Man im feeling that lack of defense as Brew

Classes Monk
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Doing some 6s at 610 ilvl, which is about the same i was with Prot War, and man im getting ripped apart, im not like actually dying, but im barely surviving things i would have next to no issue with Prot.

I heard they nerfed Celestial Brew, and yeah as someone that has hardly played the spec, i can tell this thing is practically useless, a shield that last barely 1 sec cause it gets obliterated even a 10 stacks and we me constantly stuck at max stagger.

And Fortifying Brew just feels so weak as well, not because of the effect itself, but rather due to how bloody long the CD is, if they wanna keep it at 6 mins, then they gotta buff the CD reduction a bit for it to be a viable option to use outside of emergencies, just looking at Shield Wall, i can use that thing almost every pull that i need it for, that is nowhere near the case for FB.

Also i seem to notice that Brewmaster struggles with magic dmg? i was doing NW, and the final boss is just melting me with his basic attacks, im constantly jumping between 30% and 70%, even had to use a potion at one point just to not die.

Idk, like i said, still fairly new to the spec, but being in those scenarios where i just feel like a wet tissue in terms of durability are starting to get scary, and seriously, Celestial Brew feels useless.

Are there any good easy to understand videos out there? maybe some popular Brew player i can take notes of?

Any help would be appreciated.

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Fort brew gets cooldown reduction like purify and CB so its much shorter than 6 or 4 minutes( talent). Fort brew should be up nearly every pull

Yes CB stinks. Prot war can nearly spam ignore pain which is bigger than base CB.

Brew also needs more healing than other tanks but if the healer you have doesnt understand that it can be an issue. Generally druid, disc and monks are good at healing brew because of thier passive/hot type heals.

Resto shaman is decent as well. Holy paladin and preist seem to have trouble based on what i have seen in game and on these forums.

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I heard they nerfed Celestial Brew, and yeah as someone that has hardly played the spec, i can tell this thing is practically useless, a shield that last barely 1 sec cause it gets obliterated even a 10 stacks and we me constantly stuck at max stagger.

While CB is a shadow of its former self and definitely needs a buff, it’s definitely nowhere near useless. Even in 14s its possible to get through certain demanding tankbusters (like Anima Slashes) just off a CB or two. It’s easy to underestimate, but should end up in your top 1-3 healing sources, which in my experience all end up fairly close. Don’t wait to stack 10 Purifying Brew casts. It has a deceivingly short CD, just send it when needed or between defensives.

And Fortifying Brew just feels so weak as well, not because of the effect itself, but rather due to how bloody long the CD is, if they wanna keep it at 6 mins, then they gotta buff the CD reduction a bit for it to be a viable option to use outside of emergencies, just looking at Shield Wall, i can use that thing almost every pull that i need it for, that is nowhere near the case for FB.

Fort Brew is far from weak. 20% DR + 20% Max HP isn’t bad by any means. I do agree the CD should be slightly reduced baseline just so Brews can actually dip into Ironshell if needed, but Fort Brew does a lot over the course of a dungeon. Pulling from a random dungeon I did last week, 13 CoT, fort brew did just shy of 54m mitigation, multiple times doing over 100% of my health in mitigation, and I will out myself and say I definitely did not use it off CD as I should have. Keep in mind stagger is true damage, it does not get effected by DR, so the mindset of “emergency” defensives is kind of a trap. It only has value when used proactively.

i was doing NW, and the final boss is just melting me with his basic attacks, im constantly jumping between 30% and 70%, even had to use a potion at one point just to not die.

Despite the naming scheme making it seem like it should be magic, the last boss of NW’s Icy Shards are actually physical damage. They just truck. Proper defensive rotation, supplemented with CB casts when needed, and Gai Plin/Expel Harm heals when nothing’s up, should get you through it pretty easily, even in higher keys.

Are there any good easy to understand videos out there? maybe some popular Brew player i can take notes of?

I’d advise familiarizing yourself with the DPS rotation as best you can (taking note not to fall into SCK spam outside of initial grouping), what tankbusters are magic, then cycle through your CDs off cooldown until you understand where and when you need them. Equinox has had some videos in the past of how he cycles defensives for particular tankbusters and some guides, and I’m sure there are others on YT though I haven’t looked at any recently. Generally just skimming through vods you can find for particular mechanics isn’t the worst idea, though keep in mind not to take them as gospel as even top rated players make mistakes. While you should typically spend Blackout Combo on Tiger Palm for damage, don’t be afraid to spend it on Breath of Fire in large packs for the extra DR (don’t underestimate an extra 5% DR on every mob in a pack), or Keg Smashes if you’re in need of a PB/CB fast and BoB isn’t up. For a newer brew it might even be preferable to run Bob and Weave over BoB as you’re likely to get more defensive value out of it than infrequent BoB casts.

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Last boss of NW does physical damage, it just hits like a truck.

You should be taking expeditious brew for a 4m fort.

Also take high tolerance and ox Stance. It helps a lot. I prefer black ox brew but bob and weave is fine. Dampen harm is your main cooldowns.

Don’t neglect ring of peace and resetting white swings.

Brew can be tricky but I don’t think it’s that much worse than other tanks if you play it right.

Our main problems are lack of AOE damage and increased benefits for multiple mobs. We just can’t snap threat easily without statue taunt, and keg smash AOE circle is tiny.

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Decided to go for the CD reduction for FB, it feels better, thats for sure.

20% defense and HP is still pretty decent, i dont think 30% is worth the inflated CD.

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There’s an interesting thing with monk survivability where it’s like a multiplier vending machine.

When you input dmg and healing into a brew, they output more self healing indirectly through multiple means.

The higher the incoming damage the easier it is to turn into a blood dk to the point where you could actually survive if the healer dies. The more incoming healing you get, same function.

If you’re starved of both then your whole feedback loop becomes inert and you kind of just rot to death by 1000 cuts. In this case CB spam and insta vivify on CD becomes way more important to prio. For example:

I did 13 dawn last night with the 5 tactician pull by church. They auto extremely hard and constantly enrage to do 100% more DMG but move slower. I just sat and tanked them start to finish and did like 1.2 million hps on myself. Easy.

I went to solo stonevault m0 to test a boss mechanic for something really quick. Just doing 1 trash pull of 3 mobs and I was actually unironically struggling to sustain (lol). Just slowly melting doing the usual rotation I would do.

Remedied that by just prioritizing CB and insta vivify on CD because they both decent spammable base healing, because all my normal multiplier-fueled healing (purify, Gai Plin, cb stacks, determination, ox orb spawns, etc) were doing very little.

Hope that helps paint a picture.

I remember when I hit 80 on my monk and tried to speedrun to 10 for vault before reset. I did my key from 2-5-8-9-10 the same day at like 595 ilvl.
Proof: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-runs/season-tww-1/11671641-8-the-stonevault

And I was only doing master of harmony and CDR on purify/cb talent. That helps a ton for spamming CB and purifies and multiple healers even told me they don’t even need to heal me. So give that a shot.

Heightened Guard with ox stance is actually a lot better in that dmg taken starved space too actually, and it’s actually less good the higher dmg is. Because it’s a lot harder to utilize ox stance charges when dmg is too low, and you waste too many charges when dmg is too high with HG. HG lets you consume more charges as a form of sustain.

And I did the math on ox stance, you can roughly count on it being a ~6% multiplicative DR on magic and ~22% DR on physical when it procs. So like a free barkskin on physical that triggers it. Assuming you’re purifying a lot.