Mastering tanks, one boss at a time.
Brewmasters have no significant changes this patch, and only a handful of insignificant changes. The most interesting features of this patch will be the reintroduction of valor upgrades, the new world event Battlefield: Barrens, and the next stage of the legendary quest line.
It’s been a little more than a year since brewmasters became playable on the MoP Beta. And my, have things turned out differently. We went from using Guard as our primary active mitigation tool, to spending most of our time channeling, to finally kicking our enemies in the face to reduce damage and loving crit. Here is a look back at the changing state of brewmasters.
As a brewmaster, you’re most likely going to be kiting bats for this encounter. It’s what you’re good at, might as well embrace it. The downside is that if you fail, it’s a guaranteed raid wipe. So don’t fail (I did — lots of times).
Continue reading “Brewmaster vs Heroic Tortos: the Kiting Guide”
Trinkets for tanks are no black-and-white matter. There are trinkets that are good for burst reduction and time-to-live, while others are good for avoidance, total damage reduction, and DPS. Trinkets are the best way to change your stats for what you need at a moments notice, and because of that, there is no true best-in-slot pair. Ideally, you should collect a handful of trinkets with various specialties and swap them in depending on fight requirements.
Continue reading “Tier 15 Trinket Comparison for Brewmasters”
I’ve spent a lot of time this tier experimenting with stat combinations. On the surface, not much has changed. Mastery received a slight buff and haste got a subtle nerf when the healing talents became free, but nothing huge. However, the inclusion of many physical, bursty fights has give us Brewmasters much to consider regarding our secondary stats.
These are my gearing decisions, based on experimenting, browsing logs, theorycraft, and the input of other brewmasters. As is always the case with brewmasters, there aren’t many wrong ways to gear yourself, but there are good places to start, especially if you’re struggling or just looking for some guidance.
Continue reading “The Brewmaster Tier 15 Smooth Gearing Paradigm”
Sunnier Note: This is a guest post from Daught from Midwinter-Sargeras, one of the few brewmasters who has claimed a victory against heroic Lei Shen. If you would also would like to contribute to this blog as a guest, I would love to hear from you!
Hey everyone, I’m Daught from Midwinter-Sargeras, and I’m here to talk a little pontify about tank damage, specifically, brewmaster dps in heroic Throne of Thunder.
Historically — up to and including the last expansion — tanks have never been terribly high on the damage meters except for specific aoe encounters. But in MoP where vengeance has been effectively uncapped, tanks are often competitive dps for most fights. This leads to a slight conundrum, especially for the agility tanks: should I gear for dps or survivability? There is no easy answer to this question, but it’s a topic that is worth exploring.
Continue reading “[Guest Post] Dealing Damage as a Brewmaster”
The question I get the most often is not “How should I prioritize my stats” or “Can you write this Weak Aura for me”, it is “How do I tank Horridon as a Brewmaster?” There’s no doubt that it’s a difficult fight for most tanks, and monk tanks face their own unique challenges. But it’s also my favorite fight this expansion, explicitly because it’s requires mastery of two basic tank skills: add pickup and predictable damage mitigation.
Continue reading “Brewmaster vs Horridon: The Tanking Guide”
I’ve updated my Weak Auras to be more visually efficient and to help me clean up my play in a few areas that I’m lacking. My auras are never really “finished”, but it’s time to share what I have with the rest of the world. (I’ll continue to update the current weak auras, since they’re basically the same on the inside.)
This is a basic guide for tanks in Throne of Thunder, specifically from the perspective of normal 10 mans (if the 25 man strategies happen to vary significantly from those listed, please let me know). It isn’t intended to be a strategy guide or a resource for raid leaders. Instead, it just provides tanks with the information they will need to know in any given fight, like how many tanks are required and how many debuff stacks they need to swap at.
Continue reading “The Quick and Dirty Tanking Guide for Throne of Thunder”
A new raid, new dailies, and a couple of Brewmaster changes are coming in today’s patch.