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# Like Water - The Brewmaster Discussion Thread

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### #501 Pisshands

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Posted 26 September 2013 - 08:40 PM

That's really the fundamental flaw of Curse of Hubris. If you're using it because you're Mastery-geared and the Crit won't be wasted, you're better served using a Mastery trinket or a Rune of Re-Origination, because the Stamina just isn't very valuable against physical damage, and the trinket's overall value against spell damage is hamstrung by the Crit use, which only has damage reduction value against physical damage.

When dealing with procs from a dps standpoint, treating procs as simply an overall increase worth the proc value times the proc uptime is more or less effective for considering the overall value of a trinket/enchant/etc. Additionally, exceeding autoattack crit cap during a trinket use or proc isn't a major liability for DPS. When considering tankiness, however, estimating procs as average values isn't effective, and we must gear to account for statistical extremes.

For a Warrior, who scales better than us from Stamina, the Crit use is not as bad. This is primarily because while their self-healing pales in comparison to ours, they are efficiently able to turn Crit into spell damage reduction. Druids gain far more for a point of Stamina than we do, and the Crit is not wasted as badly. As such, I see Curse of Hubris not being a Curse of Garbage for the two rage tanks. For the other three, though, what a confused piece of junk.

Edited by Pisshands, 29 October 2013 - 06:15 AM.

### #502 Pisshands

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Posted 03 October 2013 - 12:03 AM

Brewmasters were hit with another damage reduction hotfix this week, for a total 15% damage reduction for being BrM-specced. This is a ~5.3% reduction from last week.

### #503 Balhale

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Posted 03 October 2013 - 12:31 AM

Am I missing something? I could have sworn last week my char sheet said 90% dmg. This week it says 94%.

### #504 Pisshands

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Posted 03 October 2013 - 12:34 AM

It's 85%, you are in Fierce Tiger.

### #505 Guest_Runeheal_*

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Posted 17 October 2013 - 11:30 AM

Hi there, I was just checking the thread out, first time posting on EJ, though I have lurked it on and off since wrath, and I was slightly confused why you say Pandaren is subpar to Orc.

Is this because you personally use Staves / Polearms? As a personal preference, I much prefer dual wielding, and this tier, Softfoot's Last Resort is probably the best option, unless the hit is wasted on you, in which case Korven's Crimson Crescent[/URL] is better.

KCC is an axe, and SLR is a fist weapon. Both of these benefit an orc's axe specialization, giving 1% (340) expertise

(note: I macro Blood Fury and springs because 1. I'm lazy and 2. vengeance provides a bigger ap gain and I'd rather focus on managing other things than perfecting my +4000 ap buffs to the optimum)

Blood Fury provides 4514 melee attack power and 2257 spell power for 15 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown
4514/8 = 564.25
2257/8= 282.125

Now, I'm not sure if the spellpower benefits our selfhealing or anything, and I'd hazard a guess to say it probably doesn't.

When used with guards, chi waves/burst, or keg smash, the value of the orc racial is increased.

In short
564.25 Attack power
340 Expertise

VS
600 attack power (lost on death)
0.238% Crit (142.9 crit rating from 300 agi)

Lastly, just to add, the orc 15% stun reduction racial is better than the bouncy racial. There are quite a few stuns this tier, and barely any damage taken from fall damage. The only boss fight that I think that actually has fall damage is the 7% of your hp you take doing Spoils of Pandaria, and the damage you take from getting hit by Death From Above on Siegecrafter Blackfuse. Don't ask me how I found out

Personally, I think that Blood Fury's attack power is just as powerful as the AP gain from Epicurean, since deaths cause you to lose your benefit, and the orc racial, while being slightly less overall AP, gives more burst which is more helpful.

The crit gained from being an orc (reforging my gear's excess expertise to crit) outweighs pandaren's buff

One more thing to consider is for fights that are 2 minutes and 15 seconds / 4 minutes 15 seconds / 6 minutes 15 seconds (Ie you get multiple full uses of blood fury) the orc racial also comes out on top.
Short example, 2 minute 15 second boss fight, blood fury used twice for 9028 attack power.

9028/135*15 = 1003.11 AP
Pandaren AP = 600

Lastly, and I know this has been a lengthy post (Sorry!) but I have a question about a scenario that's been bugging me for a while.

Now, just to detach this from my previous point, I will use the example of a Human Brewmaster Monk

Human Brewmaster Monk has a Heroic Seismic Bore (Iron Juggernaut Crit/Haste Mace) and benefits from Mace Specialization. He has had bad luck however, and has a normal mode Seismic Bore as his offhand.

Human Brewmaster Monk kills Heroic Protectors, and gets a Heroic Softfoot's Last Resort (Hit/Crit Fist Weapon). What a lucky bastard.

Human Brewmaster Monk had balanced his reforging around his Mace Specialization, and his stats look like this with his *new* FIST WEAPON Offhand.

Expertise
Main / Off
15.00%/14.00%

Now, given that the reason that we hardcap expertise is to not have keg smash parried (since it doesnt generate chi abloobloo etc) and keg smash is based off main hand damage, would Mr Human Brewmaster Monk need to bother with hardcapping expertise for his offhand, or not bother and put stats into crit/mastery?

TL;DR 1
Orc with dual wield axes/fists vs Panda
340exp 560ap from BF vs 300 agi (600 ap 143 crit)

TL;DR 2
Do monks need to cap offhand if they arent using a +1% exp racial bonus weapon in it.
Main/Off
15%/14%

Sorry for rambling, and sorry for not knowing how to link to items!

### #506 Pisshands

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Posted 25 October 2013 - 09:27 PM

Sorry for the slow response. I was working on a longer answer when the server software update occurred, and I lost it as a result. To provide a shorter answer for the time being, offhand expertise capping definitely is not necessary in a racial weapon proficiency situation. As for the viability of Orcs, that's a bigger question, and it's largely tied to two things: dual wield vs. 2h and the value of Blood Fury.

My concern with your analysis of Blood Fury is that you use the ideal scenario (use on the pull and on cooldown in encounters that end shortly after the Xth use concludes) and ignore scenarios such as Lei Shen, Garrosh, etc., in which the cooldown can come back up when you are not in a position to gain a meaningful defensive benefit from the AP (intermissions). You still reap an offensive benefit for casting Blood Fury during an intermission, but the defensive value is totally lost. Conversely, if you hold Blood Fury until you are tanking the boss again, you make a considerable sacrifice of offensive power. Consequently, I consider the Pandaren food bonus more powerful than Blood Fury.

The more important comparison is in dual wield vs. 2h, and that's a mathematical breakdown I will come back to later, but suffice it to say that the difference in damage reduction can be considerable (e.g., three dodges can be upwards of 2.5M damage during Thok p1).

Individually, the Pandaren food bonus is better than either Axe/Fist Expertise or Blood Fury. With them combined, I'm mostly convinced that they make Orcs competitive. They are more offensively-oriented than Pandaren, and certainly inferior without dual-wielding, but they are less consistent than Pandaren, fight-to-fight, as the strength of Blood Fury is subject to time.

Edited by Pisshands, 26 October 2013 - 01:27 AM.

### #507 Runeheal

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Posted 26 October 2013 - 04:34 AM

Hi Pisshands, thanks for the reply on the dual wield question. Wasn't quite sure if my intuition was right on that one.

In terms of orc vs panda, I think that you raise some very good points which I had not considered.

Overall I prefer orc, solely because it gives more secondary stats, but thanks for the explanation.

I'd also like to ask where you think eating +200 crit food would beat +600 ap and 142.9 crit from eating +300 agi food

If my math is right, crit should pull ahead (solely from a damage done perspective) where a tank could sustain 600k attack power (Base + vengeance)

Given that crit is a defensive stat, I'm assuming that the formula for working out this would be something like

(Healing +600 AP)+(Damage+600 AP)/Healing + Damage

(Healing + 60 crit) + (damage+60 crit) + Elusive Brew Generation*avg boss swing / Healing + Damage

Obviously this needs to be simmed, but I'm kinda guessing that around 300k ap it would be better to gain 60 crit over 600 ap.

Probably less for harder hitting bosses, ie thok.

Edited by Runeheal, 26 October 2013 - 07:34 AM.

### #508 Pisshands

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Posted 26 October 2013 - 08:37 AM

Well, a mistake I forgot to mention in both this and the prior post is that 300 Agi food isn't 300 Agi. It's 315 Agi (630 for Pandaren) due to +5% stats. This makes the difference 630 AP and .250% crit vs. 0 AP and .333% crit. It's a pretty negligible difference at moderate AP values, but I am still interested in determining the AP value at which crit food outperforms Agi food, if at all. Again, more things on the to-do list.

Crit from Agi in Rating: .25 * 600 = 150 crit rating

So, 630 AP vs. 50 Crit Rating.

Edited by Pisshands, 26 October 2013 - 06:48 PM.

### #509 Runeheal

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Posted 27 October 2013 - 07:08 AM

Oh, silly me. You are right about it being 315. not 300.

I think Thok is really the only fight where Crit food would outweigh agi food.

Maybe Garrosh too.

Klaxxi its very likely that it will be stronger, assuming that you are a scorpion.

Unsure on malkorok.

Anyway. Will be interesting to see.

### #510 Runeheal

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Posted 26 November 2013 - 08:47 AM

Windsong vs Dancing Steel

(Uptimes are based from my logs, they will both obviously differ from pull to pull, but they are fairly similar).

Windsong averages out to ~40% uptime, and can proc 1/3 stats.

Assuming that this is fairly consistent, each proc can be said to be 500 haste, mastery, and crit.

with 40% uptime, this averages out to +200 mastery, haste, and crit.

Dancing Steel has 42% uptime, and gives 1650 agility, 1732.5 with stats buff, averaging out to 727.44 agility.

Dancing Steel                      Windsong

0.58% crit (+0.25%)               0.33% crit

1360 AP                     vs.       0.47% haste

0.21% more stagger

Now, if you're over crit cap like I am, there is little benefit, survivability wise, to crit. So we're really comparing the haste, and 0.14 energy per second (8 per minute, or equating to one chi every 5 minutes), and 0.21% more stagger, compared to 1360 attack power.

If I have 200k attack power (150k vengeance + base), adding 1360 increases my attack power by 0.68%. 200k is very easy to reach in normal SoO, and heroic should be a minimum, real, on fights where it matters. The survivability gained from attack power attack power is a very small increase, only marginally increasing the healing of expel harm, chi wave, ox statue, and a miniscule amount of self shielding from our 4pc, whereas the haste and mastery is... less small. 0.2% damage

This really comes down to

1 chi per 5 minutes + 0.2% more stagger              vs           +0.68% attack power, roughly equating to ~200 hps and a very small amount of damage

Now, I'd argue that the 0.2 more stagger also benefits our self healing, from 4pc, so there's that too..

Windsong's mastery value is increased the harder a boss hits, and Dancing Steel's attack power's value is decreased the harder a boss hits (giving more vengeance, and making the increased % of attack power less and less)

Example - boss hits for 100k. With windsong, I take 200 less damage.

Boss hits for 300k, with windsong, I take 400 less damage.

I have 100k attack power. Dancing steel increases my self healing by about 2%.

I have 300k attack power. Dancing Steel increases my self healing by about 0.45%

Lastly, I'm not sure how to put a specific value on having an extra chi every 5 minutes, but it's certainly good.

To conclude yet another one of my ill thought out, rambling posts

Windsong - 0.2% damage is smoothed out. 1 chi every 5 minutes.

Dancing Steel. 1360 attack power.

I'm really sorry if I've messed something up, kinda tired at the moment.

What are your thoughts on this?

Edited by Runeheal, 26 November 2013 - 12:14 PM.

### #511 Pisshands

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Posted 27 November 2013 - 12:13 AM

To begin, let me bring up something a lot of Monks tend to forget by reiterating that the white crip cap is a cap, not a breakpoint, meaning that 63% Crit chance while dual wielding is not the goal, but the upper bound for its use as a damage reduction stat.

I prefer to compare enchant values using procrates rather than empirical data.

Dancing Steel and Windsong both use RPPM.

Dancing Steel

Dancing Steel is 1650 Agi for 12 seconds and has a procrate of 2.3 PPM for an uptime of 2.3 proc/min * 12 sec/proc = 27.6 sec/min = 46% uptime

.46 * 1650 Agi * 1.05 MotW = 797 Agi

Windsong

Windsong is 1500 Crit/Mastery/Haste for 12 seconds and has a procrate of 2 PPM for an uptime of 2 proc/min * 12 sec/proc = 24 sec/min = 40% uptime

(.4 * 1500 Crit) / 3 + (.4 * 1500 Haste) / 3 + (.4 * 1500 Mastery) / 3 = 200 Crit, 200 Haste and 200 Mastery

Going from stat value alone, 797 Agi is vastly higher budget than 200 Crit, Haste and Mastery. Using gem values, 797 is 797 Agi / 160 Agi/Delicate Primordial Ruby = 4.98 Delicate Primordial Rubies stat budget, and by comparison, Windsong is only worth 600 Crit / 320 Crit/Smooth Sun's Radiance = 1.88 Smooth Sun's Radiance stat budget.

The size of the attack power gain relative to the value you have from Vengeance isn't important. Whether you have 75k AP or 750k AP from Vengeance, another 1750 AP from Prancing Steel adds 4025 to Guard, 788 to each bounce of Chi Wave and 125 DPS to your weapon DPS rolls for each damaging ability.

Herein lies the fundamental oversight in your argument toward Windsong: If you are being pressed to your limits with regard to damage reduction, you can regear elsewhere so that when Dancing Steel procs you are not pushed over the cap.

During 5.4 PTR I and a lot of Monks recognized that 2h was going to be slightly superior to D/W for damage reduction due to the difference in white crit caps, and this is a similar issue. Like the D/W-2h choice, if you have no issue with being spiked down, then going over the crit cap is similarly not an issue and Dancing Steel will provide more stats and more damage output value than Windsong. If being spiked down is an issue, then picking up more Mastery and dipping your unbuffed Crit chance down into the mid-50's is a worthwhile choice. In that situation, you should still stick with Dancing Steel as it will provide more total damage reduction value to compliment the effective health gains made through regearing toward Mastery.

Edited by Pisshands, 27 November 2013 - 12:25 AM.

### #512 Hinalover

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Posted 27 November 2013 - 02:20 AM

To begin, let me bring up something a lot of Monks tend to forget by reiterating that the white crip cap is a cap, not a breakpoint, meaning that 63% Crit chance while dual wielding is not the goal, but the upper bound for its use as a damage reduction stat.

Just a small correction to that statement but it's 60% Crit fully buffed, not 63%. Crit cap is 57% (100% - 24% (glancing) - 19% (Dual Welding penalty)). The Crit reduction against a boss mob is 1% per level above the character's level or 3%. So you add 3% to the 57% to make it 60%.

Two handers have a 79% Crit cap fully buffed (100% - 24% (glancing) + 3% (Crit reduction)); 76% against the boss. The article says 78% and 75% respectfully which is incorrect.

Edited by Hinalover, 27 November 2013 - 02:41 AM.

### #513 Runeheal

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Posted 27 November 2013 - 03:53 AM

Your math is more sound than mine, kudos, but I am not entirely convinced by your argument.

While 797 agility is definitely higher budget than 200 haste, crit and mastery, it is not necessarily that good.

797 agility gives 0.63% crit

Windsong gives 0.33% crit, 0.47% haste, and 0.21% stagger.

I do not understand how the attack power gain from dancing steel is not relative to your total attack power.

If you had 0 attack power, the 1594 ap gain from dancing steel is much more useful than if you had 1,000,000,000 attack power.

For example, increasing your attack power by 1%, and increasing your crit by 0.5% is a clear choice, the attack power gives a greater increase. However, with vengeance being so variable, in a raid, the attack power gain may be vastly inferior compared to the crit.

What I'm really arguing is that

+0.2% stagger + 1 chi every 5 minutes > 0.3% crit and 1594 attack power

is more mitigation. Dancing Steel is obviously better for damage output.

### #514 Mindrila

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Posted 27 November 2013 - 10:06 PM

I'd say you are both neglecting the 0.5579% dodge you gain from having 797 agility more, which would result in 558 damage less per swing on a 100k hitting boss. Of course with dodge you are always on the line for bad luck and getting stomped without dodging anything...

1 agility results in 0.0007% dodge if my ultra fast test wasn't wrong: Cancelling the Stat-Buff resulted in a loss of 1076 Agi and 0,75% dodge. Drinking a 500 stat flask I gained 0,35% dodge. Cancelling my Agi only flask also resulted in a loss of dodge, which was unintentional and I didn't note the values before / afterwards.

Edited by Mindrila, 27 November 2013 - 10:15 PM.

### #515 Hinalover

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Posted 28 November 2013 - 12:40 AM

I'd say you are both neglecting the 0.5579% dodge you gain from having 797 agility more, which would result in 558 damage less per swing on a 100k hitting boss. Of course with dodge you are always on the line for bad luck and getting stomped without dodging anything...

1 agility results in 0.0007% dodge if my ultra fast test wasn't wrong: Cancelling the Stat-Buff resulted in a loss of 1076 Agi and 0,75% dodge. Drinking a 500 stat flask I gained 0,35% dodge. Cancelling my Agi only flask also resulted in a loss of dodge, which was unintentional and I didn't note the values before / afterwards.

It's actually a function that forces diminishing returns

$\large {\rm totalDodge} = {\rm baseDodge} + \frac{\rm baseAgi}{A} + \left (\frac{1}{C_d}+\frac{k}{({\rm Agi}-{\rm baseAgi})/A+{\rm preDodge}}\right )^{-1}$

baseAgi = 111 (varies by race)

baseDodge = 3.00

k = 1.422

A = 951.158596

C_d = 501.25348

Edit:

Stupid Latex not working for me. Anyway to the two places where this is figured out is both on Sacred Duty by Theck

Original (during Beta) - http://www.sacreddut...ewmaster-monks/

Edited by Hinalover, 28 November 2013 - 12:47 AM.

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### #516 Pisshands

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Posted 28 November 2013 - 03:28 AM

Just a small correction to that statement but it's 60% Crit fully buffed, not 63%. Crit cap is 57% (100% - 24% (glancing) - 19% (Dual Welding penalty)). The Crit reduction against a boss mob is 1% per level above the character's level or 3%. So you add 3% to the 57% to make it 60%.

Two handers have a 79% Crit cap fully buffed (100% - 24% (glancing) + 3% (Crit reduction)); 76% against the boss. The article says 78% and 75% respectfully which is incorrect.

That's all accurate. Not sure why my numbers were off, but fair point and fixed.

Edited by Pisshands, 28 November 2013 - 03:37 AM.

### #517 Mindrila

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Posted 28 November 2013 - 10:06 PM

Thank you Hinalover, that's a great resource.

Should have seen diminishing returns coming when talking about dodge. Actually the buff didn't give exactly 0.0007% dodge per agi, but a bit less, while the 500 agi flask provided exactly 0.0007% dodge per agi. But first thing which came to my mind was just some rounding issues as you only get two decimals in the character screen.

That's what you get for quick and dirty tests.

### #518 Pisshands

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 04:39 AM

With 1259.5 Agi granting 1% Crit, a Dancing Steel proc gives (1650 * 1.05) Agi / 1259.5 Agi/Crit = 1.38% Crit.

While it varies with gear thanks to diminishing returns, the dodge a Dancing Steel proc grants should reasonably always exceed 1% (1.21% using Mindrila's numbers without diminishing returns). In effect, there should be three gearing strategies with regards to the dual-wield critical strike cap (60% on-sheet, as established), all of which would use Dancing Steel in each hand.

• No problems with incoming damage - Pure Crit without regard to the cap
• Problems surviving spike damage - Reduce Crit to 2.74% Crit chance below the cap (to accommodate for Dancing Steel x2, further for trinkets) then gear for Mastery
• Problems with overall damage reduction/self-healing - Reduce Crit as above, but gear into Haste

### #519 Runeheal

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Posted 03 December 2013 - 02:07 PM

Simmed it, I'm wrong, Dancing Steel is definitely better, the difference is very small.

Nonetheless, this is consistent at variable levels of vengeance.

Back to Dancing Steel it is.

### #520 Chipani

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Posted 03 December 2013 - 05:25 PM

Hi there, I hope its the right place for a more simple question...I'm going to play a trispecc for my raid again and for reasons of simplicity I want to use my tank gear as dd gear. Would it be a great deal in terms of dmg/avoidance if I would gem for Agility in red sockets and Agi/crit in orange? It would be much easier and cheaper

btw I'm not in a hardcore progression guild (6/13 HC)

I hope my english is not too bad

thx

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