Noob's Guide to shifting from leveling BrM to raiding??

[TankaBelle 1]

So, I love my monk. Like many I crushed the levelling process as a Brew Master, and like many sucked at transitioning to real tanking on her. Not wanting to add to our reputation I began to heal, which incidentally I love (say it with me... Fistweaving rocks). But my first love will always be tanking.

Can anyone help out with a baby steps guide to making the transition? My gear is pretty good now though I feel quite squishy. Thanks in advance for anyone brave enough to help a noob represent his class better!

[Brewmonksta 157]

Hi Tankabelle,

 

I am more than happy to help with some guidance.

 

I can give you some initial pointers but an armory link and some logs will help me to help you(armory link is a good starting point)  :)

 

To start you want to head to Ask mr Robot to ensure you are hit and expertise capped. As monks our mitigation is mostly generated from the use of abilities and this requires chi. If your keg smashes are missing then no chi is generated and you cant then use it to keep shuffle active.

 

Here is the link to the current guide.

 

https://www.icy-veins.com/brewmaster-monk-wow-pve-tank-guide

 

Rather than reinvent the wheel i would suggest having a read of the guide paying particular attention to the rotations section.

Once you have read this then return and i can clarify or give examples of anything you may not understand, or help you to apply this knowledge with emphasis on the content that you will be running.

Brewmasters are very fun IMO however knowing the level of content and your current gear levels will change the way that you should approach gearing.

Monk tanking revolves around Shuffle uptime, elusive brew uptime, and using your damage reduction abilities at the right times.

[TankaBelle 1]

Thank you for the offer here is my profile. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/garrosh/Tankabelle/simple. I hope that is what you need. As for the guide, while it is great, establishing priorities requires an understanding of the relationship between the spells but I would love some basic rotation help. More importantly I don't fully grasp the timing of the damage mitigation tools we have. Thanks a ton for offering to help

Btw, if you might go into bar setup it might be really useful to ensure proper rotations.

[Brewmonksta 157]

Thanks for the link Tankabelle.

 

For the Mr Robot weights i would aim for some thing like this:

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/11504312-eb00-4b54-b68b-60163c874f15

The dancing steels can be a bit pricey so the windsongs can be fine too. Windsong can be quite useful as BrM get alot of use from the secondary stats as opposed to the straight agi of the dancing steel.

 

To be a reasonable monk tank there is no real "basic" playstyle. It involves alot of micromanaging however for most people this is the main appeal.

 

I will go over a few things to help you get started but to be truly effective you need to have a good understanding of the whole toolkit as explained in the guide. This may not be the optimal playstyle but it is how i would approach it based off your comments.

 

Basic Rotation (assuming you keep rjw)

Pre pull: Expel harm then RJW(to generate chi and have extra damage to help with threat)

Roll to target, Keg smash, Blackout kick(to begin shuffle), tiger palm(to gain buff)

(This is where i like to throw in a taunt on the target for all the trigger happy dps but it isnt always required)

After this it is keeping Keg smash on cooldown, maintaining the tiger palm debuff on the boss and keeping your shuffle active through the use of Black out kick. Expel harm should be used to self heal and generate chi as much as your energy will allow.

 

This is the tricky part, you do not want to be using any of your energy using abilities that will cause you to not have enough energy for when Keg smash will come off cooldown.

You also dont want to let your shuffle buff drop off. The beauty of the shuffle is that the durations stack up. For example if you have 2 seconds of shuffle left and you use Blackout kick the 2 seconds will be added to the new shuffle applied. So if you are using BoK as often as your chi will allow you can over a long duration have enough shuffle that it wont drop off too fast and gives you a little breathing room.

 

I am sure there are many ways to track your shuffle and Tiger palm buffs. I use the addon "Need to Know" and have them front and center in bright colors as a reminder.

 

To be effective you will also need to manage your guard elusive brew and cooldowns depending on your talent choices.

 

Guard should not be used on cooldown however sometimes it may feel like it at times. Using Tiger palm as a filler spell when you have no energy or chi to spend will keep your "empowered guard" buff active and is shown on your bars when the guard icon is glowing. Your guards should always be empowered when they are used. Also note that if you are going to cast guard and expel harm in quick succession try to cast the guard first because of the self heal buff it provides when active(if your chi allows it, sometimes the EH may be required to generate the chi for the Guard).

 

When your melee swings crit they have a chance to grant you elusive brew stacks. As you are not 25man heroic raiding then the crit build will be more optimal for you.

With higher amounts of crit it is possible to have a very high uptime on elusive brew. The stack caps at 15 so if it hits 15 stacks be sure to use it or you will waste any future stacks because you are capped. Depending on the nature of the damage and the content you will be beginning on i would recommend using it every time it hits 15 stacks until you have had practice then you can look at mastering the timing. 

 

The last thing i will mention so that you arent overwhelmed with a wall of text

Purify, this allows you to remove the stagger damage you are taking. A rookie mistake is using this too often. The chi you use to purify can often be better spent on maintaining shuffle, using guard or even expel harm especially at lower difficulty levels. Try to only use purify under heavy(red) stagger(this is when the purify ability will glow). Even in the instance of a heavy stagger it still might not be appropriate to purify. Knowing when and if to purify will come with practice and as you become more familiar with the encounters and damage that you will take to certain abilities.

 

Start with this and see how you go.  

[TankaBelle 1]

Thank you thank you thank you. Understanding the why of things helps to perform them better.

[kika 1]

Hi Tanka Belle,

 

A good Add-On I use for pretty much everything is WeakAuras. When monk tanking is specially useful for tracking stagger, shuffle, CDs, Elusive Brew, almost everything. Here you can find a good guide to Weak Auras for monks http://sunniersartofwar.com/brewmaster-weak-auras/ ... I've read in some forums, I believe it was MMO-Champion, that there is a good brewmaster addon that does this too (but to be honest I find no need of switching Weak Auras for that with Sunnier's strings). 

 

Another thing you could look into is Sunnier's (one of the best monk tanks out there) guides: http://sunniersartofwar.com/brewmaster-guide/   .... You'll find plenty information in her page. It's quite extensive but very recommendable. The "rotation" section needs special attention, she'll go from beginner to advance skills adding spells and CDs as difficulty increases. 

 

Hope it helps! 

Edited December 16, 2013 by kika