Brewmaster (Tank) Basic Discussion
 

This thread is for basic discussion of Tank Monk mechanics and abilities. It is our hope that in time a proper guide thread will be created to summarize and organize the known information for easy consumption; if you are interested doing so, please contact me. In the meantime, the sort of discussion that would normally occur in such a thread can happen here instead.

As monks are a new class and their mechanics are still changing fairly frequently, it is understood that discussion may be somewhat more speculative than is typically the case for this sort of thread. It is fine to reflect on which mechanics you think do and don't work, and proposal reasonable adjustments you might like to see; however, please keep in mind that all forum rules still apply, so excessive wishlisting will still be subject to moderation.

Here is something I jotted down about monks from the press beta information.

Warning, As MOP is not even in beta all of the information provided in this post is subject to change. This is also the opinion of an individual player and may not reflect actual game play.

Last updated on 3/24/2012


Brewmaster Mechanics

The Brewmaster spec introduces 4 new mechanics. While these can be compared to preexisting mechanics they each have a small and subtle difference.

A brewmasters damage mitigation is based off of dodge, parry, and Stagger. Stagger is an effect that has a 25% chance to proc when damage is received. What stagger does is instantly applies 50% of the damage to you, and then the next 50% of damage to you over the next 9 seconds. The brewmaster's Mastery will reduce the after effect of stagger by 14.5% + (1.1 * points) Stagger will result in a smoother intake of damage and provide a small buffer. It is unknown if the stagger debuff can be refreshed, leaving 50% of the damage in limbo, constintly staking as long as you get a stagger every 3 seconds melee swing.

Energy and chi. Brewmasters use 2 resources, energy, just like rouges, and chi. Chi can be compared to Holy Power except there is no decay. A large portion of the monks abilities cost only chi. The brewmaster has 2 different ways of producing chi. The first is to use Club/Clobber/InsertNameHere depending on the weapon being used. Doing so costs 40 energy and generates 1 chi. The second method of gaining chi is through dodge. With the passive ability Recoil dodging grants a monk 5 chi. This will create system where you want to keep your chi as low as possible. In trash pulls with a lot of melee mobs the monk is going to drown in all the chi they are generating. Recoil now generates energy instead of chi. This will result in much more focus going into the energy rotation and when to activate dodge related trinkets and cooldowns.

Another damage mitigation mechanic the monk has is a buff that they must maintain. Elusive Ale cost 1 chi and increases the chance to dodge by 50% for 10 seconds. It is currently on a 45 second cooldown, meaning that the monk should use this as soon as it comes off cooldown.

A debuff the monk must mantain is Drunken Haze. Drunken haze costs energy and is an AOE that can stack 3 times. At max stacks it causes the target to be slowed by 45% and 9% of their attacks strike themselves instead of the tank.

The last damage mitigation mechanic that is not considered a 'cooldown' is Guard. Guard is an ability that costs 3 chi and shields the monk from future attacks, absorbing 38,478 damage for 8 seconds. Guard also increases self heals by 30% while active. Based of all the information available Guard appears to be a bubble and not a sustained effect like pain suppression. This post will be updated if this changes

Guard is going to be the ability a brewmaster spends most of their chi on. Because this is guaranteed, mitigation of damage it will act much like the warrior 2-peice in dragon soul without the damage side of it.

AOE rotation -

The rotation can be viewed as a primary energy priority, and a primary chi priority. When the next ability on the chi rotation is available or needs to be refreshed then it takes priority.

The energy priority is as follows.

Due to Recoil generating energy and not chi it is now much more important to Clobber every 40 energy while maintaining the Drunken Haze Debuff.

Pull (AOE)-
Drunken Haze - 40 energy (max 3 stacks)
Clobber - 40 energy (generates 1 chi)
repeat 3 times unless a dodge procs, then cast 3 Drunken Hazes to max its stacks.

Pull (Single Target)-
Provoke - free (taunt)
Drunken Haze - 40 energy (max 3 stacks)
Clobber - 40 energy (generates 1 chi)
repeat 3 times unless a dodge procs, then cast 3 Drunken Hazes to max its stacks.

Post Pull (maintain)
Clobber - 40 energy (generates 1 chi)
Drunken Haze - 40 energy (only when stacks must be refreshed)
Provoke - free (taunt as needed to keep threat)


The Chi Priority is as follows

Elusive Ale - 1 chi (45 second cooldown.)
Guard - 3 chi (puts a absorb effect on you)
Tiger Palm - 1 chi (buffs your next guard by 5%, should be used 1 between each guard if possible)
Blackout Kick - 0 chi (After a parry you get a free blackout kick)
Breath of Fire - 2 chi (Aoe. Higher damage the more times it stacks on a target.)

Due to the Recoil effect the chi priority will normally be what the monk focuses on most with the exception of Drunken haze. On magic based fights the rotation will change drastically as the monk is no longer able to get recoil procs. This will result in a much tighter rotation between energy and chi.

Monk Cooldowns -

The monk has several group and personal cooldowns.

Leer of the Ox - 20 second cooldown
Requires the Ox Statue to be active. Causes the target, if within 40 yards of the statue, to attack the statue for 8 seconds.

This ability may or may not be considered a viable cooldown. It all depends on the hp on the statue. If the monk is about to die then this is a viable option, but it probably should not be a part of the priority list.

Advert Harm - 1 min cooldown
Reduce damage to all friendly targets by 20% for 15 seconds. Redirects half of the remaining damage to yourself for 15 seconds. Is cancled if the monk goes under 10% heath.

This cooldown will require a warning to the healer so that they can be prepared for an abserd amount of damage hitting the monk. If this cooldown can be combined with others then it might not be so dangerous. This cooldown should probably only be used when you are not currently tanking the boss.

Shuffle - 2 chi, Channeled - duration unknown

Shuffle causes all melee attacks to be staggered and prevents the monk from moving, attacking, and casting spells.

This cooldown, while appearing to be very strong due to the brewmaster's mastery, appears to be a double edged sword. Because it causes all melee attacks to be staggered it theoretically reduces the monks chance to dodge to 0%. Stopping all chi generation. The stagger mechanic needs to be studied more to understand how this cooldown will react with it.

Purifying Brew - 1 chi, 45 second cooldown

Instantly clears all of the damage sitting in your stagger debuff.

After several staggers in a row or after using Shuffle this cooldown can be triggered to prevent all of the damage sitting in your stagger debuff. Useful if the stagger damage will cause you to die.



Fortifying Ale - 3 minute cooldown

Increases health by 100%, Becomes immune to heals, lasts 20 seconds.

This ability may be combined with Advert Harm if possible. Or it may be the monk's huge burst damage mitigation cooldown. (For example, ultraxion) This may also be combined with Shuffle.

Grapple Weapon - 1 minute cooldown (duration unknown)

Disarms the target at a range. damage done, healing done, and damage reduction may be increased based off the weapon and shields quality.

If the target has a weapon and/or shield that can be disarmed this ability should be kept on cooldown.

Spear Hand 30 second cooldown (kick)

inturrepts spell casts. Preventing spells from that school from being cast for 5 seconds.
If the enemy was faceing you they are also silenced out of ALL schools for the 5 seconds.



Talent Based cooldowns. Some abilities may not be a personal cooldown. These will be added to this post when they are understood.

Leg Sweep - 1 Chi - 25 sec cooldown
You knock down all enemies within 5 yards, effectively stunning them for 6 seconds.

This AOE stun will be very usefull for trash/aoe fights with stunnable ads and should be worked into the chi priority list.


Dematerialize - Channeled - 45 sec cooldown
You escape your Physical form, dematerializing into the ether avoiding all damage for 3 seconds.

All around good ability for avoiding damage. Unknown how this effects threat/aggro.


Ring of Peace - 2 min cooldown

Forms a sanctuary around you, causing all enemies to be unable to attack or cast harmful spells while within it. Lasts 10 seconds.

This cooldown looks very good. It is only effective if the ads or boss is actually in the ring. This will probably be used to add 10 seconds to the enrage timer or mitigate large amounts of ad damage.


All talent information pulled from MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies or from watching livestreams of the MoP Beta

A few errors in the post above. Some things changed between the press release and the beta.

1) Staggered damage is done over 9s, not 3s after.
2) Energy is exactly like for rogues, not hunters'.
3) Chi is like Holy Power except that it doesn't decay over time.
4) Dodging an attack give 5 energy, not chi.
5) Elusive Ale lasts 10s, 45s cd.

Regarding Elusive Ale, either it's changed or someone transcribed it wrong for the fan sites, but it gives a 10 second 50% dodge buff, not 45 seconds. Still on a 45 seconds cooldown, 1 Chi cost.

Thanks for the feedback, editing my post now.


Thanks. This changes my post significantly. I will update it.

After the next set of changes/patch I will completely rewrite my little paper.

You'll probably want to add Purifying Brew too then, here's the spell description:

Purifying Brew - 1 Chi - 45 sec cooldown - Instantly purifies all of your staggered damage.

I don't think anyone has picked up on that yet, pretty incredible ability.

Can you link me to a screenshot or a page about that ability?

That is actually a really good ability. That would force brewmasters the have some sort of addon that tracks how much damage they have floating in their stagger debuff.

I have yet been able to find someone who has put together a video about how the stagger mechanic works in the beta. Does anyone have a good resource for that? I would put it together myself if I got into the beta.

As it is currently:

Do we have a separate dots for each staggered hit or is that "smartly" combined into one single dot?

It would most likely going to be treated like Fire Mage's ignite where it is "smartly combined"

I didn't see this anywhere, so agility provide dodge and tanking is usable with staves/polearms or one-handed weapon too? I would like to see monk tank with fists.

So far we know, there isnt anymore parry gib and dual wielding provied more DPS so it's kinda probably. It's about what set (staff / polearm or dual wield) provide more tanking stats and probably 2H weapon will gives you more.

I very much doubt Ring of Peace will work in PvE, if it does, it may trivialize several (perhaps many or even all) fights with the use of 12 monks.

From what I can see so far, the damage from Stagger is absorbed by Guard which is very handy

In that case I hope they fix the ignite munching bug, or stagger could reveal to be a double-edged sword (see Alysrazor where ignite could ramp up to the stars with 1-second hits)