Gift giving GoAK CDR each time Avenger’s Shield hits (which is well over a thousand times a dungeon) is absolutely massive, do not under estimate that. On top of that they have a permanent +25% additive parry bonus (the fact it’s additive is important) as long as there’s at least 5 enemies.
A&S is made to be roughly standardized in ST and AoE, it’s not true AoE scaling. If they let it go crazy in AoE as actual AoE scaling for brew I’d be entirely on board. As it stands currently, it accounts for somewhere between 2 and 2.5 mins worth of total brew CDR over the course of an entire dungeon with 1/2. 2/2 just isn’t really worth the tradeoffs right now.
They need to either make A&S truly excel in AoE and/or reintroduce previous AoE scaling borrowed power Brewmaster had (Boiling Brew + HFC 4pc would be nice, Firestone Walkers legiondary, etc)
AoE scaling meaning increased CDR on defensives or increased resource generation, or some other niche scalings like Prot Paladin’s Strength in Adversity.
The extent of Brewmaster’s “AoE” scaling is SBT giving a few additional stacks of Elusive Brawler, which is strong but not nearly enough and gets fairly quickly outpaced in larger pulls.
Not sure what “AoE scaling” for tank damage would even mean as it’s just having AoE damage. Brew’s able to do just fine in that area while still doing respectable ST/Prio.
Brew self healing isn’t the issue. The majority of orb healing ends up being overhealing regardless. I’m specifically talking about mitigation/CDR on mitigation or resource generation (which feeds into mitigation).
Do you have max stacks in ST? No, this is why it is considered AoE scaling. Prot Paladin may not have the most CDR scaling of any tank, but what they do get is substantial.
Unless it’s absolutely massive, health buffs won’t do much for most tanks in the grand scheme.
Anvil and Staff is designed to be target neutral. You dodge more with additional targets but the brew cd reduction is also divided by the target count.
It works like this (using 1 second cd reduction for demonstration)
1 dodge when tanking 1 enemy gives you 1 (1*1) second brew cd reduction.
10 dodges when tanking 10 mobs gives you 1 (10*0.1) second brew cd reduction.
As Yongyong has been saying. Other tanks get some notable benefits when tanking trash. It is different between tanks but generally it’s a mix of increased resources, increased healing, increased absorbs, increased damage reduction (usually through things like dodge/parry) and most importantly reduced cooldowns of important abilities like defensive.
With the current brew design it is hard to adjust our performance on trash vs boss without one effecting the other. This has led to the devs prefering not to adjust brew at all.
Introducing some independent levers targeting trash performance isn’t just about our performance today, it is about putting the spec in a better position going forward and bringing Brew in line with other tanks which already have these independent tuning levers.
Prot Warrior has increased rage generation via Bloodsurge, which contributes significantly to rage economy, meaning more IP/SB casts, more CDR via Anger Management, more self healing via Indomitable and Fueled by Violence/more IP generated from Brutal Vitality. Could be more that I’m missing.
Guardian has increased rage generation via Blood Frenzy, which leads to more CDR on Incarn, increased healing via Elune’s Favored due to more Moonfires being out, could be more but I’m not much of a Guardian player
Vengeance has massively increased soul generation in AoE, which contributes a significant amount of DR via Painbringer and considerable Demon Spikes CDR via Feed the Demon, as well as more raw healing, both via the souls themselves and leeching the damage they provide
Blood I’m a bit iffy on what to call AoE scaling admittedly, but Hemostasis, significantly more DRW CDR via more Bone Shield consumption and more healing from Blood Boil and Bone Storm seem like good places to start. I believe they also have increased RP generation from Heartstrike cleaving. Bloodied Blade stacks would generate faster as well, as it’s not standardized between ST and AoE like A&S.
Yongyong covered the basics. There are still more though they tend to be more niche like Prot Warrior Into the Fray and Guardian Druid After the Wildfire, etc.
As for Blood DK, they have quite a lot of mechanics, talents and synergies providing benefits on trash though many are low to poor value. Here is an outline of the more potent contributions…
Increased Runic Power generation via
– Cleaving Strikes: Heart Strike hits 3 additional targets
– Heartbreaker: Heart Strike generates extra 2 runic power per target hit
More Death Strikes contributes to
– more self-healing (not a great amount due to recent self heal changes)
– more Blood Shields
– greater leach uptime via Voracious
– increased Vampiric Blood cooldown reduction via Red Thirst.
There are other mechanics, talents, synergies with less pronounced benefits though collectively they can add up. I won’t do a break down instead here is a list of the more prominent ones and people can browse if they want. Blood Plague, Rapid Decomposition, Leeching Strikes, Consumption, etc.
Putting Utility aspects aside, I think Blood is in a worse position than us when it comes to hard hitting trash. The reasons are very different to Brewmaster, more to do with its low baseline durability, extreme dependence on CDs, and highly unforgiving play-style.