Bmonk Stagger Question

Classes Monk
1

I’ve got a love/hate with Bmonks at the moment while trying to gear up and doing dungeons. But before I finalize my emotional reaction I need to know if I’m understanding the Bmonk mechanic correctly.

I track their stagger bar. So, when it’s red (maxed) or just really high and there’s a lot of damage coming I kind of focus on others for that incoming damage. Assuming that the tank is gonna use that stagger for the incoming damage. When the bar is near empty and they’re health is Lowering quickly, they get my primary focus because without a stagger build up that heavy damage is gonna face plant them. Am I understanding the Purpose of stagger correctly: it’s used to spread out damage and if they dont have stagger built up they’re gonna fall apart like wet tissue paper with the heavy damage? Or am I reacting as their healer in the opposite fashion that I should be: fully built stagger means they need my attention More because they cant stagger the damage out any more?

Half the time I love Bmonks and then half the time I hate them…but it could just be crappy healer syndrome.

Edit: Crappy healer syndrome is active. I’m reacting in the reverse of how I should. Finally found a write up about stagger which made sense to me. Sorry to all those bmonks who got stuck with me the past 48hrs.

4 Likes
2

Sounds like you got it under control :+1:

1 Like
3

I would add, a well played brm monk will have very smooth damage intake. A poorly played brm monk will be very spiky and go from 0-100 very quickly.

The only one who will really notice is the healer, you. I’d take that into account when you adjust for the tank.

2 Likes
4

Holy…
I think I have been playing my BM monk wrong this whole time. I always tried to keep my stagger % as low as possible. So just the opposite? Let it get high?

5

Purify on high red and yellow meters. And for healers, focus more when stagger gets high - because that means they’re sustaining the most damage.
Here is for both the OP and anyone else who needs it, how staggering works taken from Icy veins - which explains it way better than I could.
"A simple example, assuming a Stagger amount of 40%, is as follows:

1. An attack of 500,000 damage is performed against you.
2. 300,000 damage is dealt to you instantly.
3. A DoT is applied to you, which deals 200,000 damage over 10 seconds.
4. You cast Purifying Brew after 2 seconds, removing 40% of the DoT’s remaining damage.
5. You have sustained 300,000 in instant damage, and 136,000 in Staggered damage. The remaining 64,000 damage has been removed by Purifying Brew."

6

The most important thing is keeping ISB up. If using purifying brew impedes that, then you should use ISB. If you can purify at high stagger without compromising ISB uptime, then your purify.

7

I’d add that, If possible, get rivers normalized stagger bar weak aura, which will show you when your stagger spikes outside of normal damage intake to help plan your purify to really make sure it’s a good purify.

2 Likes
8

So i will offer my own opinion. I played several brew master monks to 120 and here is what i know.

First off, stagger makes powerful attacks and strikes do less damage to the monk tank - and then bleed the remaining damage over time. So an attack that hits a warrior for 60% of their max health, would only hit a brew master tank for 20% and over 10 seconds the 40% extra damage would bleed on the monk over time.

THis is really useful for raids, or for situations in combat which “heavy slow attacks” would crush a tanks health by 50% or more of their health.

Stagger is useful in raids for reducing the dangers of dangerous heavy attacks and mechanics, BUT in dungeons, brew masters have a hard time in dungeons.

In dungeons, brew masters takes a large amount of small hits, or tons of sustain damage. This sustain small hits, it bleeds fast and doesn’t store in the monk’s stagger very well.

So from level 20-100 brew master monks tend to have to kite, and use coldowns trinkets and skills to stay alive. Same with mythic + dungeons.

Of course, if you’re playing a brew master tank, it’s always good to keep iron skin brew up. Your job is to keep smoothing the damage into damage over time, not taking large chunk hits that eat 50% or more of your health.

With out ironskin brew up 24/7 (full uptime always) you will take more burst damage, and you will also bleed less damage, as less damage is being staggered.

Like i said earlier, dungeons are not very good for a brew master because they often take a lot of small hits and can’t really stagger the small rapid constant damage intake.

NOW if you’re a healer - you should know that healing a brew master is basically - just keeping their health around 50-75% all the time. Yes they require constant healing, but their stagger helps so they don’t explode by taking a shadow bolt or strike and die in 1 hit. So from a healer’s perspective, stagger is a safety mechanic to prevent death from massive damage. Basically a brew master monk will usually die from bleeding out 2-3% of their health every second in combat. Have to constantly heal them and heal through the stagger. If they get too much stagger, they are probably pulling too much and should kite, or also purify some of the stagger damage.

So typically a brew master tank will die in 33 seconds at 3% health loss per second with stagger. But if they pull too much, they could die at 7% or 8% health lost per second, which is a large stagger.
But also they will always take damage in a smooth bleeding type.

Warriors and some other tanks bob up and down - losing 40% health and healing them back to 100% and then losing 30% of their health. Some tanks are whack a mole healing, while brew master is “feed them heals to keep their health sustain”.

So even if you’re brew master is not getting healed to 100% full health, it’s FINE. Just heal them so they hover around 50-70% health and heal as they bleed.

Brew masters are bleeding tanks. They will mostly always bleed their damage taken from monsters rather than take huge chunks of damage hits (EDITED for extra clarity)

But stagger still makes a brew master bleed over time and need constant attention. So healing them might seem a little overwhelming and constantly babysitting and very tiring to heal.

Brew masters are mostly good in raids - both PvE and PvP. In raids they can break a hit that is “death from massive damage” into a survivable half / half 50% /50% hit allowing them to survive attacks that will destroy other tanks.

In PvP the epic battlegrounds, brew masters are basically a golden tank for tanking isles of conquest and alterac valley bosses in epic battlegrounds.

Other than that - weaknesses are - brew masters are not very good in 5 man dungeons, they are awful in all forms of PvP, and they struggle to competitive tank damage compared to warriors and demon hunters.

But brew master is a noble class, being the best at a specific area of wow, and they are the best raid tanks when you’re pushing content for your guild. After the other tanks get a bit a gear and get some stamina and defense trinkets, monks become less useful.

Brew masters don’t scale that good with gear, but azerite traits are very good for them for sustaining the stagger bleed dot and being genrally tankier.

I know you get annoyed by healing brew masters, but brew masters are a very specific, specialized tank that is strong in very specific situations. I hope you don’t mind healing them, they are very good for raid finder / all serious raids / and pvp raids.

Any ways i hope this post helps others understand brew masters. They are very powerful and can be very useful to guilds and Raiding content.

1 Like
9

Monk is pretty strong in dungeons. It’s arguably the third best tank in m+.

Well, stagger is significantly reduced against magic, so it doesn’t really help with that.

That’s now how stagger works. It’s the same % of an attack, big or small. This simply isn’t accurate.

Warriors should literally never “bob” in hp. The only tank that is supposed to yoyo his HP is bdk. To a lesser extent, vdh and paladin, but not nearly as drastically.

So can warrior and paladin.

Again, this is false.

This is not true.

All tanks scale essentially the same with gear, but monk does technically scale the best. By a very, very small amount, but it’s still a factor.

This is literally the opposite of true.

2 Likes
10

I guess I don’t understand why people think monk tanks are bad in 5 man’s. I’ve had no issues with 10 and 11 sometimes 12. I don’t try to pug higher than that because Pugs for me don’t always work well and I don’t have a dedicated team.

11

@Drezwazluz i seen you on these forums. You really like to disagree and i can’t change your mind, so it’s too bad.

But brew masters are very strong, you just have to experience it for your self. I am sorry friend that you have grudges and jealousy. I can’t convince or change your mind so that is very sad.

I wish you only good things drez. Goodluck friend and be well.

12

I mean, you’re not bringing anything to support your claims, which are in opposition to what PoS and the TC’s state.

I play brm.

…what.

Get over yourself.

13

For a little while dungeons and stagger didn’t mix too well. That’s hasn’t really been the case since the addition of M+ in Legion though, or at least I’m pretty sure, I don’t know off the top of my head when Brewmasters in Dungeons started being pretty good.

14

Drez and entrerri are both forum trolls. Neither of them have the experience of their words. They spill their hate and vitriol across every forum. They aren’t worth your time or anyone else’s. In fact, troll doesn’t quite cut it. They are more like forum maggots…

1 Like
15

So, unless you can refute or debunk any statement I have made, please retract your defamatory and insulting statements.

16

Like you run the show here - LOL!

Good luck with that!

2 Likes