brewmaster pulling hurts

[nicarlitos 13]

I've just tanked through the first half of SoO LFR on my new brewmaster...

 

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/silvermoon/Nicsangye/advanced

 

LOTS of fun, but I felt a bit squishy during the opening moments before getting up shuffle.

 

Are there any tips for starting a pull with a brewmaster?

 

I tank as a DK on my main and there I just run in and drop a death strike...pretty damn easy. 

 

On the monk I usually keg smash and then black out kick right away.... but I seemed to take a few pretty solid boss hits and my hp was dropping quite low at times. I expect this to diminish with gear (and practise) and is the difference between a plate tank and an avoidance tank....

 

Still, any tips for an optimal opener on a boss would be appreciated!

 

Cheers

[Brewmonksta 157]

Other than let the other tank pull lol :)

 

What i normally do depends on how well i dodge early.

 

I try for this.

 

Keg smash, Expel harm, Blackout kick, Tiger palm, Jab, Guard, Chi wave then away i go.

 

If i am going take a big hit early i sometimes do

 

Keg smash, Tiger palm, guard, expel harm, jab ,BoK, Chi wave.

 

Not optimal but can smooth damage early.

[Krazyito 521]

You can pull with dampen harm up. It will ensure that you don't get messed up on the first hit, letting you get shuffle up.

[Szensa 3]

Hi,

 

while the advices given over my post are good for mitigation, I don't recommend to use neither an early Guard, nor Dampen Harm for pulling. The reason early Guards suck dick is, that Guards absorb rate highly depends on your AP (Vengeance), which you don't really have a lot in the first few seconds of a fight. Your highest priority is to get/keep Shuffle rolling.

 

If you die on a pull, its - mostly - not your fault, and will never happen in normal circumstances, assuming you have the right gear and ilvl for the content you are doing. Every single tank is squishy when pulling, but honestly, starts are not the hardest parts of the fights usually. :p

 

Its yout Healers job to keep you alive, especially on the pulls. Yes, we have a lot of selfheals, which are needed to be used intelligently, but still. :p

Make sure to do a ready check and give them a pull timer so they can get ready to keep you alive (preheal/preshield) for the first 1-2 seconds until your Shuffle gets rolling.

 

TL;DR

- try not to early Guard

- keep Shuffle rolling

- Healers should heal

 

Szensa

[Brewmonksta 157]

 

- try not to early Guard

- keep Shuffle rolling

- Healers should heal

 

This is true.

 

The OP was however doing LFR and you can never guarantee a decent healer.

 

While early guarding is not optimal as i said, i can save your life if you have low health. It gives the healers time to be able to think "hey combat started... who is the tank again... click, click" then you get your heals It also increases the healing of your expel harm through its buff so use EH after guard should you use it and need the heals.

 

Dampen harm will only work if you take the hits to trigger the effect so might not be the best to use.

 

Guard has a relatively short CD so using it early like that wont cripple you for the rest of the fight.

[Krazyito 521]

Hi,

 

while the advices given over my post are good for mitigation, I don't recommend to use neither an early Guard, nor Dampen Harm for pulling. The reason early Guards suck dick is, that Guards absorb rate highly depends on your AP (Vengeance), which you don't really have a lot in the first few seconds of a fight. Your highest priority is to get/keep Shuffle rolling.

 

If you die on a pull, its - mostly - not your fault, and will never happen in normal circumstances, assuming you have the right gear and ilvl for the content you are doing. Every single tank is squishy when pulling, but honestly, starts are not the hardest parts of the fights usually.

 

Its yout Healers job to keep you alive, especially on the pulls. Yes, we have a lot of selfheals, which are needed to be used intelligently, but still.

Make sure to do a ready check and give them a pull timer so they can get ready to keep you alive (preheal/preshield) for the first 1-2 seconds until your Shuffle gets rolling.

 

The reason an early guard is fine to do is because usually the first big hit you want to mitigate happens more than 30 seconds into the fight.  Even though its small, the main reason you're doing it is to mitigate that initial damage until you gain the AP for the bigger hits. The hits at the start only hurt becasue you don't have your active mitigation rolling to start.  Though I wouldn't recommend guard that early.

 

Same applies to Dampen Harm.  If you know that a big hit wont really happen until about 2 minutes into the fight (or you can use another cooldown, like guard or FortBrew, so DH comes back up) its fine to use to ensure that you don't die in the first 2 hits.  IMO, DH is more safe to use than guard at the start because guard can easily make up a huge part of your mitigation later in the fight with more AP.

 

As for healers, yea they should be pre-healing you, but there are a lot of times that they just aren't paying attention (because farm/LFR/repetitiveness) until it hits big and its your job as a tank anyway not to spike so hard if you can avoid it.  This is more true on heroic, there are just some bosses that will roll your shit at the start of a fight, examples being H Malkorok, H Lei Shen, possibly H Iron Juggernaut., H Siegecrafter, N/H Garrosh. These bosses regardless of pre-healing, still can hurt if you can't get your active mitigation up within a global or two and having the protection at the start can prevent surprise wipes.

 

And think about it, theres not one fight that requires you to have ALL your cooldowns up with in the first 3 minutes to use.  You can easily rotate your cooldowns throughout the fight.

 

Lastly, just a tip for cooldown usage, You want to use your shortest cooldown first when possible, since they will come up more often than the longer ones becasue of it.  First you decide "Minimally, which cooldowns will get me to survive this hit?" then choose the shortest duration one.

[Brewmonksta 157]

I think ultimately we are really all in agreeance here.

 

CD's and expel harms etc shouldn't be required that early but we dont always live in that perfect world where good healers and vent/mumble exist.

 

So using Cd's on the pull isnt optimal but not being dead is also a plus. Aim for the lowest cd's (guard/dampen harm) if you need them. However using them that early in a fight is far from optimal.

 

Te age old rule applies for DPS aswell: While it might not be the best Damage Per Execute Time (DPET) a dead dps cant do any damage. The same applies for tanks. An early Guard or Dampen harm is very very sub optimal, but if it saves your life and the boss dies... happy days.

[Ceraius 34]

One option is speccing into Chi Brew, blowing one charge like 0-1 sec pre-pull (not on GCD) and start with BoK as the very first move to get Shuffle rolling asap. After that to Keg Smash etc etc.

[Szensa 3]

One option is speccing into Chi Brew, blowing one charge like 0-1 sec pre-pull (not on GCD) and start with BoK as the very first move to get Shuffle rolling asap. After that to Keg Smash etc etc.

 

It surely is an option, but don't do that. :p

[Krazyito 521]

It surely is an option, but don't do that.

 

I really don't see a reason why you ABSOLUTELY wouldn't want to do that.  Having the defensive's up early is just fine to do, there really isn't anything in that case that will happen within the first 45s that you couldn't use another defensive for.  

 

Why are you adamant about telling someone not to use ANYTHING whatsoever on the pull?  If you know you're taking too much damage at the start and need to stop so you don't get 2 shots, its perfectly acceptable to use CD's early.

[Brewmonksta 157]

 

I really don't see a reason why you ABSOLUTELY wouldn't want to do that.  Having the defensive's up early is just fine to do, there really isn't anything in that case that will happen within the first 45s that you couldn't use another defensive for.  

 

Why are you adamant about telling someone not to use ANYTHING whatsoever on the pull?  If you know you're taking too much damage at the start and need to stop so you don't get 2 shots, its perfectly acceptable to use CD's early.

 

I could be mistaken but i think the "dont do it" was referring to the chi brew choice over Ascention.

 

If this is the intention i would also agree. Ascention is passive and give you larger chi pool and overall energy regen. For a new undergeared monk this would be easier to use rather than managing yet another CD at the lower level. Also like it has been stated pop a CD if you need to survive, going chi brew for 2 - 3 GCD's of extra shuffle on the pull probably doesnt warrant the change IMO.

 

Happy Killing :)

[Ceraius 34]

I'm not saying that everyone/anyone SHOULD spec into Chi Brew. Personally I prefer Ascension too as BrM or WW. I'm just pointing out its an option that is there.

[Szensa 3]

I could be mistaken but i think the "dont do it" was referring to the chi brew choice over Ascention.

 

 

Yep, as I've said, Chi Brew surely is an option, but I don't recommend using it over Ascension as a Brewmaster. We DO need the smoother Energy regen it provides. So Krazyito I think, you have misunderstood me (no wonder, my English is horrible). All I said is using defensives on pull seems to be lame to me, but if it has to be done, than do it. Dampen Harm > Guard in this case.

 

With the 'don't use it' sentence I've been referring to Chi Brew, which I find a bad decision as a Brewmaster. It is an option, but don't do it, please... :D

 

 

I'm not saying that everyone/anyone SHOULD spec into Chi Brew. Personally I prefer Ascension too as BrM or WW. I'm just pointing out its an option that is there.

 

I know you didn't. :p

[nicarlitos 13]

I've got a solution, but it requires some work in archaeology....

 

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=113993/anatomical-dummy#comments

 

Drop one of these, get shuffle rolling and then pull.

 

But seriously, interesting discussion.....

 

I think the answer is that in raids, the healers can have a few extra heals/shields ready for you or you let the other tank pull!

 

In LFR and pug groups, I think I will probably use Guard. At least its a short cool down....and I don't want to rely on a tier 5 talent for pulling :)

[Brewmonksta 157]

Yeah, i did some normal SoO at 503 ilvl and did 6/14 with a relatively undergeared group on my alt monk.

 

Then managed 9/14 at 520ish ilvl using guard early and a full crit build.

 

Just have a practice keeping shuffle up and do some lfr/flex and you will be geared enough in no time :)

[Krazyito 521]

So Krazyito I think, you have misunderstood me (no wonder, my English is horrible). 

 

Its more that you were even saying the same thing about Dampen Harm and Early Guards.  You're talking about using them optimally, when in practice you never do that anyway becasue of human error.  

 

Chi brew aside, I still say using a defensive (IMO Dampen Harm) on the pull is the best solution to a tank getting hit hard before his mitigation is up.  There isnt a time in the fight that you wont have a CD up for something just becasue you used DH at the start.

[Ceraius 34]

Using DH is a little fight dependant though. I'd imagine it doesn't necessarily proc f.e. on Shamans at the start. Since monks tend to have very strong aoe threat right off the bat its possible for the hits to be smaller than 50% of health but many in rapid succcession.

[Brewmonksta 157]

 

smaller than 50% of health but many in rapid succcession.

 

Hence why i tend to use the early guard.

[Szensa 3]

I've got a solution, but it requires some work in archaeology....

 

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=113993/anatomical-dummy#comments

 

Pure genius tbh. Well done.

 

This made me remember of something I used to do back in the day in MSV:

Pull with Dizzying Haze, so your Healers will have time to react (you are still squishy for the first few GCD's, but they finally start healing you. ),

 

or pull with your Statue. The problem with the Statue method is, that it probably gets raped in SoO very quick. But if you instantly Taunt on it, the boss(es) will come for you instead. This also gives you a few seconds before your face gets smashed.

 

Or... pull with Crackling Jade Lightning. Again, you win a few seconds, but be prepared to Taunt, since your fellow DD's will start nuking the boss hard...

 

Neither of these methods includes any CD's, if you are still getting raped, maybe you can try to combine all the methods listed above.

 

Edit: tried to correct wall of text....

 

Edit#2:

@Krazyito

I still agree with all of you; do anything and everything to survive a fight especially as a tank. If its needed to use a CD right on pull, do it. What I'm trying to tell, that its not optimal, so of it can be avoided, than it should be avoided.

 

BUT if you are dying right on the pull because you didn't use any CD's, it makes early Guards and/or any other CD's the way to go. :p

Edited January 13, 2014 by Szensa

[AnIh 0]

simply have the other tank pull :o

If you REALLY have to pull , the best way is 1) to use CDs at pull , ie keg smash into instant guard crit activation trinket and stuff or even fortifying brew , or take the infusion talent that give you 2 chi and 5 dodge stack

[nicarlitos 13]

I think it would be good to have some sort of readiness ability....maybe that only works outside of combat.

 

Even 1 application of shuffle would be something and considering that you could do it by getting the archeology target dummy, I don't think it would a big ask.