So, my BM will have to wait

Classes Monk
1

I fell in love with BM in Pandaria but then left the game for a bit and played other classes for à while.

I am ready to level a BM with the last part of the anniversary event and just wanted to check with the community the state of my prefered monk rôle, tank.

So from what I read, BM are extremely weak, disfunctionnal and useless.

The are the only D tier tank, and have a survivability similar to a dps.

I have even been told that at ilvl 600 you could not finish a tier 8 bountiful delve because the class is extremely bad.

Forget about doing a key higher than +3-4 unless your guild carries you, and forget being invitéd to raid even at normal difficulty level

Also, BM’s DPS are around 50% less than all other tanks

Also, icing on the cake : all tanks are getting buffed in 11.1 except BM.

Now, my guess is it’s technically impossible that Blizz but that bad with balance than one single class is the worse at everything.

I am telling myself it’s exagerated.

Can the community please give me the real rundown on the state of BM?

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Its pretty much as bad as you’ve read, some people can make it work, but brewmasters been pretty much abandoned for the time being. Blizzard might Eventually fix it, but brewmasters have been crying out for attention for a while now.

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Oh shoot, really sad to hear that. Might try something else if the class is broken at that level.

I don’t need to play FOTM, but at least something that works

4

Most classes work fine, WW is still fine but you wont be top of the pack in it, MW is generally acceptable (But still towrds the bottom of the pack on healers), RET/PROT/Blood are the best tanks right now AFAIK.

5

Honestly i am not a top tier player anyway so I don’t feel most of this.

But it’s a reason that I like to play like 3 different classes so I can hop between them if one starts to be too difficult to vibe with or get into a group with.

6

The top BrM are clearing 17 and 18 keys, which 99% of the player base will never play in. BrM, while it could certainly use adjustments, it isn’t in the state the forums would lead you to believe. If you enjoy it, play it. You won’t have trouble clearing 10s if you play semi-competently.

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It can be done… I used to regularly do 8’s on my BrM but it isn’t fun and it feels like a chore. That said I’m even worse with WW, I can’t reliably survive 7’s.

Yeah… let’s not mention that those groups are built to support the BrM and are composed of players who work together all the time and know each other’s quirks.

Just because the 1% are able to make something work doesn’t mean it’s actually in a good place.

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People are dooming extremely hard about how “bad” Brewmaster is, and as a result most of the criticisms are far over exaggerated.

The biggest weaknesses of Brewmaster are lacking AoE scaling that other tanks have and lacking meaningful/unique utility that isn’t niche. These don’t become real hindrances until fairly high keys, at a minimum 12+.

Tank rankings on tier lists are arbitrary and unless the spec is quite literally unable to perform you’re going to be fine with it.

Brewmaster is quite survivable and one of the tankier feeling tanks this season in my experience. Not sure where you’re hearing they’re weak unless people are just playing the spec improperly.

This is 100% false speaking from experience

I’ve been doing 13s and 14s with no “defensive” trinket just fine, and even higher up Equinox is doing 17s with double damage/hybrid trinkets just fine. The ability to carry a poorly performing tank caps off significantly sooner than you could carry a low DPS player, arguably even before 10 depending on the dungeon.

Brewmaster is the second highest damage tank in M+ right now and is usually #1. The “problem” is that it’s a much more involved rotation and people are likely messing it up, or they’re trying to shave off buttons and going for the noob trap PTA, or overpressing SCK/underpressing BoK, lots of potential problems. I’ve been hovering around 1.1m-1.35m overall at the end of dungeons lately and I’m definitely not playing 100% perfectly. I’ve seen Equinox end some dungeons as high as 1.7m. It’s a very high damage tank.

Tank changes as a whole are usually some of the last to get pushed to the PTR. Considering we’ve only seen the very first preliminary patch notes, it’s a bit early to doom about this. Even then, the tier set for Brew is looking quite promising and the BoK → TP → BoK → TP chain that it will enable will be a significant burst of Prio damage, which is the most valuable kind of damage.

Unless you’re aiming for literal world first top <0.1% keys, the spec is more than capable of doing what you’re trying to do. It might require a bit more effort/consciousness than other tanks, but it’s also significantly more enjoyable to play (imo) which makes it feel worth it. The extent of it’s problems, as I said, don’t really come into noticeable effect until at least 12s, though really later than that. It’s consistently one of if not the best raid/boss tank due to how stagger functions.

TL;DR just play what you enjoy. If you like Brew, go for it.

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9

Everything Yongyong is saying I agree. I have no issues with 10s and frankly, I feel I could handle 12s too.

The challenge like Yongyong is saying is that at 12+, our utility is very niche and we lack a bres or lust. So pugging 12+ is very challenging so you need a focused group you play with consistently. With that group, the healer will know when you’re actually in trouble because you’re on comms. Otherwise they don’t know all the orbs we have that we can use to heal back.

Damage is good, very tanky, rotation is fun and engaging. But if you’re trying to push title or 12+ keys, pick another tank. Prot pally will most likely be S tier all expansion.

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You have been told wrong, brew can use buffs in in some areas for sure but it is not all doom and gloom. Stager is strong mitigation you just have to pay attention on how you use your brews and major cd it is not forgiving if you keep screwing up.

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11

I agree with this. I’ve tanked on my dk, warrior and monk at keys above 10 and my monk feels very tanky. Not as much as my warrior but I’m not having issues dying.

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12

Mistweaver is not bottom of the pack in any form of content. What have you been playing lol its borderline meta, been receiving massive QOL/buffs and plays very smoothly

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I concur, Mistweaver is absolutely a beast in M+ and can pump out insane damage and healing. Some packs I do about 1m dps while also pumping out 1.5-2m hps, have decent utility with ring of peace + life cocoon, and can also do huge single target healing with soothing mists if needed.

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with brew except they bring ZERO utility to a group, that part feels bad but as far as being able to tank and push damage they are fantastic and don’t let the less skilled players whining constantly sway you away from giving brew a shot if you enjoy it.

Not that I don’t think they should stop complaining because blizz does need to hear it and do some stuff, but they’re not garbage or unplayable in the least lol

15

Big true.

I literally never do less than 600k DPS in 13-14 keys rn even with the most healing intensive dungeons/groups.

600-800k and timing keys has felt like a breeze because of it and it’s noticeable. Im extremely happy with mw.

(Monk utility though still… Please blizzard)
(Let’s give shamans a raid buff…)

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I think people are just really inexperienced and/or scared of Brewmaster, so they are making up all sorts of cognitive dissonance, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much sour grapes on a spec before, dang.

I mean really, can’t clear 8s??? Lmao. I was doing those on my Brew the moment I dinged 80.

The key to playing one sadly is just getting a weak aura suite so you can clearly see your Stagger level and the state of your brews.
You also actually need to be pressing Tiger Palm and using your heals, Expel Harm and Vivify. It gets pretty easy once you start using the entire kit in intervals.

I could see people playing Brew and not having Vivify on their bars and not using Expel Harm and having a really bad time. That’s another reason crit is so good, my Viv is critting me for 1.2 and my gear isn’t that great.
Something I think is overlooked about BrM is how many talents and things are either increasing how much healing you do or increasing how much healing you receive.

There’s August Blessing also, so you never really lose if you over heal yourself.

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They’re not terrible, and if someone said they can’t do an 8 delve at 600ilvl that’s a skill issue, running at 580 after all the bugs were worked out is still feasible.

If someone were to say that they’re the weakest m+ tank, I don’t think I’d argue though. I’m honestly just baffled as to why they’re not receiving any love whatsoever aside from buffs to the hero talents that didn’t really change anything. Prot paladins were arguably better than brm in m+ before they received a boatload of buffs. Are they doing a larger rework? What gives?

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I think the issue is stagger, and I don’t think they know how to “fix” it without a complete rework, nor do I think they have an idea of what that rework would look like.

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LMAO i just read the tittle and wonder "why is a BM(Beast Master) posting in the Monk’s forums and then i read the post and it’s Brewmaster i feel so silly right now

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The thing is, they could just make our tools more effective and it wouldn’t break raid tanking, they’re not the best raid tank either. I keep hearing that they don’t really know what to do with stagger, but some of the pain points could be fixed without touching stagger.

I’m just wondering if there’s anything coming when we’ve seen a half dozen rounds of paladin tweaks since expansion launch. BrM can be total garbage in pvp and I don’t think most of us would bat an eye. We’d like more balance for m+ and raids though, it’s hard to think of a real reason to bring a brm over any other tank at this point. There’s no niche we fill, there’s no dungeon our kit is particularly good at dealing with, they’re just all around worse in m+

1 Like