World of Warcraft®

GEARING AND STATS

Some explanation on each stat.

- HIT
7.5% Cap is a must. This is not even open for discussion.

- EXPERTISE
There's a lot of discussion between 15% or 7.5% exp. Some players manage to make it work with 7.5% exp, but 15% will give you a safer rotation. By having 100% chance of hitting with all your abilities, you guarantee that there will be no suprises in terms of resource management and skill usage.

the biggest disadvantage of not being exp capped is that some times through the fight, your Keg smash wont land (and wont generate 2 chi). While most of the time this means you'll have to re-cast jab twice again to be able to use Blackout kick (and trigger shuffle), the problem is when your shuffle is already about to drop, you KS, misses .. and until you are able to generate 2 chi again to turn shuffle back on .. a good 4-5 seconds have passed with your defenses completely open.

Basically, if you are not playing with 15% exp, you'll have less room for mistakes and the possibility of a bad rng.

- HASTE
This is an unique rating because it pretty much buffs everything else. With more haste you have a faster energy regen (which translates into more chi generated, allowing you to use Blackout kick, guard and purefying brew more often), spawn more GoTO orbs and have more elusive brew procs (simply because you auto-attack more often).

There's current no "must have" cap on haste. If you browse top world monks you'll see that after they reach 7.5% hit and 15% exp, they have haste at 2k .. 4k .. 6k .. 7k. So it's impossible to say which is the "best" value. What I can say is how much haste you need to increase your energy regen.

around 3.9k haste you get +1 energy/sec
around 7.9k haste you get +2 energy/sec

Basically what I can say about haste is: get as much as you want, until you feel confortable with your rotation. When you reach a point that it seems that you have enough energy to use everything that you want, there you go .. you don't need haste past that point. My personal advice is that you aim to have around 3-6k haste, simply because it gives you more "breathing room" while managing your resources. But like I said, some people make it work with 2-3k .. so it's up to you.

- CRIT
Boosts your elusive brew procs. Most monks have around 25-30% crit while in raids. This is enough to have a descent uptime on elusive brew procs .. around 40-50% crit, you literally have enough elusive brew stacks to almost chain refresh it (if the rng gods are nice to you). The good thing about it, it's that crit is a cheap stat. Around 3k crit rating is enough to get ~5% crit. The bad thing is that it's extremelly RNG. You can have several moments that even with 40-50% crit, you might not crit for a good 10-15 sec ... so it's tough to rely on that.

- MASTERY
Mastery is the tricky pony. It doesn't reduce dmg taken by itself. By increasing your mastery, you are simply transfering a couple more dmg you would take instantly, to become stagger (the dot). But the dmg is still there. Can it be removed by purefying brew? Sure can .. but there's a limit on how often you can use it without sacrificing shuffle/guard. This is the problem of our mastery. It's value is completely dependent on how often/well you use purefying brew. Which is directly tied to how much haste you have.

Also keep in mind that mastery is the "effective health" stat. So several monks end up doing a mastery build if they find themselves in a situation where the boss can 2-3 shot them (which pretty much only happens on 25h final bosses).

Usually, mastery is a secondary stat. You get your hit/exp caps, then you get as much haste as you need .. and only then you spend points on mastery. But keep in mind that this priority can change if you are doing a content where bosses hit super hard.

BUILDS - Updated for 5.2

There's a couple of "builds" being used by brewmasters. I'll try to explain the pros/cons of each, so you can have a better idea of what might suit your playstyle.

Haste build

This is the "standart" build. It works on most of the content. It involves the following priorities:
hit = exp > haste > crit = mastery.

blue gems = hit (or stam/haste after cap)
red gems = exp (or agi/haste after cap)
yellow gems = haste
meta = agi + crit

Basically it's about boosting your haste so that you regen energy faster, being able to generate chi faster. By doing that you have more brething room managing shuffle uptime, and more Purefying Brew, Guard usage without sacrificing shuffle uptime.

It's a very solid build, used by most monks because it's reliable. It's dependent on player skill, there's no surprises or bad rng.

Keep in mind that there is a "cap" on haste. I found that past 5-6k rating it's a little overkill because you have more chi than you can spend. So my personal imput is that you keep haste as priority until ~5-6k. Past that, go for the other ratings.

Currently i'm going for hit = exp > haste to 5-6k > mastery > crit.

Crit build

It's a variation of the haste build. In this case, it priorizes crit over haste. This type of build is a little more popular now because of the 2p tier bonus. If you have it, this build might work for you.

It involves the following priorities:
hit = exp > crit = haste > mastery.

blue gems = hit (or stam/crit after cap)
red gems = exp (or agi/crit after cap)
yellow gems = crit
meta = agi + crit

The idea is that once you have 2p tier (for every second of EB used, you get a follow up 12% stagger buff of the same duration), is that you increase your EB uptime, to increase the +12% stagger buff uptime.

One thing to notice on this build, is that since % crit is constant, being expertise fully capped is not that important (attacks that will crit, can't miss .. only regular hits enter in the dodge/parry/hit calculation). So it's common that people who uses that build, uses Agi or Agi/crit gems on red sockets, since agility buffs your crit % as well.

The idea of this build is to boost your crit so you generate more stacks of Elusive brew, being able to use it more often. While still keeping your haste at a descent value so you can still maintain shuffle, guard and PB usage in check.

But keep in mind that while Elusive brew is an awesome mechanic, it can be rng. I had moments of building 15 charges in ~20 seconds, and moments that my charges dropped while offtanking by not critting once in 30 sec. Having more crit lowers the chance of that happening ... but RNG is still RNG.

Mastery/Effective Health build

This build is often used by 25m/heroic tanks. The extra mastery allows you to handle the extra punishment from 25man bosses.

It's priority is the following:
hit = exp > haste(until 4-6k) > mastery > crit.

blue gems = stam/mastery
red gems = exp/mastery
yellow gems = mastery
meta = agi/crit

The idea of this build, is that you raise your haste until a confortable value (which can vary. I'm currently sitting at ~5k), and then dump everything else on mastery. Bosses are hitting descently hard on 25 mans, so the extra mastery is very interesting to smooth out the dmg taken. And the haste is required to keep up with the PB usage by having more and more dmg shifted into stagger. Which means that you have very little to spare on crit.

It's a very solid build that will get you through 25mans.

7.5% exp or 15% exp?

All those builds work with both amounts of expertise. I checked a lot of armories from the top monks and ~60-70% of them have 15% expertise. Which is enough to say that the majority rather aim for the full cap .. but it's also valid to point out that there's several others playing succesfully bellow the cap.

15% is simply safer. It doesn't matter the build .. knowing that you wont have surprises in the rotation is quite important. I rather a reliable setup where I'm in absolute control of my skills .. some people rather spend the rating difference elsewhere to compensate.

Again, both methods work, so it's really up to you.

Which weapon enchant?

- Dancing Steel is the best. Very high uptime of 1650 agility.

- Windsong is the 2nd best. Very cheap enchant and all procs (crit/haste/mastery) are usefull to us in a way or another.

- River's song is a poor enchant .. 1650 dodge rating is around 1.7% dodge .. which is not something you'll even notice. If we were talking about 3-4%, then maybe it would be good, but it's not that case. And it's much more expensive than windsong.

- colossus is a terrible enchant. Some people argue that it's effective health. But it's a really pathetic amount that is not even worth mentioning.

TALENTS

15:

it's a choice between Celerity and Momentum. I used to go with Celerity, but I found that there are very few situations (actually, I can't even remember one) where the extra roll is good. You just don't roll that often .. at least not more than twice within 20 sec. And momentum is far better to cover bigger distances due to it's small "sprint". Tiger's Lust is usefull because it dispells snare effects, so it's a viable option as well.

30:

This line is a little trickier. Both Chi Wave and Zen Sphere are good talents. Chi wave provides a "bursty" heal, that will bounce 3-4 times on you (if somebody else is not full hp, it can bounce on them as well), while Zen Sphere is more like a "hot" that you cast on yourself. Crazy math aside, Zen sphere hot = green stagger dmg. So it basically negate green stagger (from a healing required standpoint) for it's duration. It's a slower heal but guaranteed it will be on you (while chi wave can bounce on other people).

Chi Burst is the crappiest to heal yourself but extremelly op on raid healing situations where the group is somewhat clumped. If you are tanking a boss with descent to high dmg, and he deals an aoe skill (Feng's velocity, Empress exploding orbs, Windlord aoe spin, etc), chi burst with high vengeance can heal 80-90k per target . With 150-200k crits.

45:

This line is a 100% personal preference. All talents give you around the same "extra chi over time", it's just different how they do that.

Power strikes is a more lazy automatic version that constantly gives you +1 chi every few seconds.

Ascension does that by increasing your energy regen, allowing you to use jab more often.

Chi brew simply burst 4 chi every 1m30s, given you are using it on cooldown. This gives you a faster start on "chi generated". It takes about 4-5 minutes for the other talents to catch up on chi generated (to explain in a simple way. The 1st time you use it, you generated 4 chi, which means that power strikes for example, will take 4 procs, which is 80 seconds, to generate the same 4 chi, and so forth)

I personally prefer ascension because I like the possibility of pooling 5 chi, and I think more energy regen is more versatile. Simply because It means I can use any energy based skill more often, not just jab. Which means faster reaction time with expel harm, etc etc. I just like it better. Keep in mind that Ascension scales better with more haste, while Power Strikes is better at low amounts of haste.

60:

Ring of Peace is a great talent (8 seconds disarm/silence around the target you cast, which can be you). But I think it will have a very limited use. It's probably going to be better on pvp or 5 mans where mobs can actually be disarmed.

About the stuns, you can either have a shorter, but more frequent stun (ox wave, 3s stun/30s cd on 5.2), or a bigger, but less frequent stun (leg sweep, 5s stun/45s cd).

75:

Here is very specific about which fight you are doing. Dampen Harm is the "default" choice. It's not good for reducing constant dmg but it's really awesome for big timed skills due to it's shorter cd compared to other "shield walls"

Diffuse Magic is more of a pvp talent BUT in some specific fights it can be very good. It basic negate a magic-based skill. Healing Elixirs, while it provides a descent self heal, I think as a tank you should be more concerned about having cooldowns ... but if the fight doesn't have anything in particular where dampen harm/diffuse magic are usefull, go with healing elixirs.

90:

Torpedo is crap for tanks.

Having said that .. 90% of the time you'll use Xuen. Xuen is pretty much "free dmg", and eventually he can tank an add or something. Keep in mind that Xuen can tank pretty much any boss on 5 mans, which makes him very powerfull on challenge modes (if he's being healed, he'll definetely survive it's full duration), and his dmg updates dinamically with your AP, so don't bother timing it's use with "high vengeance".

RJW is very powerfull on aoe. But on single target it hits for pretty much the same of Blackout kick. Which means that for single target bosses it's useless (which is the main reason as to why you use xuen most of the time), but for fights with heavy aoe (windlord), it's very good.

On 5 mans/challenge modes:
- Xuen is better for bosses
- RJW is better for killing trash faster.

and this sums up our talents.

ROTATION AND SKILL USAGE

brewmasters, as any other tank, don't have a rotation per se .. they have a list of priorities. How you achieve that changes constantly, so it's more about a flow of skills than a sequence set in stone. Ideally, this is what a brewmaster should aim towards:

keep shuffle up

use keg smash on cooldown

don't let energy cap

This is the bread and butter of brewmasters. How often you use purefying brew, guard and healing skills is 100% related to the situation you are at.

To explain a little better, how you can mess up brewmaster "rotation" take a look at this chart:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au9Cc31Cr6DOdHF0SS1JWEowZkpkcFdFRkZ3THhKSlE

Those are 3 examples of:

a good management of skills

a poor management of skills

a poor management of skills on top of not gearing up properly.

The idea of this chart is not to say "THIS IS THE CORRECT ROTATION" because as you can see, there's no such thing, just a sequence of skills being used based on a priority system.

I made this because a lot of people who complain about "squishness" often don't realize how those tiny minor mistakes in the rotation can open up the tank to some serious beating. Poorly managing chi and energy, using the wrong skills (or at the wrong time) can cause some gaps in your defense, that leaves you with nothing but your prayers. THAT is what causes burst dmg.

So I hope people can take a look and realize how something as simple as "delaying keg smash a little", or "using PB at the wrong time" can have a significant impact on your defense.

Also keep in mind that this is a simple 14energy/sec rotation without considering power strikes, ascension or chi brew. It's really just to compare the efficiency of resource management.

HOW OUR DEFENSIVE MECHANICS WORK - part 1

Here (and in the next post) I'll try to explain a little bit of how our defensive system works. Pretty much whenever a player says "monks are too complex" they are having problem in this area. So i'll try my best to show how it's really not that complex.

Our defensive system includes:
- Shuffle
- Purefying Brew (PB)
- Guard
- Elusive Brew (EB)
- Fortfying Brew (FB)
- Dampen Harm (DH)

I'll finish this post with Fortfying Brew and Dampen Harm because those are easier to explain.

Fortfying Brew

This is our "shield wall" equivalent.

While it does reduce the dmg taken by a lower amount than most shield walls, keep in mind that it lasts 20sec. It also further enchances our stagger, which will make more sense later in the next post.

Enough to say is that it greatly reduces our dmg taken for it's duration.


Dampen Harm

Dampen harm is similar to Bone shield from DKs. It has a longer cooldown but it also reduce dmg by a higher amount.

It's not a particularly usefull cd when you are constantly taking dmg (elusive brew and guard will be your friends there). But it's extremelly usefull to handle one thing: Big hits.

Couple with our high avoidance, dampem harm can be used to "filter" big hits from specific boss mechanics. It's extremelly handy to make us survive through "spike dmg" mechanics.

Having covered those 2 "long" cooldowns .. next there's a big explanation on all of our defensive mechanics.

HOW OUR DEFENSIVE MECHANICS WORK - part 2

Before I detail each skill, I think it's valid to explain how stagger works.

Ox stance - Stagger:
You shrug off physical attacks, causing 80% of the damage to happen instantly and the remaining 20% to be divided over 10 sec.

To explain in the easiest way possible.

When an enemy hits you for 100k dmg:
- 80k happens instantly.
- 20k is divided into 10 ticks of 2k (ticking for the next 10 seconds).

You'll still take 100k dmg. But it's easier to heal a dmg broke down into small pieces than a big hit. Keep this mechanic in mind because everything else is designed around this.
-----------------

Shuffle
- Costs 2 chi
- adds an extra 20% stagger
- adds 20% parry
- lasts 6 seconds
- triggered by Blackout Kick (BoK)

It's by far our most important buff, that should be kept up all the time. All the time. You do that in a very simple way: using blackout kick often (ideally, more than once every 6 seconds).

So now we have:
- 20% stagger (Ox stance)
- 5% from mastery (4% is passive, 1% you get naturally by mastery ratings left overs)
- 20% stagger (Shuffle)

So, without shuffle up, a 100k hit means:
75k dmg instantly
25k dmg divided into 10 ticks of 2.5k dot.

But with shuffle up, a 100k hit means:
55k dmg instantly
45k dmg divided into 10 ticks of 4.5k dot.

Not only you get 20% extra parry (which practically doubles our avoidance), you are a lot less squishy with shuffle up. THAT is why it's so imperative to maximize shuffle uptime.
-----------------

Purefying Brew
- Cost 1 chi
- "Cleanse" Stagger dot.

"But Eflow, stagger sux ... i'll still take the same dmg". Not so fast young grasshopper. That's when Purefying Brew comes into play.

What purefying brew does, is remove that dot. But since it has a chi cost, you can't simply use it whenever you like, or you wont have enough chi to keep shuffle up (which is more important).

This is basically the key gameplay to monks. To balance how often you use PB, without letting shuffle drop. This is a very simple rule that I follow in order to use PB.

- Think that you have to generate 2 chi every 6 seconds for blackout kick. Those 2 chi are sacred and you should never touch them.
- Whatever extra chi you generate besides those 2, can be used with Purefying brew, ideally to cleanse moderate and heavy sagger.
- If you don't have moderate or heavy stagger, don't waste the "spare" chi on Purefying brew, simply bank that chi to be used with a PB later on, or use it with guard instead.

It's really that simple.
-----------------

Guard
- Costs 2 chi
- Absorbs dmg
- Heavily modified by AP (it's roughly 2*AP).
- short cooldown
- Buffed by Tiger palm.

I honestly want to murder the idiots that say "use guard on the pull". It's the most idiotic advice ever. Early on the pull, you have very low AP (around 35-40k). So yeh .. your guard will absorb 80-90k dmg. Monk tanks often have 500-600k hp. That's how pathetic using guard on the pull is.

Guard is an excellent ability due to it's short cd (30s) and that it works on pretty much any dmging mechanic in the game). It can be used in 2 ways:

- save your life.
After taking a lot of dmg, your vengeance gets significantly higher, which boosts your guard power. With high lvls of vengeance, it's common to get 250-500k guards (after all the % modifiers are in place). You were brought down to 30-40% hp? Use guard, expel harm will likely be available (if <35%) and even if you don't avoid ANY hit, that's enough to buy your healers at least 5 seconds to heal you up.

- handle specific fight mechanics.
Tsulong / Elegon's breath, Empress aoe orbs, Vizier exhale, Garalon's Crush ... you name it. It's great to soak most of the harm.
-----------------

Elusive Brew
- charge based cost
- stacks whenever we land an auto-attack (or tiger strikes) crit
- very short cd
- adds 30% dodge

One common mistake people make about this skill is letting it stack to it's maximum before using. It's power is exactly on the oposite: being able to use it often, even with few stacks.

Remember that we have shuffle up all the times? This means that our avoidance is usually sitting at ~45%. EB boost that number to 75% (or 80% if you have 2p tier).

Now keep in mind, that many boss skills are instant moves. So it doesn't matter if you have 2 seconds or 10 seconds of EB. It matters that when the boss actually uses the skill, EB is up.

For example, Sha's Trash ability (3 hits at once) happens 2 sec after the buff appear on the boss (yeah, there's a buff). You use Elusive brew, even with 2-3 stacks, and see a "dodge dodge dodge". A 2 sec buff, timed well can make THAT difference.

Think of elusive brew as a short duration buff that is used whenever you get 5-8 charges.

Is anyone really aiming for 15% expertise? That seems excessive

You should probably put a thing in about talents

Otherwise, yay less bad monks

01/05/2013 12:22 AMPosted by Exoslug

Is anyone really aiming for 15% expertise? That seems excessive

Do you think there's some hidden value to stopping at a random number like 7.5%?

01/05/2013 12:22 AMPosted by Exoslug

Is anyone really aiming for 15% expertise? That seems excessive

Depends on playstyle really. I've tested 15% expertise, crit and haste builds. 15% pretty much guarantees 100% shuffle uptime, but you will be hard pressed for Chi for purify, guard and Chi Wave. Crit builds allow incredible EB uptime. Haste builds gives more leeway for Chi usage. But take note that with Crit and haste builds, shuffle will no longer be at 100% uptime, usually around the high 90%, which is perfectly acceptable. That's what I've been seeing anyway.

01/05/2013 12:22 AMPosted by Exoslug

Is anyone really aiming for 15% expertise? That seems excessive

brewmasters have 1 weakness: random burst dmg.

this just doesn't happen if your defenses are up. It happens when you poorly manage your resources and screw up.

If you are not doing a content that is challenging (which seems to be your case, considering you are only doing LFR), it's perfectly fine to not be expertise capped. But once you step on fights that tiny mistakes = death you realize that it's the safest route.

Depends on playstyle really. I've tested 15% expertise, crit and haste builds. 15% pretty much guarantees 100% shuffle uptime, but you will be hard pressed for Chi for purify, guard and Chi Wave. Crit builds allow incredible EB uptime. Haste builds gives more leeway for Chi usage. But take note that with Crit and haste builds, shuffle will no longer be at 100% uptime, usually around the high 90%, which is perfectly acceptable. That's what I've been seeing anyway.

People need to stop thinking of brewmaster's rating as one thing. They are actually 2 separated groups:

- hit/expertise cap is a must on any build. (again, considering you are doing challenging content).

- then you can have haste/mastery/crit distributed in the way that suits your playstyle better.

There's no such thing as hit/exp build. You have haste, mastery and crit build. Hit and exp are always going to be there.

I have 7.5% hit and 15% exp and STILL have ~6400 haste, and a couple of thousands on crit and mastery. My gear (which is not Bis, by far) have around 15.5k rating available on the gear alone .. not even counting gems etc. That is more than enough to cap hit and exp and have spare rating for the rest.

Hit and exp for monks tanks are kinda like hit/exp caps for dpsers. In order to make sure their rotation is the best possible, first they have to make sure all of their attacks land, so there's no suprises screwing their lives.

It's the same for monk tanks. Once you get rid of the "surprises" in the rotation, it's a walk in the park.

But the problem being that even with a full haste build(7.5 soft cap for each) I still have less haste than you do. Haste allows me more room for error and purifying. Expertise does not, although Shuffle is permanently up. Probably just a gear thing really.

01/05/2013 03:59 AMPosted by Irøh

Haste allows me more room for error and purifying.

How can you say that when your attacks fail to connect 7.5% of the time?

The point of having haste and expertise capped is to have control over threatening situations.

If your Shuffle is about to drop and you're sitting at 40% health with no chi, and your Keg Smash fails to connect, what then?

It's a matter of ensuring scenarios like that don't happen by maximizing your control. "Usually" is never a word a tank should use, because one outlier of the "usual" scenarios and you have a wipe.

It's the same reason I tack a Guard or a secondary cooldown to my monk during Thrash. The chance you could be gibbed through Elusive Brew is amazingly small - but it's not nonexistent.

01/05/2013 03:59 AMPosted by Irøh

But the problem being that even with a full haste build(7.5 soft cap for each) I still have less haste than you do. Haste allows me more room for error and purifying. Expertise does not, although Shuffle is permanently up. Probably just a gear thing really.

Your gems go directly against what you just said, though; you have a LOT of agility and crit gems. You're focusing on Elusive Brew, not chi generation, and if you're not in a position where you're producing enough chi to comfortably Purify OR hit/exp capped, it's going to leave you hanging.

Could be your WW gear, but if it's not, it holds true.

Damn, this means the holidays are over, doesn't it?

You should probably just keep it here, in the actual monk forums we have an outdated, bare bones guide as well as another pretty good one that hasn't gotten sticky and isn't on the front page anymore.

Ugh, that "outdated, bare bones guide" is so inaccurate it's not even funny.

Hell it was inaccurate when it was made.

It makes me sad.

01/04/2013 07:55 PMPosted by Quard

This is a fine thread, but it would be better served in the Monk forum.

generally speaking, people who want to know how to fix tank problems come to the tank forums, and not their class forums.

there's just too much noise about random crap in each class forum

01/05/2013 10:44 AMPosted by Leeflow

This is a fine thread, but it would be better served in the Monk forum.

generally speaking, people who want to know how to fix tank problems come to the tank forums, and not their class forums.

there's just too much noise about random crap in each class forum

Very much agree. Also, requested sticky.

Where does agility and stamina fit in for stat weights? I'm looking to start playing brewmaster more, and I have the Relic of Nuizao and tomorrow I will have the Xuen one. Which one do you recommend in general, and which one do you recommend for a lesser geared tank like me (with the Nuizao trinket I have 444k unbuffed hp)? I have read that stamina is mediocre stat for monks because of how stagger works and that agility should be valued above everything after hit and expertise cap. Is that true?

For gemming, should I go for pure haste gems in yellows and hybrids in reds, or pure agi (after I cap my expertise) in reds and hybrids in yellow?

Thanks for the guide and the help getting started! :)