I enjoyed BRM this season. I mained BRM back in legion and then went VDH the last 2 expansions. I wanted to go back to monk though for War Within. Here’s some pros and cons:
- With stagger, we are quite tanky. The challenge for new players it’s all about feel on most pulls with stagger. It’s about anticipating how much damage you’ll be taking to pool your brews to purify and celestial brew. This can be confusing because there’s a lot of times you burn a PB even at green or yellow stagger because…well why not? I can see how new BRMs mismanage this and die to stagger damage.
- Our DPS rotation is a bit annoying. We have 1 heavy hitter we need to use on CD, then BOK to empower our combo, but then the rest are like wet noodles. Tiger punch is wildly random. Because of this, we look for fillers when keg smash is on CD, most of which is filled with empowered TPs. We basically use SCK now as a way to pseudo lump up packs at the start. Feels kind of bad overall and I’m watching my energy bar so I don’t overcap waiting for Keg Smash.
- Keg smash radius is god awful and it’s our main way of generating threat. I’m forced to use the black ox statue and SCK to kind of lump things together before I can keg smash. Or my dps peels and die. Threat generation and maintenance is almost impossible without the statue. And the statue requires a complicated macro to target the statue and then re target your previous target. Good luck new BRMs knowing this.
- Ring of Peace is so useless 95% of the time. My ely shammy hates hit it with a passion because I knock things out of his earthquakes. This is not utility, it’s niche.
- Lots of dead talents and skills. Zen med? Awful, bring back the legendary version from legion. Nizuao who? Diffuse magic is so niche and hardly useful unlike spell reflect.
- Positives - empowered insta vivifies are very strong for off healing. We need more of this. Leg sweep is clutch. Mobility is great and kiting is actually good for some large pulls with RoP and slows.
- Decent defensive CDs in dampen harm and fort brew. Although with stagger, they are only useful for the largest pulls or if you mismanage your brews and blackout brew.
- Big con: forget about pugging past 12. It’s bring your own key. Without a major group utlity like bres, PI, or a lust, we are some of the last to be picked. I only hit 3k because I formed a guild group. Our crit/verse builds are also bad stats for WW and MW so be prepared to carry two sets of gear if you want to dual role.
All in all, I think it’s very tanky but if you’re going to do 12+, better find a really good team or switch to a prot pally.