I am a Brew main. I get CE in raids, and I am regularly in the top 50 of Brew tanks on raider. io (seldom top 10). There are some things I would like for Brew to be changed, which is why I write this post. In my opinion, there are some things Brew lacks fundamentally to compete with other tanks in M+ specifically and some that would make the feel of brew way better.
Scaling in M+ (mainly self-healing)
Since Brew receives more damage by design, we also need more attention from healers, which reduces their dmg contribution (more GCDs are used for healing us that could be damage). This is inherently a negative impact when picking a Brew when forming a party. I don’t think that we should do more dmg to compensate for this, since that would make us do more dmg than other tanks in raid. This is why I think increasing our self-healing specifically in M+ content is the right move. I know that Blizzard wants to reduce this for all tanks, but they missed the mark on several specs, and somehow, Brew remains the most Healer reliant.
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One way would be to increase our self-healing in AOE. Talents like boiling brew existed before. It should only be an “M+” talent, perhaps instead of AS, because I think we don’t need a buff in raids. The idea here is to substitute missing healers from a raid setting with additional self-healing in M+. This would also be a good tuning knob between raid and M+ self reliance.
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give us a buff to maintain that gives us leech. something like: RSK buffs us x% leech for 20 seconds. It automatically scales with AOE (more M+ orientated) because we do more AOE dmg thus more self healing.
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something that lets us stack a hot on us. RSK (or any other button) buffs a hot for the dmg taken from the last x seconds for the next Y seconds. It would overlap (ironfur style) and be something of a maintenance hot instead of timing it right like a death strike etc.
Both of those last suggstions are meant to be a maintenance buff that increases our healing. You could also just increase orb generation in M+, but a maintenance buff combined with RSK would make RSK feel more integrated into the kit.
QUALITY OF LIFE changes
Some points that would greatly increase the feel of Brew (in any content) and make it more consistent.
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VV 1s gcd. Brew has 1s gcds, and every ability that has more feels clunky cause the whole rhythm is interrupted.
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bigger AOE radius for KS. Most aggro issues in M+ stem from not hitting everything. This is the complaint I read the most about in Discord etc., and it would make it a lot easier especially for new Brewmasters. I specifically mean the radius, not the range of KS.
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Chi Burst has no cast time increase when getting hit (or make it instant). It just doesn’t feel good when you press it and see the cast bar increasing all the time…
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spear hand needle - throw a needle interrupting the ki flow of your target (ranged kick. With the reinforced importance of kicks in TWW it is very punishing not being in melee. Let us execute the interrupt mechanics, but don’t punish us in ways where we have to move (or mobs move out) of range). This would help us in grouping and also while kiting!
The main reason why we lack behind in M+ content is our UTILITY. Some points where I think we could get some help are in grouping a pull, CC as well as helping the group survive mechanics.
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ring of peace knockback silences enemies for x seconds instead of “peace and prosperity”. you need the knockback for the silence to trigger.
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Clash makes them charge to you (not the yanky meet in the middle stuff), for a quasi grip. Again it would be to help us group.
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Para makes skips possible (reduce aggro range like other CC effects). maybe increase the range by 5 yards. and something additional like Para INTERRUPT (like avengers shield). This would also make sense with the Para cd reduction talents.
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VV has a longer CD, but the healing is increased. Giving us more impact per button press but less overall GCDs spent. especially in combination with the 1.5s hasted GCD.
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EK increases the cast time of XX% for enemies affected for Y seconds (choice node with the DR it does now)
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Avert Harm. Or something along those lines is always good for M+.
REWORK
Here are some ideas for a rework/ refresh of our kit. Some are more drastic than others but I just like the thought of “what could be”. This shouldn’t be in this post, but last time I posted something similar you actually used 70-80% of the stuff I had in mind, which felt great .
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Make the spec more combo centric. Make BoC the bread and butter spell and extend how it works. It should however only work with spells on the GCD. Which means: remove BoK PB interaction.
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no SCK. We have many buttons and the decision between SCK and TP is often not interesting. Consider removing SCK or bake it into TP
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Nizao. The most uninteresting button. We seldom use it and if we do, then it is due to no other viable option. He is neither really offensive nor really defensive, since he can die.
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WoO. ramping dmg on enemy mobs instead of us makes it harder when it comes to aggro or short burst windows like dmg amps or spawning new enemies.
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no CB, but “increase stagger tremendously for the next X seconds” where x are the stacks. avoids CB overhealing etc… short term buffs that are meant for tank busters. OR make CB 50% damage reduction until the shield cap is reached. make it INSTANT off GCD. Generally I like stagger and wish we could interact with it more actively. but no Ironskin brew pls
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something more useful instead of zen meditation. The button just feels clunky. Can’t dodge/ parry during your def CD, which makes it very specific and unintuitive to use. moving? forget about that.
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defensive cds on brew feel often underwhelming because we receive no immediate response due to stagger. if they would heal/ shield/ purify us, we would have instant feedback. Even though they are strong we still receive ticking stagger dmg which was applied before the mitigation.