Brewmaster Write-up

[Deph]

Writing this up partially for myself, and partially to increase opportunities for other guild member’s feedback.

I’m kinda trying to make this teach the basics too, but you’re probably better off finding another guide somewhere else for that ME WRITE BAD :P

New Mechanics to the Brewmaster:

• Stance of the Sturdy Ox (Monk Defensive Stance only Brewmasters get) - The tooltip covers it all.
• Stagger: Converts a percentage of the damage a Brewmaster takes into a DoT that ticks over 10 seconds, instead of it happening instantly.
• Shuffle: A Brewmasters primary means of active mitigation. Blackout Kick increases your parry and stagger amount by 20% for 6 seconds. This can stack infinitely.
• Purifying Brew: For half the cost of Blackout Kick you can remove the Stagger DoT.
• The new Vengeance has no cap. This is important to note for the below.
• Guard: For the cost of Blackout Kick you can put up an absorb every 30 seconds for (AP * 1.971)+14232. (Roughly 50k plus Vengeance doubled on Beta)
• Gift of the Ox: Melee hits have a chance to summon healing spheres near the Brewmaster that heal it for 4926 + AP * 0.5025. (15k plus half of Vengeance for me on Beta)
• Summon Black Ox Statue: I can taunt the statue for an AoE taunt, or use the Leer of the Ox glyph to have the statue taunt things to itself as a “catch” or as a pathetic CC. (It will die pretty fast)
• Sanctuary of the Ox: When the statue is up, any time I do 16 times my attack power in damage a (random?) raid member (that isn’t me) gets a full strength, 30 second Guard. (Including the offtank?) This is poorly tested on Beta, never really accounted for when people do Brewmaster math, and pretty underrated I think... Napkin math based on 0 vengeance target dummies has it proccing every 15-20 seconds.
• Expel Harm: Heal for 40 energy and does half the heal as damage. Currently scales “weird” with Vengeance, so I’m not sure how much it heals for... 20-25k with no Vengeance. People say 20% of your health or so. The reason it goes under “new mechanics” is it Interacts with [Desperate Measures] which allows for quite a bit of healing if you can pre-plan for it.

Currently the model is that you CANNOT keep shuffle up 100%. -- You need to use Purify and Guard. -- And they’ve carefully balanced resource generation so you can’t do everything. Ghostcrawler confirmed this is how they want it to be. “Optimal” Shuffle uptime changes depending on the fight, but is currently supposed to be (mathematically) about 80%-90%
You can keep up Shuffle 100% of the time you tank a boss on any tank swapping fight that goes back and forth quickly, by building it up ahead of time.

Stats:

THEY say:
Expertise (to 7.5 or 15%) > Hit (to 7.5%) > Agility > Haste > Crit > Parry > Dodge > Stamina > Mastery

I’m thinking more like:
Expertise > Hit > Agility > Haste > Everything else, hell I’m not sure! > Stamina (unless I’m getting gibbed)
*stat priority subject to change based on encounter, recommend gemming for hit and expertise for easier stat-swappy-ness via reforging between one boss and the next, because that may happen a lot >_<

Blizzard’s Brewmaster Tier gear looks like:
Mastery > Crit > Hit > Expertise > Haste > Dodge.

Why are Haste and Crit the “top two” stats? (mathematically):

Crit Benefits:

• More Damage. Which is also more Sanctuary of the Ox.
• Crits cause [Brewing: Elusive Brew]. Each stack is 1 second of 30% dodge whenever I want (35% dodge with my 2pc) on a short 9 second CD. -- Why do I not consider this as great? -- well, because it’s a 30-35% CHANCE to take less damage T_T -- This DOES put Crit over good old fashioned Dodge/Parry in most tanking situations though! (this button is likely to be used primarily when Shuffle is down, I’m thinking)

Haste Benefits:

• More Damage: Again, more SotO.
• Elusive Brew: Yup, it’s here too. Faster hits mean more crits!
• Gift of the Ox: More white hits means more orbs.
• Energy Regen: The most important thing! More Energy is, indirectly, more Chi, meaning more Purifying Brew and Blackout Kick (for Shuffle) -- Higher Shuffle uptime is ridiculously good damage reduction.
• Mastery: More haste means more purifying brew, which aids the mastery stat as well!

To compare traditional tank stats:

• 900 avoidance rating = 1% avoidance (AKA unreliable damage reduction)
• 1200 mastery rating = 1% more damage staggered. (1% more damage turned into a dot that I have to cleanse with purifying brew, or I take the damage anyway over 10 seconds)

Expertise past the soft cap actually maths out similarly to haste... More white hits. Also, Keg Smash won’t miss, which is a resource gain... This means expertise (past the softcap) is very similar to gaining more haste. Especially the more I use Gift of the Ox (my healing orbs)

This means I will almost certainly end up gemming hit and expertise to cap (perhaps even the 15% expertise hardcap) then swapping to haste only after that... INORITE

Tricks:

• Shuffle stacks infinitely now. -- This makes it so I can take more damage NOW, to take less damage later. (I can purify less now, to stack up a shuffle that will last through a heavy damage period, allowing me to purify more later) -- I’m afraid it’ll get nerfed, even though this mechanic seems fun as hell to me, and they gave us this buff even though a lot of theorycrafters boo-hooed it.
• Glyph of Guard: “Increases the amount your Guard absorbs by 10%, but your Guard can only absorb magical damage.” -- Guard increases healing I do to myself by 30%, but only while it’s active, so it’s possible to use this glyph when taking little to no magic damage just for nearly 100% uptime of 30% more healing.
• Gift of the Ox procs a crapload. I can either step into them when I’m low on health, or just stand on them for what essentially works like a MASSIVE EARTHSHIELD instantly overhealing the bajesus out of me the moment I take a hit (since they can be in piles)
• It is possible for me to use the lvl 30 healing talents monk’s have, to aid with specific things on a fight at the cost of myself taking a bit more damage.

Professions:

I’m super on the fence about professions. Seeing as how I’m not even willing to say one stat is “best” on a Brewmaster until I can actually take something where I take some real damage. Due to this shenanigans I’m just going to roll Alchemy, and of all things, Herbalism in order to level 2 “good” professions fast and efficiently (this means I can put off leveling my druid (to farm for my professions) and go straight to my Backup DK, just in case Brewmasters end up TERRIBAD.)

Here’s what the theorycrafters are saying:

• Alchemy is currently ranking in at number one or two, depending on who you talk to, mostly due to [Mantid Elixir] especially with [Elixir of the Rapids]
• Herbalism gives 4.5% haste for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. Some theorycrafters are saying this is number two (after BSing) -- With how valuable haste is as a stat, especially as a stat that can be used BEFORE you take damage (rather than only during or after) this cooldown may be amazing (Just how amazing is likely why I’ll end up Troll in a few weeks T_T) I want to try it out. -- So I’m nabbing Herbalism as my second profession even though I likely have everything I need for inscription farmed up from back when Agility was a better stat than haste.
• Blacksmithing’s two extra sockets are a crapload of secondary stats making this the other amazing one to have. I’ll probably end up picking this up later despite my general dislike for it (and my old main having it) -- Which profession to drop is the question. (probably herbalism)

The rest of the professions are meh. Some worse than others. Notably:

• Leatherworking’s primary stat bracer enchants replace secondary stat ones (haste bracer enchant > agility bracer enchant, depending on who you ask) making this worse than the other professions. (depending)
• Skinning is crit! Surprisingly I guess this isn't terribad, depending on if crit is your thing... but I say meh.
• Mining is still a terrible choice.

Races:

• Undead’s Touch of the Grave was more powerful, before Tiger Strikes was taken from Brewmasters. -- It’s currently comparable healing to bloodworms (apparently, so some random logs are saying) Right now how good this is for a tank is going to be highly dependent on if it still procs things, how powerful Sanctuary of the Ox is, and luck. -- Alas, I may only get to enjoy being an undead for a short time. Either way, Undead are going to be awesome in 5 mans and I’m going to rock that shit until heroic raids make me swap (if they even do)
• Troll is probably best. Haste being as powerful as it is. I’ll use herbalism’s mini haste buff to try out the concept.
• Pandaren may beat even trolls, depending on what stat I want, or if I want constant stats. -- I’m not a big fan of the Pandas (as monks) although I may end up a female one. I'd rather be an old race with new animations!
• Orcs get Axe Specialization, seeing as how all I’ll really use in the first tier is fist weapons, this is one bloody powerful racial. Orc is a possibility in my future :P
• Blood Elves get 1 chi every 2 minutes... yay
• Tauren... War Stomp T_T

[Takaoni]

That stat priority may be the strangest thing I've seen in WoW to date. :^l

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