Monk: Brewmasters That Peculiar animal

Indeed a peculiar animal. I've been scouring the internet to look for stat priorities. I finally decided to come to a site I trust, and ask opinions.
Here's what I've seen so far.

agiliti>dodge>mastery>stam>exp>armor>hit

Stam>agi>exp>hit>haste

the first seems more viable. But I can kind of understand the second version which is based on keeping that dodge brew rolling,

You don't get much in the return for mastery I think I have about 3k mastery and only gettin about 2% increase. so I think the gearing for a brewmaster is still up in the air, Are we kind of like bear tanks were we can snag a Tanking ring with str some times, Or can we gran whatever dps leather we cna get our hands on and simply stack the dodge? I peeked at our teir gear dodge expertise is on it as well as other stats.

Opinions are awesome :) as there is alot of gear out there to select from but only some of it will be optimum for us brewmasters.

Strength is nigh useless to monks and bears. It adds a 1AP per 1STR, and a tank really should have more than enough AP whilst tanking anything that could actually kill them, thanks to vengeance,and if you really want more AP you should be after AGI anyway. In regards to rings because you get almost 1 dodge rating per agility and rings will generally have more Primary stat on them than any single secondary stat for reforging it really isn't worth it to take strength rings ever. Unless you're intentiosn is to piss of the plate wearers.

I'd assume the first priority is more maximising total damage reduction, and the second priority is for smoothing damage intake.

www.noxxic.com is pretty tight for stat priorities, rotations, gemming etc. I found it after mr robot went to level 90 and all my stats/gems were causing me to lose threat (following mr robot) then someone showed me noxxic and it doesn't give you recommendations on what stats to reforge, on your gear. Just offers general guidelines of what stats you NEED to have, what gems are recommended to use in what slot, and what enchants to grab. According to them the top priority

Agi>dodge>mast>stam> etc, is almost correct.

Good luck
Blaq

well after doing some heroics lately, I'm finding dodge is a Must, and I am noticing that Exp and Hit capping may be a must also, without those you risk the possibility of Blackout kick falling off due to missing and it only lasts 5 seconds per stack though you can stack it to 20 secs... So asside from Agility and stam no brainer the priorities may be Dodge>exp>hit>mastery. I don't have any issues with energy so Haste isn't a huge issue. with this being said. Dual wield Monk tanking is definitely Out of the question. I did look at both Max DPS and Noxxic but again like I said, I think they both may be slightly off.

i havent had much time with my monk so it may be a stupid question but why is dual weild monk tanking out of the question? is there a bonus to using a 2h that helps prevent some amount of damage?

I think Stryde is confusing the +40% melee atk speed bonus monks get when using a 2h for a +40%haste bonus and assuming it also gives a +40% energy regen bonus

So far with MV regular mode as well as heroics this is what from my understanding stat priority should be:

Hit(to 7.5%), Expertise(hard cap to 15%), haste, crit/mastery, dodge/parry.

Agility: Obviously our base stat, but no longer always worth more than our secondary stats. Should you stack agility? to a degree yes, but only when you have reached the caps and have enough haste and stamina to be comfortable with your EH and resource generation.

Stamina: This so far has proven more of a "feel" than a set rule, you want enough stamina to survive the encounters (specially heavy magic dmg ones) but not stack it. For me hovering around 475k - 490k raid buffed health has been enough to do MV reg modes this week.

Dodge/Parry: Due to our abilities and passives, the staple avoidance stats appear to be very weak for us right now, BoK provides +20% parry, Swift Reflexes adds another +5%; Elusive Brew adds +30% dodge as well as the amount of dodge that agility adds. All in all the smoother your resource regen and ability management is the higher these abilities will remain active; thus it is preferable to achieve your hit and ep caps as well as a decent haste and crit than reforging/geming/enchanting for these stats.

Crit/Mastery: So far I am happier with crit than mastery. True mastery increases the amount you can stagger, but at this level of gear seems like crit (due to brewing: elusive brew) makes my stacks of Elusive bew more constant, thus allowing me to keep it up almost constantly.

Again this is information I have observed during this first week of raiding and grinding heroics, as well as a lot of research during beta.

I apologize if my english is not great, but I am not a native speaker.

Any comments or questions are more than welcome.

I'll have to play with those numbers , but then here comes a big question. . this is looking more and more like a Combat rogue. with a few arrangements. But now Meta gems. I guess we could get away with the agility meta? Gonna play with both I've been running with the stam and increased armor but I'll have to see how, the agi increased crit damage holds up.

So far I would not say it feels like anything else out there, true we have to technically abide by the melee dps caps but managing both our resources makes it a lot more interesting. As for the meta, I prefer the agi/crit one, but both the stam and the reduced magical dmg seem like valid choices.

Just a couple thoughts on my part stat wise, brewmasters have a very high energy regen, an its almost impossible to not have some sort of mitigation ability to use or way to gain chi.. ive found having a lot of mastery in itself can be a heavy help when it comes to keeping the damage off of you.. with my current mastery on my brewmaster i have almost 50%(48.2% to be exact at the moment) staggered with shuffle up that can all be dismissed for 1 chi.. This doesnt even factor in the % of dmg reduction you get just from being in ox stance as well as the extra buffs from cd's such as guard or "dodge" brew.

So with that said.. if someone was to reach a tier of keeping their shuffle up the majority of the time having 60-70% staggered(havent reached that, dont know what the highest possible has been noted so far) and removable for 1 chi. wouldnt mastery become a priority over simple stats like dodge/parry due to the almost 0 amount of equipment with agi/stam/dodge/parry all in the same package being very tiny. and leaving things like trinkets for stam w/ side dodge/parry buffs to use with a mastery stacked tank?

It is very arguable about hit/expertise caps for tanks. It's been known as gear gets higher those 2 stats are only needed when you notice an issue with abilities missing. If anything the biggest worry is expertise for brewmaster tanks who want to try in dual wielding.. Shown back during frost dk tank days when if expertise isnt capped a term called "parry-haste" occurs giving the boss essentially extra swings at you due to reseting their attack timing etc.

This being said.. Giving so many stat priorities to certain classes can be very hard to accomplish.. In all honesty the stats i would be looking for as a master of the brew would be this..

2handed brewmaster:
agi/stam
(basic of course)
hit>expertise
(make sure to hit or get as close as you can to the 2h hit cap for bosses but dont stress if youre 1-2% off, also keep some expertise if available but dont go gemming or striving your hardest for it, maybe reforge haste into it if you see a real issue)
mastery/crit
(mastery - more stagger, always keep the shuffle buff active as much as possible and cleanse it away from yourself
crit - why crit? obviously crit + white attacks = more dodge buff)

dw brewmaster:
the only real difference is expertise = less parry/haste hits from bosses, less attacks to mitigate, so in this case expertise would take a higher priority then hit AND crit..
more crit% for fewer attacks so you have a higher chance
not as much crit needed for dw because of the extra swing chances for crits

ahem.. sorry if this is messy.. this is by no means a guide.. its just what ive noticed from personal experience..

Dargoth drew my attention to this point. Bosses do not parry haste since 4.0. Additionally due to the fighting style passive DW actually attacks slower than 2h so has a slightly worse proc rate (~2%) on EB.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tengenstein

Dargoth drew my attention to this point. Bosses do not parry haste since 4.0. Additionally due to the fighting style passive DW actually attacks slower than 2h so has a slightly worse proc rate (~2%) on EB.

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This is news to me ty :)

Hit and Expertise are very good for Brewmasters because of Keg Smash, Gift of the Ox, and Elusive Brew.

Keg Smash is our major source of Chi, our hardest hitting abiltiy, our best AOE, it applies Weakened Blows...but only if it hits. We REALLY care if we start missing Keg Smash.

Gift of the Ox procs off melee damage. This is one of the main reasons you see folks recommending you should hard cap your expertise (that and missing Keg Smash). If you aren't so keen on having to pick up little green orbs, you don't necessarily need to go to 15% expertise. Personally that strikes me as putting too many eggs in one rather dodgy basket.

Elusive Brew procs off autoattack criticals. Another reason to care about actually hitting the target.

Other tanks care about hitting the target, but not as much as Brewmasters. Warriors, for instance, get a lot of mileage out of Revenge, which procs off of Dodge/Parry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tengenstein

Dargoth drew my attention to this point. Bosses do not parry haste since 4.0. Additionally due to the fighting style passive DW actually attacks slower than 2h so has a slightly worse proc rate (~2%) on EB.

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Bah. I've been DW'ing for smoother EB stacks and for the fact I can't stand the look of staves/polearms on my monks back. But I suppose 2% isn't so bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dargoth

Bah. I've been DW'ing for smoother EB stacks and for the fact I can't stand the look of staves/polearms on my monks back. But I suppose 2% isn't so bad.

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ive been using spear of xuen but my plans are to go dw'ing at some point

Brewmaster...the new dw blood argument?

Not really, unlike DKs If you can get yourself a pair of higher Ilvl or better itemized 1-handers thats's optimal. Its just all things being equal 2H>DW,

While I agree that all things being equal 2H>DW, the difference between the two is negligible. I definitely appreciate what Blizzard did with the monk, at least so far, in that it is the only tank where DW is truly viable, leaving the choice between DW and 2H tanking up to the player. I DW tank on my brewmaster, and have had no issue generating 15 stacks of elusive brew by the time I ever actually need to use it. Or, at least 6 stacks to get a decent duration on the off chance that I need to buy some time before my next Power Guard.

I guess I'll just never understand the overwhelming desire some players have to dw tank. I suppose I should be grateful that those tryting to do so on a dk might have a viable platform to satisfy them in a monk. Maybe there will be fewer bad blood dks out there.

I have always had a desire to dual wield shields.