The tier 100 talents are emerging with the unique theme of damage vs. defense tradeoffs. Chi Explosion is at one extreme, actually hurting your defense (by removing your ability to pool chi) but likely providing the largest damage increase. Soul Dance at the other extreme, doing nothing for damage but providing a situational but powerful damage management passive. And Serenity is somewhere in the middle, providing a weak defensive and offensive boost.
Thoughts on Chi Explosion
Chi Explosion is one of the new Brewmaster Talents coming in Warlords. It replaces Blackout Kick with a ranged ability that has stacking effects based on the number of chi used. A 4-chi Chi Explosion will: Deal damage (x amount for every chi consumed), apply Shuffle (10 seconds (2+2*number of chi)), Purify Stagger (3), and deal AoE damage around your target.
Lastest Alpha Build and Tier 17 Bonuses
Ability Pruning
Stance of the Sturdy Ox now also provides the benefits of Brewmaster Training and Desperate Measures.
– Brewmaster Training has been removed.
– Desperate Measures has been removed.
Alpha First Impressions, New Brewmaster Visuals
So far in the Alpha I’ve only done quests up to level 91. I felt like that level went really fast. Questing as a Brewmaster was actually reasonable, thanks to our damage no longer relying on Vengeance. I haven’t done the dungeon yet, but hopefully will soon.
Questing was fun and reminded me a bit of Guild Wars 2, where you keep getting distracted by rares, events, eye-catching “vignettes”, and bonus objectives. It’s still pretty guided so you don’t get easily overwhelmed.
I unlocked my Garrison but I don’t really “get it”. It’s something I’ll be more interested in when it’s live, but right now I’d rather play with class changes.
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Warlords Stat Usage Predictions
Blizzard recently released a blog on updated secondary stats. Since our creation, Brewmasters have been lucky to have non-concrete stat priorities. Depending on your playstyle, experience, and raiding level, you could choose to favor crit, mastery, or even haste (though that is rare), and still be competitive. Hopefully, that trend will continue to expand in Warlords.
Warlords Racials for Brewmasters
I usually don’t talk about racials because I don’t want to contribute to the attitude that people should sacrifice their personal happiness to play a race that they dislike but has a microscopic advantage. But with the push to finally bring old races in line with new, I thought it would be fun to talk about how each racial looks for us Brewmasters. My idea of perfect racial is if you can subjectively convince yourself that your favorite race has the best one. I think these are fairly close to that.
Apr 3 Patch Note Analysis and Clarification
Please reference the full list of Brewmaster-related patch notes. I’ve updated it with relevant tweets, too.
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Warlords Brewmaster Patch Notes – April 3
Apr 4: Updated with more Tweets.
Brewmasters won’t see any sweeping changes because we’re already the best. But there were some small things. Go here for analysis and clarification.
Summary
- Hit, Expertise, Dodge, and Parry are gone (old news).
- Agility is changing to grant less attack power and dodge, and no longer provides crit.
- Brewmasters are losing Avert Harm, Clash, Power Guard, Disable, Healing Sphere, Stance of the Fierce Tiger, Grapple Weapon.
- Brewmasters gain Surging Mist (to compensate for the loss of Healing Sphere)
- Vengeance is replaced with Resolve, which will scale similarly and buff our heals (Expel Harm, talents, Gift of the Ox) and shields (Guard).
- (Draenor Perk) Improved Guard: Guard now has 2 charges.
- (Draenor Perk) Improved Stance of the Sturdy Ox: Increases the Stamina bonus of Stance of the Sturdy Ox by 20%.
- Level 100 talents haven’t changed much since Blizzcon.
Continue reading “Warlords Brewmaster Patch Notes – April 3”
Glyph Imaginarium
I think most brewmaster glyphs are sort of boring, so I tried thinking of more interesting ones. The best glyphs come in one of two flavors:
- A small bonus that’s not required but occasionally useful (e.g. Glyph of Zen Meditation).
- A situational trade off (e.g. Glyph of Guard).
The Positives of Reforging
WoW can live without reforging, but it wasn’t all bad. I want to point out the reasons I like it, in hopes that those elements remain in the game in some form.
Now, reforging for most specializations wasn’t engaging. Most specs had a static stat priority, and all reforging brought to the table was a cascading money sink to change some of your bad stats into good stats and to reach hard caps. It was the way for most specs, but as Brewmasters we got to experience many of its redeeming features, beyond reaching hit and expertise caps. And I think these features are worth perserving in one way or another.