I tried levelling as Brewmaster, it was just too much

Classes Monk
21

RSK applying Shuffle would be nice, but kind of unneeded. Maybe a stack of elusive brawler or something.

Anywho. That’s fair, I think. Imo, your experience there may partially be a result of just how monk mitigation works - take…Idk, Paladin. Cast WoG and it feels juicy. You see the green bar go NYOOM. You can see the cast bars go POOF when you go captain america on 'em. Monk, on the other hand, doesn’t really have overt moments of ‘feedback’ that make it feel good - it has decent self recovery (expel harm can get decently juicy with enough orbs) and purifying brew heals you for a percentage of stagger cleansed, imo better mobility than paladin with whatever form of Roll you’ve taken/tiger’s lust. And your damage intake is smoothed out even more with the absorb shield brew, dodges, and so on. Unfortunately, none of this really ‘feels’ good because it’s just a small bar not going down quite as fast.

Not saying you’re wrong, mind, but you did say ‘feels much more robust’ and it provoked the thought.

I do think BrM could use some slight self healing help and a few defensive tweaks, if only to make the feedback of feeling like you’re actually helping out or keeping yourself up more relevant. Blizz could also definitely stand to widen the impact areas of keg toss and breath of fire…Maybe give us something with a longer cooldown on the Chi Burst/Chi Wave talent slot? Those can feel kind of unimpactful sometimes.

For me it’s mainly the clunky feeling of the BoF traits - they feel focused too much on a skill that didn’t really feel impactful in the first place, and while I see the buff management dealio they’re going for here it’s not…really working out. Theyt’re also conflicting - I get 20% more damage on Keg Smash to targets w/ BoF, but they need to have BoF on them first, but BoF doesn’t apply unless I Keg Smash first…Or using Kesh Smash resets BoF, but I cast Keg first anyway…Admittedly these take care of themselves after the start of the fight, but it still feels clunky.

Celestial Fortune also feels weird - or rather, probably feels weird to the healer. I don’t have much use for crit strike as the tank, and seeing a sudden huge extra boost to a heal that may or may not have been needed (and so lacking consistency, which seems to be monk’s ‘thing’ compared to other tanks - a smoother dmg intake) is off.

Anywho. Not disagreeing with you here - I’d say monk does feel strong, but it also feels like it has several talents, sub-mechanics, etc that slightly conflict with themselves, and while it’s not major there’s more than one of them, which combined with the tank’s lack of ‘feedback’ feeling on its tanking and lack of group support options (though the healing boost/avoidance is nice, if you take either of them, but they’re completely passive…) results in…Monk being perfectly capable, but otherwise lackluster.

Hopefully that’s a reasonably accurate, albeit rambling summation of at least some part of what you were getting at.

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Yeah maybe? I look at it more of the group and utility perspective though. I can smash a WoG on a low ally and bring them back up to at least half. That same vivify would be a whopping 5% of their HP. Monk doesn’t really have a niche and it really feels the gimmicks are over-emphasized vis-a-vis being hand-to-hand combat masters.

Roll versus double steed was a non factor. Throw in Tiger Lust and Monk wins out slightly. I really enjoy using Transcendence when tanking but the use cases are dismal anymore.

TLDR; it’s not what Monk does for itself that’s the issue, it’s what it can bring to the party. Also, more face punch, less drunk and beer claps.

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That’s probably due to two reasons, the first being very different designs on the healer side for those spells, with Word of Glory being a spender spell with more then double vivify’s base heal.
And the second being that, for some reason, it seems Prot pally has a 30% aura buff on WoG which BrM doesn’t have an equivalent for.

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Maybe in theory WoG is a spender and Viv isn’t, but not in practice.

Waiting for an instant Viv is no less a spender than having the HP for a WoG. Plus, Paladin has three separate mechanisms to proc free WoGs; Bastion of Light, Divine Purpose, and Shining Light.

Should WoG get nerfed? I don’t think so because Dream of Cenarius is the druid answer for it and it can be harder to juggle SotRs with Seraphim and WoGs than virtually any other defensive. Plus, WoG provides minimal benefit when you have a great healer.

And that’s a big component. BDK, Bears, and now Paladins have a battle rez too.

At the end of the day, I ask whether the spec I’ve played was fun. For Paladin and Guardian, I can say yes. It’s a blast. For Monk though, it’s felt like a steady chore.