I’m about to start leveling my brewmaster monk, but while leveling other characters I haven’t seen any bm monk tanks. Are they bad? Should I change his spec?
I already have 2 ww and 3 mw monks, but I’m willing to switch if this spec is not fun 
Why do you have so many monks?
why not just play BM on one of your already made monks?
iirc none of the tanks are bad, it’s just some are definitely better than others. Unless you’re trying to push keys close to 20s you can probably get away with any tank.
They’re cute
Thanks, ig I’ll try it out. I do remember having a miserable time in bfa tho. All my other tanks felt pretty good except for this monk.
Every Tank can be played at every level of play. Of all the roles, Tanks are easily the best balanced.
Brewmasters are probably the least popular, due to a combination of Monks being the least popular class for tanking and Brewmasters having the highest skill floor (especially compared to Druids).
The Brewmaster playstyle is significantly better in SL than in BFA IMO, with it being pretty similar to the MoP playstyle which was largely about getting huge Guards (renamed to Celestial Brew).
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Brewmaster is a lot of fun at higher levels once it gets its full set of tools and talents, but at lower levels it can be a bit painful to play.
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I think brewmaster monks are the tanks i feel safest with 
it’s all cuz of the bubble thing 
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Brewmasters are my favourite raid tank by far.
Stagger is the best mechanic any tank has, and no-one can take phyiscal damage to the face like a Monk can because of it.
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Agree with this, when leveling it’s like you’re so squishy and healers hate you, and than somewhere in the 45-55 range you all of a sudden become an unstoppable force that healers love. It’s crazy, and I have never spent the time to figure out exactly what it is you get that changes it, but it’s like NIGHT AND DAY.
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I find that once you get light brewing at 30 then high tolerance at 50 you start to significantly improve.
Monks are “hard” to play especially when you have most other tanks that are way easier by comparison.
Monks also are really only designed to take massive hits well. In Mythic+, your stagger bar is constantly maxed out and you are popping brews pretty much as they come up with very limited defenses in between.
So a lot of the time it feels like you are putting in a whole lot more work for very minimal gains. You won’t pull off the damage of a warrior or DH, you certainly don’t have the raw survivability of a bear or warrior, you don’t got the niche utility on par with a paladin, and you will be fighting the stigma that monk tanks are bad and thus you are much more likely to be bad and lacking
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Personal opinion: warriors much harder to tank on than brewmasters.
Brewmasters are pretty decent, but you’re right in that they’ll rarely match the damage output of other tanks, but they can take hits better than most.
Guardian Druid was also a bit of a struggle in terms of generating rage and upfront aggro.
Brewmaster is fine and certainly a lot of fun.
Warriors are only harder to tank “right” with. They have multiple active mitigation and different scenarios when to use each. On top of that, they got nearly a bar in itself of niche defensives and random utility.
Monks take physical massive hits better than any other tank…because that is literally what stagger does. Any other scenario, other tanks shine ESPECIALLY in mythic+ when hits are faster and rapid…you want armor and blocking to come in there.
I’m not arguing monks are bad. Any tank can tank “fine”, but the perception will definitely affect people pugging and if they get a choice between a monk and literally any other tank with a similar gear and score…the monk will be really hard pressed to get that invite. Even I wouldn’t take a monk tank (were I looking for a tank) for any given mythic+ week unless I value their physical damage debuff, cleansing potential (almost all nasties are disease and posion), or niche utility like paralyze and/or ring of peace.
This also ignores WW exists and is literally the best, if not a top spec currently for dungeons.
My own personal tier list (since I tank on everything) would be
Druid
[infinity distance here]
Warrior
Paladin
Demon Hunter
DK
Monk
Bear threat gen is horrid but easily fixable with a hunter or rogue and not even a big deal once a pull is a few seconds in and/or you also aren’t running with uber burst specs.
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Good to see that Blood is still generally unloved.
The whole DK “niche” of “take more damage to heal more damage” reallllllllllllllly sucks in mythic+ when fortified trash bursts you down before you get to that whole “heal back up” phase.
Combined with their very lackluster damage and the fact doing said damage comes at the cost of your defensive prowess…plus you brick your runes you are just a sitting duck.
My bear tank who, at the time, was 15 ilvls under my DK was tanking 15’s easier. Even my warrior who is 10ish ilvls fares better I feel.
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The stigma is bigger than the actual gap between classes.
Funnily enough, the top 5 tanks on RIO are all different classes, with Warriors being the only tank that doesn’t crack the top 20 tanks (the best warrior this season is #22).
Tanks as a whole are almost perfectly balanced at the skill ceiling, the bigger stigma comes from their performance at the skill floor (where I’d almost agree with your tier list, but I’d put a poorly played DK below a poorly played Monk).
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100% agree, I main a 249 Blood DK, and M+ is always crazy. My HP bar is like a yo-yo, it’s full, it’s 20%, it’s full, it’s 20%, I give healers a heart attack and actually don’t enjoy pushing keys. While my 230 iLvL guardian druid I have been tanking 15’s with no issue, and will hit KSM on it this week. This feels WRONG to me (and I tank M+ on every tank class, I have multiples of each at 60).
I’d move DK to the Bottom and depending on Affixes would put DH up in 2nd. I’ve been prot warrior since Vanilla, so it’s my go to, and I feel most confident on it, but SL has made it not as enjoyable as other classes. As for Paladin/Warrior/Monk, I’d say they’re pretty close for me, nothing stands out, but definitely have their shortcomings on certain affixes.
Agree that brewmasters could use a damage buff and maybe one more cooldown to counter dmg - a large self heal perhaps
Cries in gimped warrior class
Second charge of purify, access to more gear with mastery, crit = more heals, ToD removes stagger, all your cds are there, healy orbs and your final talent (more stagger, more haste)
Off the top of my head.