Speaking just for Monks, there’s obviously a new Brewmaster tree coming, they just haven’t added it yet.
How do we know?
Because they HAVE shown the new Monk class tree, and Clash is now there. It’s also still in the Brewmaster tree, since that hasn’t been updated and is the tree we have right now.
So on alpha, Clash is in both the Monk class tree and the Monk brewmaster tree.
Obviously the brewmaster tree is going to be updated.
Alpha always ships with only a portion of the class trees in place. In Dragonflight, the Monk trees weren’t added until late beta (August) and the Demon Hunter trees were even later (September).
Why wouldn’t they keep BoS? It’s finally time for that talent to get some work given it’s been ignored for a good bit now while Obliteration’s gotten buffs and tweaks.
I mean, they’re not wrong. If nothing else they need to update the spec tree to reflect things changing in the class tree. So Brewmaster’s spec tree will be getting updated. How much, well, that depends.
It is, by their own admission, “very divisive”. Plus, they phrased some new and so-far undefined ability as the alternative so I expect Obliteration to be… not ideal in WW.
Like I said though, I’d be happy to be wrong about the whole thing.
While we understand Breath is a very divisive ability it offers a very unique gameplay experience that not many of our other specs offer and while have no plans to remove that we do want to explore a potential alternative that feels fresh and exciting for players that wish to try something a bit different. Likely introduced as new capstone replacing Frostwyrm’s Fury which we plan to shift higher within the tree as a more easily accessible talent. Feedback: Death Knight Updates - #2 by Kaivax
Has anyone read or heard any mention of blizzard saying tank iteration is coming in a future alpha or beta build, in any interviews or some such? I realize blood and I guess brewmaster sort of both confirmed… but anyone aware of any other mention for the other tanks?
Given FWF got shoved up in the tree to make room for this capstone and both builds are able to take FWF + Absolute Zero and the defining capstone, it’s likely Frost will be able to take the new capstone + Obliteration or Breath.
I’m hopeful they can keep Obliteration competitive, but personally speaking if I had to pick between Breath or Obliteration for the spec I’d pick Breath.
The rest of us are happy they don’t have it though.
So, Alpha just popped out this week. They’ve already got a few updates mentioned to a few things, with Blood confirmed to be getting some notable changes and Brewmaster at least getting updated to reflect the new class tree. There’ll be mention of changes (and actual changes happening) as the weeks go by.
Brewmaster is tricky because it’s not exactly clear what to prune, most of the spells are fun or have some argument for why they should stay. Maybe they just don’t prune BRM and let that be the complicated tank spec.
I would like buff to prot warrior, they are my favorite tank to play with because of how consistent they are to heal. Health decrease means heal them. Vs bdk rollercoaster, I don’t heal unless their runic power is low and still hate it.
I won’t lie I find it quite strange and a bit unsettling that the blue posts for every class literally make zero mention of any tank spec except blood dk. Frankly even the lack of any communication such as “further iteration for the other tank specs to come” is worrisome.
I get that it is early, just find that they make no mention of 5 out of the 6 tanks - that’s basically saying something to the effect of “the silence is deafening” that it’s just going to be bdk that is iterated on…
Most of which don’t even do much, and are only there to be followed up by another button.
Breath of Fire doesn’t do anything unless you’ve Keg Smashed.
Weapons of Order doesn’t do much until you Keg Smash 4 times, afterwards, to stack the debuff.
Bonedust Brew doesn’t do anything at all (by itself).
Rushing Jade Wind doesn’t do much, but you’re supposed to hit it every 9 seconds. That’s a lot of GCD’s for not a lot of payoff.
Your AOE filler gives you shuffle but doesn’t reduce brew time.
Your ST filler reduces brew time but doesn’t give you Shuffle. (???)
Blackout Combo’s cool, unless you click Purifying Brew afterwards, which is deliberately inserted as a “skill trap” to make you waste your Blackout Combo. Which is worse because Purifying Brew isn’t even on the GCD.
A lot of these are easy. Get rid of Breath of Fire and roll its “only if you just keg smashed” into keg smash.
But Blizzard won’t do it, because “this was in a jackie chan movie” is the only thing they care about.
As long as brewmaster is more of a collection of “this was in a jackie chan movie so we have to have it” and not really any concern about being a functional and fun game spec, things will not improve.
It’s been three days. Most of the other tanks received either updates or reworks during DF, and Blood is the one they’re working on first.
Deciding to work on Blood first (as part of working on DK as a whole, since DK as a whole is outdated) doesn’t mean the other tanks are seeing nothing in any part of TWW testing.
