So. New brewmaster and unfortunately stuck in the stage of running the crap fest that is heroics atm. I’m having a bit of an issue holding aoe threat. With an 8 second recharge on keg smash and a 15 second cool down on breath of fire, that leaves some time for the zurg nug nug, nom nom dps rush and pull other mobs and all that jazz that they love to do at this level. Not to mention the occasional iLevel 465+ that come in. What is a good tip to deal with this? I’m not geared enough for mythic plus where things become a bit more organized.
Maybe a gear thing? You can toss down statue and taunt it for an aoe taunt.
Rushing Jade Wind should hold adds onto you over, with keg smash on CD and BoF.
Taunt can pick up stragglers. If DPS still hitting random targets, let them learn by having them tank it. Hotkey Skull so you can easily put it on a target to get DPS to focus it, but the statue if you really struggle should help.
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I think a big problem is I’m letting rjw drop off. On opener I’m not following up keg smash with breath of fire. Gonna fix my weak aura to show when rjw is available for a nice clicky vs when it’s dropped off. I tend to notice when something is available vs. cool down more. I might make a opener cast sequence macro that resets on combat. I do find iron skin brew to be a bit spammy. Don’t think there is a way to macro that in so I’ll just have to get use to it. I don’t struggle a terrible amount with threat, but I notice it more than on my druid.
I struggled with this as well, and I ultimately decided that RJW was a poor Band-Aid to the fact that we don’t have a spammable AOE until Shadowlands.
I found that using Special Delivery with its delay and pressing ISB alongside Keg Smash allowed me to splash AOE damage often enough that it mitigated this issue. Combining this with an AOE taunt macro with your statue (which you can use every 8 seconds) and you should always have threat.
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Should be pretty easy to maintain RJW 100% uptime. Honestly, Keg Smash BoF, and RJW should be more than enough to hold mobs onto you.
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This. I find there is plenty of aggro generated from Keg Smash + Breath. I prefer Special Delivery over RJW and I think it doesn’t get due credit. It’s passive and doesn’t eat a GCD, and it has a ridiculously good snare effect that stacks with Keg Smash giving 70% total snare for 15 seconds–it helps a lot with kiting.
Keg Smash + Breath is vital for threat, even if you have to sit on the cooldown for a few seconds in preparation for pulling the next group.
I don’t have any problems with RJW.
Others may sim better in other situations but reliable snap AoE isn’t worth the trade off (plus RJW scales well with haste). Once BrM gets SCK, I may decide to try out competing talents. Until then, it’s a no brainer.
I’ve fixed my mistakes. By using the statue, which I love!! So many good uses for it while questing and others… But by hitting them with a keg, and using breath of fire. It’s extremely easy now to hold aggro. I may try the special delivery for rp reasons but. So far it’s been really easy since I pop rjw, then keg them, then give them a dose of some serious dragon breath. Then if I see stragglers I can easily drop a statue and deal with them by letting them sit for a while or just taunt them over.
edit: I’m having a blast with this class not just from a play style but rp wise it’s just fun playing a drunken void elf who can fight like crazy. The whole Jackie Chan from Forgotten Kingdoms. Completely different from what I’m use to playing.
I think RJW “works” in that it gives you something to AoE mobs with in between KS/Breath attacks, but as Nowise noted, I hated the GCD upkeep on it, and getting a free delayed AoE splash from ISB+SD was “enough”.
Special Delivery just means you have one less button to deal with, and one less buff/timer to maintain. That was worth it for me.
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Why the re-post?
Special Delivery is under most circumstances the better numerical competitor (meaning it’s also probably overtuned); however, you also have to compete with the 3 second delay.
If the OP is having trouble with DPS getting threat before kegs can land, it won’t alleviate their problem. A lot of that will be solved by getting better with position/timing on the open (should I roll in? should I delay a Keg Smash? should I open with a stun to get the Breath DoT before aggro changes can occur?), but that’s not an immediate improvement. That’s a gameplay improvement that requires extra judgment and experience.
Regardless, we likely agree Monk is fine with AoE threat between Keg Smash and Breath of Fire. Anyone reading can try out the competing talents and reach their own conclusions. My decision to be ‘RJWForever’ is based on a lot of play time, not sims or suggestions.
Edit: I had to rewrite this about 3 times because RJW seems like a bandaid, but only because it smoothed the pre-Legion rotation with SCK. Then they removed SCK but kept RJW and it’s kind of like an ‘orphaned’ skill. I still like it (and love Sweeping Wind monk in D3), but couldn’t figure out how to explain it…
yeah, like I said. I fixed what I was doing wrong in my opener. Between keg, breath and the occasional statue for stragglers I’m holding threat just fine. The statue is awesome sauce.
edit: will be starting mythic 0 tonight so I don’t think there will be any issue.
edit 2: that statue is really cool. Great for questing if you wanna by pass mobs to get at what you want.
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