think brewmaster isn't designed well for m+ look at shadow / holy priest), but that's how the game is planned atm.

If you want to focus on m+ unfortunately the best course of action could be to pick the tank that is strong there, at the expense of raiding content. If you want a self healing tank, pick dh / dk or even paladin. There's no way Blizzard adds another "self healing tank" because that niche is already filled.

I remember legion beta feedback that brewmaster is "weak" and "unplayable" and playerbase abandoned it, but it took just a little buff in 7.1 and nerfing prot warrior that monk was rediscovered as strong raid tank despite no guard. Well they did continue to get hp / armor buffs, however their ability to stack 2 mins of ironskin got nerfed / capped.

I would hope with all the changes to m+ we'd have tanks actually tank instead of kite, healers actually heal instead of off-dps and so on, in that aspect monk hopefully won't be so much behind other classes (you could also see next to none druids / warriors in high m+ after 7.3, however in 7.2 MDI monks and druids were still played because kite meta wasn't yet as dominant).

But it's inherently unfair to have monk healing / absorbs to be as potent as on classes that don't have 100% active mitigation uptime, these usually need the self healing to cover gaps in mitigation. I'm actually more worried about warriors, as they probably won't have 100% mitigation uptime either, yet they lost the legendary bracer self-healing, impending victory competes with good talents so might not able to be picked, and 3% leech aura got removed (yeah it wasn't working on yourself, but it was some form of group utility).

Druid how? Just with frenzied regen and ysera gift? Is that enough now?

im not sure who is playing druids at this point, but their healing is not good.

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B&W works the same regardless of if you talent HT or not. They are both smoothing tools, and yea you can combine them like was done on some progression fights in legion but it's just for more smoothing not because they directly synergize with each other.

B&W would directly make elusive dance better as it makes every purify have more value.

- - - Updated - - -



Druid self sustain is worse then prot paladin in beta so no, it's certainly not.

Also even VDH and BDK self sustain levels are not strong enough in current BFA beta that they can tank entire M+s without the need of a healer anymore. That may change as the xpac go's on with gear scaling but right now even just getting to a +5 you're going to need direct healing to stay alive on a lot of pulls.

I also disagree with the notion that VDH are weak raid tanks, that is certainly not the case in BFA. In fact as of right now they might even be the strongest but that is debatable. They have strong dps, mitigation and self healing. One of the few tanks that still has a tool to deal with magic burst and still have a cheat death. Bonus for bringing the magic debuff and havok DH looking like a weaker dps spec atm. They are going to be really strong progression tanks if things stay as is.

DH are the tank most likely to become prot warrior after EN. Being that far ahead of everyone else (whether they are or not) are likely to get the fotm rerollers out in force.

[Tech614]

DH are the tank most likely to become prot warrior after EN. Being that far ahead of everyone else (whether they are or not) are likely to get the fotm rerollers out in force.

Even if they nerf VDH like prot war week 2 in EN, literally everything they has either scale well with gear or damage taken. They're gonna be pretty relevant the entire expansion tbh.

I could be wrong but does any other tank have mitigation and self sustain tools that scale with AP, % Health, % Damage Taken, and % of damage done? They scale in so many ways right now, in fact if they don't get nerfed a bit in the first raid tier they might make NH guardians look like low tier scrubs in comparison.

[dcc626]

Even if they nerf VDH like prot war week 2 in EN, literally everything they has either scale well with gear or damage taken. They're gonna be pretty relevant the entire expansion tbh.

I could be wrong but does any other tank have mitigation and self sustain tools that scale with AP, % Health, % Damage Taken, and % of damage done? They scale in so many ways right now, in fact if they don't get nerfed a bit in the first raid tier they might make NH guardians look like low tier scrubs in comparison.

something is going to happen. its just a matter of when i think. id rather they get toned down early instead of curb stomped later on.

[Marrilaife]

im not sure who is playing druids at this point, but their healing is not good.

No one, because Blizzard drew their "no king rules forever" nerfbat for them, same as aff locks. So yeah, BFA druids will have to suffer for Legion druids.

DH are the tank most likely to become prot warrior after EN. Being that far ahead of everyone else (whether they are or not) are likely to get the fotm rerollers out in force.

Yeah, this is a looming threat, I have a friend who plays all tank classes and can play them all well, and he seems reluctant to pick dh for BFA because he picked warrior at start of Legion and then had to reroll. Monk is probably a fairly safe bet, because dk / druid were too good at end of Legion so will be knee-jerk nerfed, VDH might get same treatment if it's too good at start of BFA, and Warrior / Paladin suffer from the fact Blizzard can never balance shield tanks because block in practice is rarely as good as on paper.