True. Still feels rather clunky though and forces you to pool resources you would want to use for at least Guard already and sacrifice Xuen for it. It is a very minor issue though, in my opinion the bigger problem lies with the way blizzard has turned a part of BM "active mitigation" in to a buff that is expected to have 100% uptime on.

Greatly appreciate the advance scouting. This falls exactly in line with what I was expecting from the 2 piece bonus buff. I still see virtually no scenario in which canceling the Elusive Brew early to gain the buff will result in an increase to damage reduction, but I do see this bonus making short-duration (3-5 seconds) Elusive Brew substantially more appealing.

Also, I can't foresee every mechanic. Perhaps there could be some boss with a series of huge, undodgeable physical strikes in which Elusive Brew would be useless, but the 2-piece bonus could save a life, right? No, there won't. Consider this my way of preemptively mocking the people who will inevitably suggest canceling a 30% avoidance steroid to gain a 12% damage redistribution. Snideness aside, good set bonus, provides a nice change to the way we use EB.

The latter bit on the 4pc is extremely good news. This still isn't an amazing 4pc (compared to say, t14 4pc, which is unequivocally off the chain), but it will provide free PB's, and free Chi is free Chi. At a proc rate of 10% every second that Stagger is up, we certainly aren't in a position to complain. The 15s duration is fine, although with overwriting and the way Stagger works, it doesn't really seem conducive to hold onto free PB's for very long. I wouldn't waste even a free PB on a Light Stagger, but this definitely will let you be more liberal with PB'ing Medium Staggers without negative consequences. Healers rejoice!

You do not get Shuffle if the boss is immune. If you are not at Sha HC yet, check at Lei-Shi during add phases, not that you need shuffle there but just to illustrate the point.

What about say Overwhelming strike at Blade Lord? That might be a situation where you want to cancel EB to get the 12% stagger. Or Garalon type cleave (assume say dmg is much higher), also unavoidable. Overall, any normal boss mitigation, 12% stagger in no way competes with 30% avoidance and also not as if they are mutually exclusive, they just follow each other. So I agree whole heartedly in most fights you will never want to cancel, but there might arise situations like the above 2 mentioned ones.

Well in fact the Garalon cleave ist dodgeable... At least with my Paladin I have got dodges and I'm pretty sure, that it works with every class. Might be different on HC but I do not believe that.

Here's a link to my last kill with an amazing amount of 2 dodges^^
Details for Ergil - 30-01 19:48 - Krieg ohne Helden - World of Logs

I 1-2 stacks of Elusive Brew dodge the hell out of the Garalon Cleave

Details for Garalon - 31-01 19:56 - Wendigo Brewing Co - World of Logs

or just phase 1:
Details for Garalon - 31-01 19:56 - Wendigo Brewing Co - World of Logs

I actually had fairly terrible RNG that pull, but definitely dodging and parrying Furious Swipe. We've had pulls with a bit of luck where i wasn't even top 5 in damage taken until phase 2, despite being inside the cleave every time.

Hmm. I had never bothered to check because it does so little damage. The more I know.

Good job using WoL to validate an assertion, both of you.

Storm and Force and Verve are both physical damage spells. Against physical spells, EB has zero damage reduction value and Stagger has substantial value, and the set bonus adds 12% more damage redistribution. The set bonus may have some value for eating avoidable physical spells for Vengeance.

That said, parsing is secondary to survival in tank discussion. It's what I enjoy most of Monk tanking, but it is still subordinate to staying alive.

Any parry/dodge gives you Vengeance like if you were hit by that attack and Vengeance is calculated based on unmitigated damage, therefore, neither EB itself, nor 2T15 bonus change amount of Vengeance you have, unless they let you be attacked by something you would avoid completely (say, tanking something you would normally kite due to insane damage). So, one value of cancelling EB is to survive through some unavoidable attack. The other one is combining buffs. Say, you have 10+ stacks on Thrash preceding Mighty Thrash. You turn on your EB. It will be there for Mighty, but you've decided to avoid damage like a boss and make other tanks kneel before Zod, so you cancel EB a second or two before Mighty and turn it on once again with whatever stacks you have when Mighty Thrash buff appears on boss.

Speaking of parsing and Garalon. Skada tells me I'm one of the bottom five damage taken-wise. However, due to WoL counting stagger absorbs as damage taken, I'm far ahead of everyone on WoL. So, be careful when analyzing your performance via WoL.

In WoL you can only calculate your total damage taken as all absorbs are being put in one field of the combatlog.

Real total damage taken = displayed total damage taken - all absorbs + all heal-absorbs
Divided by your active time you get the DPS.

New tanking trinket will, probably, make crit our best damage reduction stat. I'm worried that 'effective play' will simply involve turning EB on cooldown if you have neither trinket proc nor 2T buff and pooling stacks otherwise :-/
As I'm away from my PC, my literally napkin math shows: for 15% dodge chance post-suppression, 35% extra dodge on EB (just for beginning of 5.2 raids), 27% post-suppression crit chance and attack speeds of 2,22s with 2 maces and each crit generating 1,5 stacks of EB, we have 36,4% EB uptime (0,364 EB/sec), which gives us roughly 0,74% chance to proc the trinket per second. That is, once again roughly, 2,66 procs of trinket within 6 minutes fight, which is 53 seconds or 14,81% uptime. It makes the trinket proc worth 1300 mastery on average for given stats for a patchwerk-type fight. If anyone wants to reevaluate the trinket, getting rid of roughness of my calculation, be my guest : )