What Would You Rename The Brewmaster Specialization To, Assuming You Had To?
I don’t think the specification “Brewmaster” is the most descriptive, as there are plenty of other abilities not associated with the brews. Not really sure there’s “Brewmasters” in the lore, there’s the title Brewmaster, from Brewfest though, which kinda takes away from the specialization. There are NPC’s in-game, with “Brewmaster ”, but that’s the only real mention of “Brewmasters” in text that I see. As a casual player anyways.
Throwing Kegs, feels rather, unrealistic, even in a Fantasy RPG. The moves; Keg Smash, Keg Explosion, (that’s a lot of kegs to carry around) I challenge you to find a class abilities that are more exaggerated. Due to those exaggerated abilities it feels like the spec “Brewmaster” is called that specifically because of Keg Smash not the brews, or is that just me?
Anyways, I never liked the “literal” Keg throwing in-game from an aesthetic thematic point of view. Always wished for it be a glowing manifestation of Chi, that shaped like a Keg. Imagine if Keg from Keg Smash was replaced with the Chi Burst from, Chi Burst… Would look worlds cooler. Instead the coolest ability (IMO IG) is subjugated to like a 30 second CD.
Pandarens - the origin of the playable class in WoW - do a lot of brewing, from tea to beer. It absolutely makes sense that at least one of the specs is named Brewmaster.
Or maybe something that plays on their dodging (inspired by drunken boxing)… Fluid Fighter (Water Dancer is copyrighted I’m sure XD)? Momentum Deflector? Too cheesy.
Or perhaps their Stagger mechanic should be the focus? It’s like channeling… being a controlled conduit… not letting the pain/reality have control… Zen Master?
I would rework the spec to be more coherent and centered around stagger mitigation without all the weird unfun stuff. When you’re pressing tea and cooling down tea as your core gameplay that’s a simple loop but with higher difficulty you’re always in red stagger and always fighting red stagger and have way too much to do. Then stuff like exploding keg are just goofy/silly, “100% dr for 3 seconds,” but it’s a projectile with travel time, that’s, no. I don’t like that.
It’s also make visual indicators and the rotation more obvious and seamless. As in would lower the skill ceiling for maximizing brews damage rotation so that the gameplay is more focused on just stagger mitigation and have some sort of system to make stagger more effective as you gain stagger. Like the damage reduction from stagger is more effective as you get more stagger, so that it feels like you always have a defensive up all the time and you’re just trying to keep it up by spending stagger as a resource to keep it from overcapping.
It kind of goes that way in theory but in practice it’s a lot of round about ways of doing that and it feels unintuitive and at a very high level feels ridiclous to be stuck in red stagger every single auto attack from a mob/boss and therefore being too dependent on a healer or tricks/tools to not fall over. I think that’s unfun and the ways to overcome that feel really jank.
I don’t really raid, or M+. On the PvP side, I suppose reworking the stagger would be good, potentially too good but can be adjusted.
Even a trade off like red stagger mostly means the less physical damage you do. It’s kind of annoying that stagger eats up your own absorbs…
Personally, I’d like fire damage to pierce through absorbs, at least up to your level of stagger, or, the less stagger the more piercing done. Would be nice if fire damage burns an absorb it hits again directly. That’s what I’d want.
Maybe lean more into making stagger about time control and make the spec more about using their attunement to mystical forces to control time.
So I would go with ‘Zen Mystic’ and use as many mystic abilities to justify damage reduction, damage delay, damage displacement, damage reversal as possible
If I really had to it would be something about drunken kungfu. The brewing, beer, drunk chill vibe of fighting is not new or out of character, if anyting this is the most lore accurate monk spec. Even the stagger mechanic makes logical sense, you know when you’re drunk you’re way less sensitive to pain, but the next day when you sober up you feel the pain from the night before? That’s what stagger is, you feel less pain now and you feel it later. There’s also the concept that if you can drink your hangover away, that’s drinking “purifying brews” to not feel the pain from the hang over.
Fortifying brew? That’s the old concept of taking a shot of alcohol before undergoing a procedure without anastesia so you don’t feel it. This spec fantasy is one of the most well made in the game and the fact that they remove Rising Sun King makes it even more accurate because there’s no way a drunken fighting style would do a backflip and actually land it.